“Aren’t they sour?”

“Exactly. People might think you’re tough, but on the inside you’re sweet and gooey.”

“That’s not a very pleasant image. Perhaps you don’t deserve this scarf.” I tug it from my bag and hug the ruby-red silk number close to my chest.

She drops the gumdrops and makes grabby hands. “Don’t keep the accessory from me. But don’t deny you have a soft inside either.”

“Hardly.”

She stretches a hand across the counter, grabbing my forearm, imploring me. “You think you’re nails and stone since Eduardo, but you’re still that woman who believes in love. I know you. I know you are.”

I bristle at the suggestion, raising my chin. “Love is for other people.”

“I love you like a lemon gumdrop, and I think what you’re doing is noble and also dangerous as hell,” she says, dropping her grip as she moves to rearrange bonbons under the display case.

“We laid out all the rules,” I say, with a bit of urgency in my voice. I want her to know I can handle this.

“But don’t you like him?”

“Of course I like him. That’s why I want to help. We both gain something from this, and I enjoy his company. There are far worse ways to spend the next three months.”

She arches a brow. “You enjoy his company? Can you be any more clinical?”

I sigh heavily. “It’s true. I like being with him, and I want to help.”

“And what happens when you start to like him beyond enjoying his company?” she asks, sketching air quotes.

“I’ll stop that from happening.”

“How do you stop it? Do you truly think you can stop yourself from falling?”

“Yes,” I answer in a split second. I believe it because I have to believe it. Because it’s the only way to live.

“Look, I’d like to buy into that too, but it’s not my experience. I was falling for Lars the boat captain, and the thing that stopped me was that we don’t live in the same country.”

“And the thing that will stop Christian and me is an expiration date,” I say, keeping my focus on the practical aspects of this decision.

“An expiration date isn’t the same thing as the whole damn country of Germany being between you. Lars and I texted after I left Copenhagen. I thought I could put him behind me, but I couldn’t, so we kept in touch. We tried to make plans, but we could never be free at the same time, so I had to let it go.”

I smile, trying to make light of the complications she’s outlined—complications I’ll have to be wise about. “Have a scarf.”

I hand her the silky snake of fabric, and she tosses it around her neck. She pouts saucily and juts out a hip in a pose.

“Lovely.”

“In any case, my little lemon gumdrop, since you’re going to do this anyway, all I will say is this—keep your eyes wide open. Be aware of all the potholes. There are booby traps literally everywhere. If you want to come out of this with your steel heart—cough, cough—intact, you need to have your guard up in a whole new way.”

“Guard up. I’m on it.”

“Oh, and take some lemon gumdrops. You’ll need fortification.” She winks and hands me the bag of candy. Her expression turns serious as she sets it in my palm. “And I’ll be here when the expiration date passes. You know that, right?”

“I do.”

“There is no expiration date on our friendship.”

“It’s non-perishable,” I say with a smile, then I thank her and leave. As I wander up the block to my home, I pop in a gumdrop. It’s tart at first, as promised, but then it’s all soft and sweet.

As if it’ll melt into you.

Surely I’m no lemon gumdrop with Christian. I’ll be a fiery cinnamon stick. Even though, as I open the gate to my home, delighting in the blaze of yellow tulips, I wonder if he likes candy that’s a little bit tart at first but then sweetens as you savor it.

18CHRISTIAN

I walk along the river at the end of the next day, the afternoon sun casting sparks of light along the water, my phone in front of me as I Facetime Oliver. “I can’t believe I lost the bet,” he says from his office on Park Avenue.

“Did we have a bet?”

“Yes,” Oliver says indignantly, dragging a hand through his Harry Styles hair. “How could you forget?”

“What was it?” I bite into the egg crepe that I picked up at my favorite crepe dealer, wracking my brain to figure out what we wagered on.

“It was ages ago. But I bet a pint you’d be single until the end of time.”

Laughing, I shake my head. “Sounds like some stupid shit we said at the pub last time you were here, cuz.”

“That sounds like everything we say at the pub.”

“True.”

“Still, I’m kicking myself for losing the bet,” he says, spinning in his chair. “It’s making me laugh—the idea of you being married.”

“I was married before. You’re aware of that?”

“I know, but you’re not now.”

“So is half the population of the once-married people. Half of marriages end.”

“I’m aware, but the amusement level on this is still quite high,” he says with a smirk, as a twilight boat tour cruises by, kicking up a spray of water.

“So, me getting married makes you laugh. Thanks.”

He waves a hand. “No. It’s the bonkers idea that this will somehow be all business for you.”

“Business and pleasure,” I add, taking another bite.

“Need I remind you of the time you told me about how you got involved with the client who wanted to enlist you as her boy toy and claimed she was knocked up, practically chasing you back to London? At which point you called me, all worked up, and swore off entanglements of that sort?”

“She was not pregnant,” I add, since it’s important to point that out.