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them. “I think you’re all rubbing it in that Anne’s not letting me look.”
    “Turn,” said the woman with the pins. “Now, hold still.”
    Julie chuckled. “Maybe a little. But I’m here for a reason, too. We need you to taste some samples.”
    “Hey, I’m here for a reason, too,” Phoebe protested.
    But K.D. nearly drowned her out with a moan. “More samples? Everything was so delicious last night, I’m still stuffed. And we said to serve whatever you thought best. You said you were good with that.”
    “I am. And we’ve got that all covered. But this is to sample cakes.”
    “Cakes?” K.D. looked toward Julie.
    “Hold still,” ordered Anne. “Face the desk, not us.”
    “Wedding cakes,” Julie clarified.
    “But—”
    “No buts. It’s a wedding. There has to be a wedding cake. Eric’s waiting for you to sample so you can make a decision together.”
    K.D. heard a thread in Julie’s tone that made her glad she’d been ordered not to look at the other women.
    “Anything’s okay with me, as long as it’s not banana.”
    “Why not banana?” Julie asked immediately.
    “My mother got horribly sick on a banana when she was pregnant with me and I’ve hated them all my life. The smell, the taste, everything about them.”
    “How strange,” Anne said. “Turn again.”
    “Good. Now I can measure.” Phoebe stepped forward with a measuring tape and something that resembled a wedding bouquet made out of metal hangers.
    “Measure?”
    “Have to see you in the dress to see the ideal proportions for the bouquet. I can adjust the form for a visual, but I like to measure, too.”
    K.D. frowned. “Really, there’s no need for all this. We only need a few photos.”
    “We’re going to do this right,” Julie said.
    “If that place is doing what we think they’re doing, it’s just so wrong,” added Phoebe. “You and Eric are doing the real work. All we can do is give you a realistic wedding so the photos and video help your cover story, so we want to do the best we can.”
    The others added their agreement. K.D. didn’t know what to say. The guys she worked with would lay down their lives for each other and for her. But support in something less drastic wasn’t really their way. Not unless they could hammer, shovel, or rev it.
    Anne saved her from needing to respond.
    “Got it,” she announced. “Let’s get you out of this — carefully — and go eat cake.”

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    “T his is beyond sinful,” K.D. said after the first bite of the last cake option. “I’d turn in my badge for a full-time career in cake-sampling. Your cakes, anyway,” she said to Julie and Andrew, then closed her eyes again so she could concentrate on the next bite.
    “Forget the cakes. You just like the icing,” Eric said.
    Her eyes popped open. How had he known?
    He was smiling at her. A slow, easy smile. She felt its lure pulling her mouth into an answering smile.
    “I do have a sweet tooth,” she admitted.
    “Tooth? Try a sweet mouth.” Eric winked at her.
    “What a line,” Tyce said. “Wish I’d come up with it.”
    “But you still haven’t said which cake,” Julie protested.
    “Any of them, truly. As long as there’s some of this butter cream frosting. It’s amazing.”
    “Chocolate for me,” Eric said.
    “Okay, then one white cake and one chocolate —”
    “Two cakes? They’ll go to waste.”
    “Cake never goes to waste,” Tyce said. Ella nodded.
    “But they’re going to be so few people —”
    “They still won’t go to waste,” Tyce said with a grin.
    “Okay. I get that. But what about the few people attending? Every shot Ella takes will show the same few supposed guests. And they’ll all be you guys. We can’t invite more because of the secrecy, but won’t it look strange?”
    “I’ve had an idea about that,” Ella said. “If everybody has a different outfit for the top and the bottom, I’ll shoot mostly waist-up or waist down, and that’ll double