“Morning, Wynn.” Her sunshine voice grips my soul.
Wynnter grunts, resting his cheek against his fist as he continues crunching away on his Mini Wheats.
She heads directly for him, taps his head, and says, “Sit up straight.”
Immediately, he obeys, and she draws a sewing tape across his back from one of his broad shoulders to the other. “Twenty-six. Snug…but fits.”
Her brown eyes strike me, and I straighten my own shoulders.
“Dominic,” she greets, using the middle name our grandmothers and Lynn determined would make a fine alias.
My stomach lurches as she bends into my space, drawing the sewing tape across my chest, from one shoulder to the other. “Twenty-four,” she murmurs, moving back. Pushing a straying strand of dark hair over her ear, she examines the number she’s just ascertained, then her blinding smile hits me between the brows, and I feel heat rising to my cheeks when she says, “You’d fit comfortably.”
“In what?” Wynnter mutters.
Her dress flares as she whirls toward him, perfect and pretty and precious and— “In a casket.”
…and she’s measuring us for a casket.
I bite my lip hard to keep from laughing. My insides riot, but I somehow just barely manage to keep a rein on my composure.Princetypes don’t lose their composure this early in the story unless they’re in private with the female lead. It’s a rule, or something, which means I’m going to calmly sit here, and probably not breathe for a little while.
Oblivious to the torture she’s putting me through, she explains, “The casket I ordered is twenty-seven and a half inches wide. You’djuuustsquish inside.”
“Ah.” Wynnter reaches for the box of cereal and refills his bowl. “Is that so?”
“You are more than welcome to sleepover once it arrives.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“It’s pink, your favorite color.”
“Pink is not my favorite color.”
August’s eyes widen, and she tosses her hand in front of her freckled face, aghast. “It isn’t?”
Wynnter regards her dryly—freckles and scruff meeting freckles and drama.
I force down a swallow of oatmeal.
Realizing Wynnter isn’t going to play with her, August loses her brilliant smile and drops her arm. “Anyway.” She pads out of the kitchen, heading across the living room. “Bye.”
“Later,” Wynnter grumbles.
The instant the front door closes, Ilose it, collapsing against the table as laughter explodes out of me. With every gulp of air I get down,shelingers, coating my lungs in sunshine and fresh rain—the scent of her. She’s a summer day. AnAugustday. Warm. Full.Safe. A blessed hint of possibilities yet to be realized.
Tears in my eyes, I battle to control my smile. “She’s…wonderful, isn’t she?”
“She’s…” Wynnter grimaces. “…my sister. So.” He takes me in, then heenunciates, “Yeah… I have no idea howyou’regoing to enemies-to-lovers this situation.”
“I’ll figure it out,” I say, wiping a tear. “I’m determined to.”
Because while I may not knowexactlyhow I’m going to pull this off, I do know that I adore August Renee Winslow.
I have for a good long while.
She first started working as a virtual assistant in my company three years ago when I confirmed her hire purely because her home address was where my grandmother lived. She quicklybecame my favorite, and best, employee. She never missed a deadline or warranted a customer complaint. But that wasn’t all.
Unprompted, she reached out and added a levity to my day that stripped my workload down, making it lighter as if by magic.
