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  Then she looked at Alex and felt terrible. It wasn’t his fault she was a retread. If she’d been in her twenties instead of her forties, she’d be champing at the bit to help him out. If this was the price she had to pay for loving Alex, it was worth it. Alex was worth anything.

  Even wearing that damn Incredibra for the rest of her life.

  “Great,” she told him. “This is great.”

  “CHARITY, this book is really great,” she said two weeks later when she and Charity were sitting on the living-room floor drinking Amaretto milk shakes, celebrating this time. “I had to do practically no editing. It’s wonderful. It’s tight and it flows and it’s funny and the sex scenes are incredible. I read one to Alex last night, and he jumped me.”

  “You could read the phone book to Alex and he’d jump you,” Charity told her.

  “Not necessarily,” Nina said, and Charity stopped with her milk shake halfway to her mouth.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “Trouble in paradise?”

  “He’s working with his father,” Nina said. “Getting ready for this cardiology thing. Long hours. He’s a little tired.” Actually, he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV before Harrison Ford had found the Holy Grail. She’d tried to be understanding, but it was definitely a bad sign.

  Charity nodded. “Kenneth.”

  Nina closed her eyes and groaned. “Don’t say that. I want this to work.”

  “It will.” Charity slurped some of her milk shake. “That’s what I found out writing this book. I gave up on him too fast. We might have made it work. I mean, he was a great guy, he was just trying to start a big career.”

  Nina thought about Alex. “I’m sure you’re right.” Then she realized what Charity had said. “Are you sorry you divorced Kenneth?”

  Charity shook her head. “Nope. That was years ago now. I’m going forward. But I’ve learned from it. The next guy I hook up with is going to be my last. My Raoul.”

  Nina’s thoughts went back to Alex. “It’s not just the sleeping. He’s drinking too much.”

  “Alex? He doesn’t seem like the drunk type.”

  “He’s not.” Nina bit her lip. “His brother shows up four or five nights a week with a six-pack and they split it. And then they both look at the empty cans the way Fred looks at an empty Oreo wrapper.”

  Charity scowled. “Well, there’s your explanation. It’s his brother.”

  Nina shook her head. “No, it’s not. Max is a good guy. In fact, Max is a great guy. The rest of Alex’s family is sort of cold, but Max has been great from the start.”

  “Sort of cold? You didn’t tell me you met his family.”

  “We had dinner.” Nina’s face twisted as she remembered. “His father looked at me and said, ‘We were hoping Alex would have children.’”

  Charity winced. “Ouch. What did Alex say?”

  “He said, ‘No, we weren’t,’ and Max said, ‘Can I get you a drink, Nina?’ and Max’s mom did something to his dad and he sort of flinched and shut up. But it was ugly. And then there was the dinner with my family.”

  “Oh, boy. How is your mother? Still flash-frozen?”

  “She was very polite to Alex,” Nina said. “And then after dessert, she pulled me to one side and said, ‘What are you going to do when he leaves you for a younger woman?’”

  Charity rolled her eyes and picked up her milk shake to finish it off. “So I guess you and Alex won’t be spending the holidays with the families.”

  Nina laughed shortly. “Just with Max. I like him a lot. We’ll make our own family with you and Max and Fred.”

  “Well, if you’re planning on marrying me off, I’ll take Fred before I take Max.” Charity stood up. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Thanks for the milk shake.”

  “Wait a minute.” Nina scrambled to her feet. “Don’t you want to talk about the book?”

  “No. The book is finished. I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and now I want to forget it for a while. Do I need to rewrite it again?”

  “No,” Nina said. “I’ll do the final edit and send it to you to check over, and then we’ll send it to the printer. Jessica put a hurry-up on it, so we should have bound ARCs in a month.”

  Charity stopped stretching. “ARCs?”

  “Advance Reader Copies. They go out to reviewers so we can get some good review quotes for the jacket.”

  Charity’s arms dropped to her sides. “Lots of reviewers?”

  “For your book, yes.” Nina bent to pick up their milk shake glasses. “I’m sending this one to every reviewer on the planet. It’s going to be great.”

  “I hope so.” Charity’s voice sounded hollow. “I really want this to be good, Neen. I’ve never done anything with my brains before.”

  Nina blinked at her. “Of course you have. You run that store beautifully.”

  Charity swallowed. “I mean creative brains. I already have an idea for another book. I really want this to work.”

  Nina hugged Charity, wrapping her arms around her so that the glasses in her hands clanked as she clutched her. “It’s going to work,” she promised her, while she said a silent, fervent prayer that it would, not only for Charity’s sake, but for her own and Jessica’s, too.

  “SO HOW’S IT GOING with Nina?” Max asked Alex at lunch the next week in the hospital cafeteria.

  “Nina’s great.” Alex tried to sound happy but a yawn overwhelmed him. “Life’s great.”

  Max raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, don’t let the enthusiasm make you lose your grip.”

  “No.” Alex shook his head and then regretted it. It felt as if his brains were rattling in his skull like marbles. “I mean it. She’s great.”

  Max leaned back. “And how’s cardiology?”

  Alex tried to focus on him. “Cardiology? Cardiology sucks.”

  Max shook his head. “Why don’t you knock this off and go back to the ER and make everybody happy?”

  Alex glared at him. “People are happy I’m in cardiology. Dad’s ecstatic.”

  Max looked at him with disbelief. “How can you tell?”

  Alex ignored him. “And Nina’s going to be happy once I get this work schedule ironed out—”

  “And then you will be miserable,” Max finished. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to yourself. And for what? Nina will love you no matter what you do. She’s great, the best thing that ever happened to you. And you’re missing it because you have some dumb idea that she needs to be rich.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s a dumb idea,” Alex told him. “The Incredibra. That’s a dumb idea.”

  Max nodded. “Yes, I can see how we got from cardiology to bras. Makes perfect sense. A word of advice—get some sleep before you kill a patient.”

  “I may kill myself first,” Alex said, and then blinked. “Forget I said that. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “You’re saying you’re unhappy.” Max stood up and shoved his chair back, and the screech it made on the floor made Alex wince. “Stop this, Alex. You’re going to end up like Dad. And me.”

  Alex blinked up at him. “You? What’s wrong with you?”

  Max looked down at him, and for the first time, Alex saw his brother as an older man, not just a guy to pal around with. “I’m thirty-six, I’ve poured my whole life into my career, I’m burned-out and I’m alone,” Max said, and his voice was like lead. “I’m tired, and I’ve got nowhere to go. And no one to go to. You have Nina. Hell, if I had Nina, I’d grab her and go to a beach somewhere and just watch the sun come up and go down forever. You’ve got it all, and you’re throwing it away. Don’t screw this up, Alex.”

  Alex swallowed. “You’re exaggerating.”

  Max nodded, defeated. “Probably. I’ll be by with a six-pack tonight, and we can forget I said that together.”

  “Good,” Alex said. “Make it a twelve-pack. I’ve got some other stuff to forget, too.”

  “SOME OF THE advance reviews are back, Charity,” Nina said to her a month later on the o