Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 31414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 157(@200wpm)___ 126(@250wpm)___ 105(@300wpm)
Her two friends looked at her blankly, and Jilly squirmed against the butter-soft leather of the oversized couch.
"I mean...you know." Jilly started fanning her cheeks. Should someone check if the A/C was working?
"He kissed you?" Star guessed, leaning forward eagerly.
"More?"
"He touched you?" Poppy ventured, her voice dropping to a whisper.
Jilly's face was flaming by now, heat spreading from her cheeks all the way down her chest. "Let's just say the only thing I haven't given him was my...you know."
"Oh."
Star and Poppy were doing their best not to snicker this time, and Jilly glared at her so-called friends. "There's nothing funny about this! Research shows that seventy-three percent of physical relationships escalate within the first three encounters, and by the fourth date there's an eighty-five percent chance we'll do things that will make me forget my own name, and by the eighth date, depending on timing, there's a ninety-six percent probability that he would have broken my heart..." She broke off at the way Poppy was shaking her head. "What?"
"You know you're overthinking this, don't you?"
Yes, Jilly did know, but overthinking was what had kept her safe for forty years.
Jilly crossed her arms over her chest.
It was time, she decided seriously, to bring out the big guns.
"There's one last and most important reason why I had to cut all ties with him."
Star's forehead creased. "What is it?"
Jilly took a deep breath. "First Corinthians 6:18."
And just as expected, Star and Poppy slowly nodded in understanding.
Thank goodness they finally understood...
"You're in love with him, aren't you?"
"Exact..." Wait. What? No! Jilly looked at her friends in bemusement. "Why would you even say that?"
Star patted her hand gently. "You're in denial. I understand."
Jilly yanked her hand away. "There's nothing to see! I'm fleeing temptation—"
"Do you really think you'd be this tempted if you weren't already in love with him?"
Poppy was nodding at every word while Jilly just wanted to shake some sense into both women.
"You guys are crazy," Jilly grumbled.
"While you," Star teased, "are crazy over him."
Jilly threw her hands up in surrender. "He's thirty-five!"
"So?"
"And Jack?" Jilly demanded.
"Guy is Guy, Jack is Jack—"
Jilly groaned at how Star made it sound overly simple. "You know how special Jack is—"
"And so is Guy," Poppy reminded her gently. "I'm willing to be that the night you two met, you actually forgot you're his fangirl or that he was Guy de la Rocq. That night, he was simply Guy, the man who makes your heart race because he's hot—"
"Poppy!" Jilly couldn't remember having her cheeks burn this much. There was seriously something wrong with the A/C. That had to be it, just that.
Poppy demurely clasped her hands over her lap as she gave Jilly an innocent smile. "But I'm right, aren't I?"
No no no no no no no!
But even as they settled into Bible study, and even after they went their separate ways with hugs and promises to pray for each other, both of her friends were still convinced Jilly should unblock his number, eat humble pie, and ask for another date.
Absolutely not!
Yet when she finally settled into bed, surrounded by the comfortable sounds of her rescue babies, something kept bothering her, making her toss and turn while Mack claimed his usual spot on her pillow and Mounty stretched across the foot of her bed.
Oh, Heavenly Father.
You see why I had to do that.
Right?
You're on my side.
Right?
The answer to this came to her the next day, with Genesis knocking on her office door at Luntian, and an expression on his face that she found surprisingly difficult to read. It seemed he was part excited, part scared, part...oh, wait. Maybe he just had a bad stomach? There was a 25% chance for that to happen since her boss loved having coffee on an empty stomach.
"I have a special assignment for you," her fifty-something boss announced after settling into the seat across her desk. "
So not diarrhea after all, Jilly thought absently.
"What do you think about handling our first ever private audit for a seven-digit client?"
Jilly's heart raced. That...that was like telling a shopaholic she had just won a credit card with unlimited swipes, zero interest, and a buy-now-pay-three-years-later program!
"You'll need to sign an NDA though," Mr. Camp cautioned. "You know how billionaires are about privacy."
"Not going to be a problem," Jilly quickly assured her boss.
"You'll be working at their preferred hours and location."
"I have zero social life except with my babies. Not gonna be a problem."
"Then, I guess there's nothing to say, but...congratulations," her boss said with a grin. "Go on and head to HR and sign your new contract."
Jilly found herself actually fighting the urge to skip and dance her way to HR. Oh, how wonderful, so, so wonderful this new challenge was! This is exactly what she needed to forget—
Guy. De. La. Rocq.
Leah from H.R. looked at her in concern. "Is anything the matter?"