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around and stopped in her tracks.
    The giant sign hanging over the entrance to the back room where they were holding the party taunted her, holding her attention captive, and she found her feet glued to the tile floor. Double your pleasure, double your fun…
    Standing stock-still, Ella stared at the sign as though it would come to life and bite her at any moment. She plastered a smile on her face, pretending to find amusement in the tongue-in-cheek saying, but it wasn’t from the heart. No, nothing was from the heart anymore because she was fucking miserable.
    Despite the group of girls celebrating Katie-Anne Jacobs, Jaycee Blakemore, and their impending baby arrivals just inside the doorway, Ella couldn’t dredge up an ounce of excitement. All she could think about was the date. June 3rd.
    She’d hoped that throwing the double baby shower with her three sisters, Hadley, Molly-Grace, and Reagan, would help her forget what day it was. She’d thought it might fix whatever it was going on inside her . But she was pretty fucking wrong .
    Today was no better than any other day. Hell, because of the date, it was oh-so-much worse, which was saying something. In retrospect, the past few months had been torture. How melodramatic of me to put it that way.

    38
    Mia Ashlinn
    They hadn’t been torture in the usual sense. She didn’t have someone hurting her physically. And no, there was no one abusing her emotionally. This was all on her. Well, if she wanted to get technical, it was on her best friend, Micah, and her ex-lover, Caedon, too.
    It was on Micah because the bastard was gay. A girl in love with a gay man was doomed from the very first flip-flop of her heart. Why couldn’t he be bisexual? Shit, that would be fucking hot.
    And it was on Caedon because…well, he was Caedon. The jackass had left her when she needed him most. Okay, that isn’t exactly fair. I practically pushed him out of my life, but it was his fault for driving me to it.
    Now here Ella was two years later, standing in the unorthodox hometown she loved, with a roomful of her favorite women mere feet from her. And what was she doing? She was moping around like a heartsick puppy. No, I refuse to do this. I am going to go into that room with my friends and my sisters, and I am going to have a good time. Goddamn it.
    Marching across her shop with purposeful strides, Ella barely made out the loud click-clack of her hooker heels on the tile floor.
    She was too focused. She had things to do and fun to have—whether or not she damn well liked it.
    Shoving open the door, Ella barreled into the room packed with six fabulous women. As soon as she spotted them all sitting around the table and inspecting various sexy toys, some of her melancholy emotions faded away. Yeah, this is just what I need to do.
    “Oh,” Shannon Dalton breathed, the chipper redhead practically bouncing up and down in her seat as she played with a prototype dildo that Wyatt Thorpe, the resident techno-geek at The Edge, had designed and crafted. It still amazed Ella to see the transformation of her friend. Gone were the unflattering clothes, makeup-less face, and frizzy hair. In its place was a gorgeous woman with cat-like eyes that had a perpetual twinkle and a smile that never dimmed. “I want this one. That is an orgasm waiting to happen.” Three Rings and a Rose
    39
    Jaycee snorted. “For you, everything is an orgasm waiting to happen.” The heavily pregnant blonde woman scooted back in her chair with a groan, leaning against the pillows they’d propped up behind her. Jaycee stared at Shannon, the blue depths of her eyes reflecting her obvious fatigue, as she stroked her rounded belly.
    If I was eight months pregnant, I would be doing a hell of a lot more than groaning. I would be snoozing on the damn couch by now.
    They’d been celebrating the upcoming births of Jaycee’s twins, Ava and Mason, and Katie-Anne’s little boy, Kane, all day.
    They’d begun the party early this