dolphin.â
âOh, great. Someone with a big nose.â
âAnd with a habit of rescuing rather than destroying. Itâs true.â Rosanna sat up. âYou need a good guy, Soph, someone safe and cuddly, not some dangerous type you couldnât handle.â
âYou donât think I could handle him?â
âI know you couldnât.â
âSo youâve no advice for me?â
Rosanna looked up sharply. âIâm the last person you should take advice from.â
How did she figure that? She was the one who had them all eating out of her palm.
âYou were wearing that when you saw him?â Rosannaâs expression clouded.
âWhat? Whatâs wrong with it?â Had she committed some terrible fashion faux pas? She couldnât think what.
âNothing. But if he has a Grace Kelly fantasy, then youâre in trouble.â
Sophy snorted. âNow whoâs the sweetie-pie?â
âHeâd gobble a kitten like you.â Rosanna frowned. âDonât say I didnât warn you. Anyway, Iâm grumpy, we donât have time for a pedicure now. Iâve had to sit here all day doing nothing.â
Kitten? She thought she was a kitten ? âPoor you.â Now Sophy had zero sympathy. âItâs about time you stopped and did nothing for half a day.â
Rosanna cupped her hand round her mouth, making a pretend mega phone. âPot calling kettle, come in, kettle.â She stood. âAt least Iâm busy pushing my career. Youâre just busy doing everything for everyone else.â
âYouâre going to miss your next flight. Go have a good trip.â Rosanna was a buyer for one of the major fashion chains. Knowledgeable, chic, damn good at her job and away more nights than she was at home.
Rosanna picked up the handle of her chic trolley case. âI love Wellington.â
âThe boys are going to miss you.â
âItâll be good for them.â Rosanna bent and flicked an in visible speck of fluff from her black trousers.
Sophy watched the studied in difference with a smile. âAre you ever going to make a decision?â
Rosanna appeared to think on it for a moment, then smiled shamelessly. âI donât think so, no.â
Rosanna had been dating two men for the last month. They knew about each other. Hell, they all went clubbing together, the boysâ rivalry half jest, half serious. Rosanna, the black widow, liked to have as many in her web as possible to play with. And once they were caught, they were never freed. She had carcasses all over the globe. Emmet and Jay were her latest victims yet somehow she pulled it off with such charm they didnât seem to mindâin fact they salivated over her.
Sophy knew there was a heart of gold underneath the glam. It was just that Rosanna wouldnât admit to it, certainly wouldnât let anyone near it. She spent her life fencing, flirting on a superficialâif somewhat bitchyâplane. Sophy knew why; Rosannaâs heart had been broken and she wasnât letting any man near it again. She was only about having light, harmless, fun and keeping any seriousness at a distance.
Sophyâs heart had also been broken. Frankly she wanted some of the fun now tooâand she knew who with. Shewalked with Rosanna to the door, waited for the taxi to arrive and tried to absorb some of her friendâs zest for life.
Rosanna did all the things Sophy was too âresponsibleâ to do: she had crazy flings, she went to far flung destinations, she was impulsive and a risk-taker. She did dangerâsheâd do dangerous like Lorenzo Hall kind of dangerous.
But Sophy had always had more than herself to consider. She loved her parents and had never wanted to embarrass them. As she was the judgeâs daughter it would have made the perfect salacious storylineâif sheâd gone off the rails, been a teen drinker, teen pregnant, or got
Shauna Rice-Schober[thriller]