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stored. “Aha. This is much better,” he said.
    “Night Nurses From Vegas?” Olivia asked. “ Flight of the Penis? No way. You’re not putting porn out where people can see it.”
    “Spine out,” Freddy insisted. “It’s subtle, but it says the seller is just a regular guy who doesn’t put on airs. What are you doing dating a guy who watches porn, anyway?”
    The discs had been party favors from a bachelor party, but she didn’t feel like explaining that to Freddy. She smiled mysteriously and said, “Who says Rand is the one watching porn?”
    “Give me a break.”
    “I am,” she said, “whether I like it or not. Next time you decide to get back on the payroll, clear it with me.”
    “You would have said yes.” He jammed the handle of the feather duster into his back pocket. “You always say yes. That’s another reason I’m here.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    His customary sunny smile disappeared. He fixed his sincere, brown-eyed gaze on Olivia and sank to one knee before her. Reaching into his apron pocket, he drew out a small black box. “Olivia. I have something to ask you.”
    “Oh, please. Is this a joke?” She laughed, but there was an intensity in his gaze that unsettled her.
    “I’m deadly serious.”
    “Then get up. I can’t take you seriously at all when you’re on the floor like that.”
    “Fine. Whatever you like.” With a long-suffering sigh, he stood up and opened the jewel box. Inside lay a pair of silver earrings. From one dangled the letter N and from the other, O. “A friendly reminder to just say no.”
    “Come on, Freddy.” She gave him a playful shove. “You’ve had a problem with Rand from day one. I wish you’d get over that.”
    “I’m begging you, Livvy. Don’t marry him.” He swept her dramatically into his arms. “Come away with me instead.”

    “You’re unemployed.” She pushed away from him.
    “Not so. I have the best employer in the city—you. And he’s late, isn’t he? The scoundrel. What sort of man shows up late to pop the question?”
    “A man who’s stuck in rush-hour traffic from the airport.” Olivia went to the window and looked down—way down—at the avenue, so crammed with taxis that it resembled a river of yellow sludge. “And nobody says scoundrel anymore. Don’t write him off just yet, Freddy.”
    “Sorry, you’re right. Bad, Freddy. Bad.” He made a self-flagellating motion. “It’s just that I don’t want you getting hurt.”
    Again. He didn’t say so aloud, but the word hovered in the brief silence between them.
    “I’m fine,” Olivia said. “Rand is nothing like—” She struggled to quell the emotional flurry in her gut. “No. I won’t say it. I won’t mention them in the same breath.”
    She physically shook herself. Don’t go there. The trouble was, there was here. She couldn’t escape her own life. The fact that she had been engaged and dumped twice before was as much a part of her as her gray eyes, her size-seven feet. In her circle of friends, her ill luck with men was something people joked about, like in the old days, when they used to joke about Olivia’s weight. And just like in the old days, she laughed right along with them, bleeding inside.
    “Smart girl,” Freddy said. “Rand Whitney is his own brand of disaster, unlike any other.”

    “Oh, now you’re being melodramatic.”
    “He’s all wrong for you, sweetheart.”
    “You know what?” she said. “I don’t need this. You’re fired.”
    “You can’t fire me. You didn’t hire me in the first place.”
    She tapped her foot. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to get you to leave.”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to get you to dump Rand.”
    They glared at each other, and the strain on their friendship thrummed between them. They’d met as seniors at Columbia, and had been best friends ever since. They’d even gotten matching tattoos one night before graduation, sipping liquid courage from a bottle