Chapter Six
Jilly: I did something dumb.
Jack: Clarify.
Jilly: I kissed someone.
Jack: I'm not jealous.
"YOU DID WHAT?" Star and Poppy gasped at the same time.
Jilly felt absolutely defensive, and so she hastily tried to defend herself with statistics.
"I blocked his number," she repeated stonily, adjusting her grandmother-style glasses while her jade eyes darted between her two friends, who were both staring at her like she'd just announced she was planning to join a convent.
The converted barnhouse that served as Wynd and Star's home was the kind of place that whispered understated luxury in every carefully chosen detail, but right now it felt more like an interrogation chamber, the way Jilly's two friends were looking at her with identical expressions of horrified disbelief.
"B-But...he's your crush," Poppy finally stammered out.
"No, he's not."
Star rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Need I remind you of that secret little fan club you founded—"
"Because I admire his work—"
"And abs."
"And abs—" Wait. What did she just end up repeating?
Star burst into laughter, and Jilly glared at the other woman.
Grrr! Star used to be her colleague at Luntian Financial Forensics International, and even then, the other woman loved teasing her about her being a fangirl of Guy.
Star had always refused to believe she didn't have a crush on Guy, but ever since falling in love with one of Texas' most intimidating billionaires, it had gotten even worse, with Star now also taking the side of their hopeless romantic friend.
This time, she had both Poppy and Star insisting it was love at first sight between Guy and her...but it was not.
Truly!
Poppy was still shaking her head, sending her soft curls bouncing. "I just don't get it. I really thought it was God making things happen. I mean, what are the chances?"
Jilly saw Star actually frown as if she was about to seriously compute the probability of a fangirl being friends with someone who was friends with the celebrity they admired.
Seriously?
Jilly glared at her former-officemate-turned-unsupportive-friend. "Don't you even dare."
Poppy, meanwhile, was still unable to get over the waste of what seemed like a divinely appointed match. "I've always been too shy to ask for favors from Valerian. But I somehow found it so easy to do so that night. Don't you think that means something?"
"I appreciate everything you did to make that night happen," Jilly was keen to emphasize. "I really do. But..." She lifted her chin. "Numbers don't lie. I've never even been kissed in forty years of existence, and the first time he walked inside my house, I let him..."
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?"
Jilly swallowed hard.
Guy was her billionaire client?
She picked her pen and struggled to keep her hand from shaking as she signed her name on the dotted line.
Oh Heavenly Father, I hear You loud and clear.
But...what next?
How was she supposed to work professionally with a man who...
Don't think about it.
Don't think about how his hands felt against your skin, how his mouth...
Don't!