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She leaned forward, and this time his eyes were drawn to her breasts. They were full, generous, spilling out of her top. She certainly knew how to distract a man. "I think you do know," she said. "Emily was one of my best friends."

"Some friend you were. You didn't even stay—"

"For the funeral—I know. We've been over that. But it doesn't change the fact that Emily confided in me. Especially when it came to sex."

He knew she used the word deliberately, but he wasn't sure why.

"Emily couldn't talk to Natalie; she was way too judgmental and too closely connected to Cole, your best friend. And Laura was busy trying to get Drew on the hook. But me ..." She shrugged. "I was around. I saw things."

She'd always been around, as Dylan recalled. In fact, she'd put the moves on him a few times when Emily wasn't looking, but he'd never been interested in her. At twenty-one, he'd had eyes only for Emily, beautiful, sensitive, passionate, joyous Emily. His heart still ached at the loss of her in his life. But in many ways she was still with him. The club was a tribute to her imagination, her belief in magic, her belief in him, that he could create a world where people could be whoever they wanted to be.

"I want to make a deal with you," Madison said. "You work my party, and we keep your infatuation with Emily between us."

"I don't give in to blackmail. Tell Cole. What do I care?"

"Oh, I think you care. Or it wouldn't still be a secret. And it is a secret. It's not even in that book about Emily." She stood up and walked around to where he was sitting, sliding between him and the desk.

He cleared his throat, feeling decidedly uncomfortable. "You're going to try to seduce me now?"

Madison ran her tongue across her lip. "I'm saving that for later. She wasn't enough for you, Dylan. If you'd ever opened your eyes and really looked at Emily, you would have seen that you were not right for each other."

"Don't say a word about Emily."

"I wouldn't dream of it. Work my party, Dylan. It will be good exposure for your club. And a chance for the two of us to get better acquainted. I was never as bad as you thought I was."

He laughed at that. "I don't believe that for a second. Look at you now, a blackmailer as well as a—"

"Don't say something you'll regret," she warned, a flash of steel in her brown eyes.

"Why is my working your party so important to you?"

"I told you. I want you to get to know the real me, and I think we will both get something out of this professionally. It's a win-win proposition."

"You're a piece of work. I'll give you that."

"I'll take it." She crossed her arms, sending him a thoughtful look. "Is there a woman in your life now? Someone I should know about?"

He was both amazed and annoyed by her bluntness and implicit belief that she could control whatever was happening between them. "I don't have to tell you that."

"Which means there isn't. Or there wasn't. Because I'm here now."

"You don't take no for an answer, do you?"

She leaned forward, her mouth just an inch away from his, and said, "I haven't heard a no yet."

* * *

"Where the hell were you?" Drew demanded.

Laura paused in the doorway of their bedroom, her good mood fading at the sight of Drew's angry face and the open suitcase on the bed. "I took the girls to a concert in the park. They loved it."

"Well, while you were gone your old friend Natalie dropped by with Cole Parish."

"Really?" She was shocked to hear that. Natalie had been friendly the day before but certainly hadn't appeared overeager to take up their friendship where they'd left off. "I'm surprised."

"Not as surprised as I was to find out you spent time with them yesterday, discussing this book that's been written about Emily."

"You know about the book?"

"Your mother called me three days ago."

"My mother called you," Laura echoed, wondering when his sentences would stop hitting her like bricks on the head. "Why didn't she call me? Why didn't you tell me? I didn't find out about the book until Brenda brought