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confused. It was all for show, of course, but it was no less funny. “And?”
    Shannon coughed to cover her laughter. Right now, she would be in huge trouble if she made the mistake of finding humor in the two women’s half-joking, half-serious verbal exchange. They fought about this constantly, and Shannon wished they would just get over it. It was funny as hell but seriously annoying.
    “I don’t want to hear about you and Gray or Cade and Gray. I certainly don’t want to hear about all three of you.” Katie-Anne crossed her legs and arms simultaneously. “Hell, I don’t want to hear about you and Cade either. He is my honorary brother. Both of them are virgins.”
    Giving into her amusement, Shannon nearly fell out of the chair howling with laughter.
    Jaycee scoffed, but her lips twitched. “Those two have never been virgins. Trust me. I’ve heard every rumor about their raunchy escapades.” She wiggled her eyebrows and gloated, “It used to all be hearsay, but I can now confirm every salacious detail. I’m one lucky bitch.” At the end of her bragging, she winked audaciously.
    “You are about to be—”
    Having grown tired of the whining, Shannon cut off Katie-Anne before this conversation spiraled into a complete bitch-fest. “Stop the bitching. She’s never going to quit talking about your brother, Cade, and fucking. She is a pervert, and she loves to piss you off.”
    Katie-Anne rolled her eyes, jumping from the trivial topic into the one that Shannon had hoped to avoid. “I’m going to say this as nicely as possible, my dear.”
    Shannon cringed internally, waiting for the brutal attack. Katie-Anne rarely pulled her punches, and she wasn’t going to do it now. Katie-Anne proved her right. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
    Fight or flight? The question pounded in her temples as adrenaline careened through every, single one of her body’s systems. She sensed the not-so-subtle differences. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, and her breathing increased drastically.
    A burst of energy had her off the lounger, pacing the elegant room like a caged animal. The irrepressible restlessness controlled her, and she couldn’t subdue it.
    “Shannon Roberts, you tell us what the hell is going on with you,” Katie-Anne demanded in the firmest voice Shannon had ever heard her friend use. Refolding her tanned arms hostilely across her chest, Katie-Anne pinned Shannon against the wall with the daggers shooting out of her eyes. “No more hiding and no more fucking lies.”
    Guessing her best course of action became Shannon’s priority. She needed to get inspired in the next minute or so. Otherwise, there would be hell to pay, at her expense. When the coolheaded Katie-Anne morphed into the hotheaded diva, trouble was up ahead. Danger, Will Robinson!
    Katie-Anne didn’t even give her thirty seconds. “Spill, Shan. We are waiting .”
    Watching in avid fascination, Jaycee twirled a gorgeous blonde lock of hair around her skinny finger. “Come on, Shan. It’s us. We share everything.”
    Shannon turned her back to them and paced away. “I can’t.” She couldn’t hide the crack in her voice. If she hadn’t been so lost in the turbulent sea of her emotions, she would be mortified at revealing her pain, even to Jaycee and Katie-Anne. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
    “Yes. You can.”
    Shannon whirled back around to meet her friends head-on. “No, really,” she denied emphatically, hoping she could impress upon her two friends that it wasn’t them. It was her. “I can’t or I won’t or whatever you want to call it.”
    Katie-Anne and Jaycee looked at each other intently. They seemed to be sharing a brief moment of silent communication that made no sense whatsoever.
    Puzzled, Shannon whipped her head back and forth between her two friends who were studiously ignoring her. “Why do I feel like I’m missing something important?”
    “Because you are,” Katie-Anne replied haughtily as she and