Page 1 of The C Agreement

ONE

RAYNE

With a heavy sigh,I dropped into the restaurant booth and let myself finally relax.

“Bad day?” my sister-in-law, Em, asked as she dipped her tortilla chip into the salsa.

Sliding toward the wall, I said, “Not exactly bad. Just long. It felt like it dragged even though I was busy. I’m glad to be done with work for the weekend. How about you two?”

“Same,” Beau said. “I’m glad it’s Friday and that we’re having Mexican.”

“Hear, hear,” Em said and clinked her margarita glass against my brother’s beer.

“The whole week was long,” I said, picking up a chip for myself.

The only day that hadn’t felt like it was doubled in time was the day I met up with Vivian and Delaney for our Women in Law program. We went to high schools across the Minneapolis area to tell young women about what it was like to be female lawyers. And the three of us were really getting our groove down for when we did our presentations. Plus, I had made a couple of new friends out of the whole thing.

Em gasped. “Oh my God, Rayne, I forgot to ask. How was your weekend getaway? I kept meaning to message you and ask, but then I figured I would find out all the details once I saw you again.” She chuckled.

A warm body slid in next to me.

“What weekend getaway?” Cade Nichols, my brother’s best friend, asked.

I didn’t want to talk about Brett. “Never m—”

“Rayne went on a romantic trip with Brett,” Em answered.

“Who’s Brett?” Cade asked.

I turned to him, my jaw dropping. “Do you pay attention to anything about me?”

He grinned, and I noticed how his wavy brown hair was messy, likely from him running his hands through it all day. His black button-up shirt and black pants were wrinkled from being at work for eight hours. And yet he still looked like he’d stepped out of a men’s magazine. Even though I was a woman and he was a man, I used to be jealous of how he always looked good. Especially with his deep blue eyes and that cocky smile he’d perfected over the years.

“Only the good stuff.”

My brother and Cade were two years older than me, and my sister-in-law had been in the year between us in school. Beau and Em were high school sweethearts, and since Cade didn’t date women seriously and I was the fat, younger sister that my brother could bring with him so Cade had someone to talk to and so our parents would let him stay out later, the four of us had hung out a lot. Now that we were adults, we tried to get together at least once a month for dinner, so he should have known who my ex-boyfriend was.

“Brett and I dated for over a year,” I pointed out.

Cade lifted a shoulder. “You should have brought him out to eat with us.”

“I did. I brought him several times.”

Cade rubbed his chin. “I guess he wasn’t important enough for me to remember.”

I opened my mouth to come up with something to refresh his memory until I remembered that I didn’t want to think about or talk about Brett anymore, and I clamped my mouth shut. Why I fought so hard for things I didn’t even care about, I didn’t understand sometimes.

“Rayne,” Em said, her brow furrowed in confusion, “did you say, ‘dated for over a year’?”

My brother picked up his beer and looked at his wife. “I don’t get it.”

“She didn’t say,We’ve been dating for over a year. She said theydatedfor over a year. Past tense.”

“We broke up,” I said as quickly as I could while I leaned over Cade to catch the nearest server’s attention. “Yes, hi. Can I get a margarita? Please. Unless you’re not our server, and in that case, can you please tell whoever is our server that we’re in desperate need of a drink?”

The woman laughed. “You’re in luck. I am your server.”

I sighed. “God bless you.”