“Don’t try that with me, little brother,” Shana said, sounding exactly like their mother.
“You’re lucky Mama hasn’t found out yet,” Sloane said, no doubt thinking along the same lines as him. “She’d be on you like white on rice.”
Wasn’t that the truth? A little tug of guilt pinched near his heart. Jada hadn’t wanted him to tell anyone they weren’t dating, but he’d told her he couldn’t promise her that. And these were his sisters, who he trusted more than anyone else in the world. If he asked them to keep their mouths shut, they would. Yet he felt like he was betraying Jada, which was the height of ridiculousness. He didn’t do ridiculousness. So the truth it was, but first he had questions. “Tell me about this show.”
“It’s so great,” Shana said. “Drama-filled. It’s like potato chips. Once you eat one, you can’t stop.”
Sloane murmured in agreement. “Basically, there’s the lead, and he goes out with a bunch of women. Every week, the contestants vote on which two women they don’t want to get a date. They form coalitions. The lead has the right to veto one objection per week in his quest to find his one and only. He eliminates a few women each week after all his dates.”
Donovan clutched his phone. “What about Jada?”
“Jada was the best, or so everyone thought until the finale,” Sloane said. “She was funny and always spoke her mind with the lead, Dr. John, and the other contestants. She and John had great chemistry.”
“Dude was smitten,” Shana said. “Viewers loved him. He was genuine and there for the right reasons.”
“Finding love on a reality show? Yeah, okay.” Donovan had his doubts.
“It’s true. He was the sweetest guy. Funny and kind, but not easily bamboozled by antics. Some of the other contestants didn’t like how well Jada and he got along and tried to split them up, but it didn’t work. They were always together.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “So they what? Fell in love with a bunch of cameras in their face recording their every move?”
“It seemed like it. They were like the Black Ken and Barbie. Gorgeous, funny, photogenic. All the viewers thought we were getting a fairy-tale ending with a proposal.”
“And then she dumped America’s Favorite Bachelor—that was the headline on the People cover—instead,” Sloane said. “The fans went crazy.”
Shana concurred. “Some of the other contestants said she was playing him the whole time and they were right.”
That didn’t sound like the woman he knew. Granted, he hadn’t known her very long, but the look of devastation and resignation on her face at the shop was real. He’d bet his entire net worth on it. And maybe that made him as much of a sucker as the dude on the reality show. “What happened next?”
“She stopped posting to all her social media accounts,” Sloane said. “No one knew where she was—until tonight. Tweet’s up to twenty-three thousand retweets, by the way. Why was she at the shop wearing the uniform?”
Donovan sighed. “Because she works there.”
“Since when?” Shana asked, her voice full of breathless disbelief. At least she didn’t screech like their little sister.
Donovan blew out a breath. “Since yesterday.”
“And you’re already kissing her. You move fast, big brother. Who knew you had it in you?” Sloane teased.
He groaned. “That’s not how it went down.”
“Then tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. How did she go from reality TV villain to Sugar Blitz employee to Donovan Dell’s girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said through clenched teeth.
“But you did have your tongue down her throat,” said his logical, straight-shooting older sister who would never be intimidated by him.
“No, I didn’t,” he said over Sloane’s snickers.
“Then tell us what’s up,” Shana said, clearly pleased with herself for maneuvering him into a corner.
Donovan started with how she’d come to work at the store and ending with the reason Jada had kissed him. “That’s it. She needed a temporary standin and I happened to be the guy standing there. No more, no less.”
His explanation was met with a few seconds of silence.
“Oh. That’s it?” Shana finally said.
“Yep.” Mostly. He’d left out the details about how that was the best first kiss he’d ever had. How her soft lips had clung so temptingly to his that he couldn’t help but respond. How the taste of her haunted him hours later and he could still taste her, especially if he closed his eyes and replayed the frustratingly short embrace in his mind. Which he’d done approximately fifty times since it happened. Yeah, his sisters didn’t need to know any of that.