Page 76 of Rough Around the Hedges

“Mhmm.” She eyed us both suspiciously. “I’ll pretend I didn’t see anything, and the both of you get yourselves dressed. I’ll take Rose back to her car before any rumours start.” She paused,glancing at the both of us and what I was sure was our respective states of disarray. “If they haven’t already.”

17

ROSE

Rose, Meet Consequences

“You. Did. What?” Isa stared at me across my bed of lettuce. “You fucked him again?”

I cleared my throat. “Not to be pedantic, but technically, he fucked me.”

“He’s been fucking you since he arrived here. I suppose he owed you at least a bit of pleasure from it one time,” she grumbled. “Butyou! How could you sleep with him again? I thought you hated him? How did you go from running through the village in a lettuce bikini carrying a sign with his face on it to shagging him senseless?”

I scratched the underside of my jaw, peering away from her. “I… Well… That’s an excellent question, my friend. Maybe it was the lettuce bikini that tickled his pickle.”

“Rose, I ask this with all sincerity, but what the fuck is wrong with you?”

I tilted my head to the side. “That’s a loaded question.”

“No, no.” She hurriedly waved her hands. “Don’t answer that. I don’t have that much free time.”

Rude.

“But seriously, babe… I know you’re impulsive and erratic at the best of times, but what on Earth possessed you to sleep with your self-proclaimed mortal enemy?”

“Um.” I shifted uncomfortably, taking care not to disturb the sleeping void of cat currently in my empty harvest basket. “Would you believe me if I said it was an accident?”

Isa blinked at me. “No. No, I would not. You don’taccidentallyhave sex with someone. The act of inserting a penis into a vagina—or allowing it—is a conscious action, so there was nothing accidental about him buttering your bread.”

Her and her frigging food euphemisms.

“Thank you, Dr Isadora,” I retorted dryly. “Then it was all his fault for seducing me. I’m a weak woman in the face of a handsome man with a magic tongue who knows how to fuck me until my legs give out.”

She sighed, collapsing onto the side of the wooden bed in a very Disney-princess-like way. “If only he wasn’t the duke and the bastard ruining your life, I’d totally tell you to marry him. You still don’t want him, right?”

“A momentary lapse in my judgement does not equal me wanting to pursue anything other than revenge as far as that man is concerned.”

“Then I’m seriously considering breaking girl code and seducing him for myself.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Woah. What’s that look for?”

I blinked. “What look?”

“That death glare.” She sat up straight and smirked. “Is that for the breaking of girl code or the seducing your man part?”

“He is not my man. He neverwasmy man. He will neverbemy man!”

“That’s quite the denial there, Rose.” Susan opened my gate. “The chickens are coming.”

“They’re not the only ones.” Isa snorted.

That little…

Susan blinked. “Ooh. Isa, have you found a new man? Have you moved on from the hot vet already?”

“Ha!” I laughed so loudly that Hades awoke with a start.

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