She frowned. “Why would I care about a secret?”
“Because it’s about me. About us,” Kai corrected. “And it’s a good one.”
Uh-oh.
“I already know all your secrets,” Ash pointed out. “So what’s in it for me?”
Kai was way ahead of him. “Easy. If you say one nice thing about Zoe, then I won’t tell her your secret.”
Shit, that was a low blow. Kai and I had promised not to tell that to anyone.
“So she gets a perk and I get blackmailed?” Ash glared at us.
“Works for me,” I said. “You in?” I asked Zoe.
“I don’t care about your secret,” she said. “So why would I try to come up with something nice to say about him?”
Kai grinned. “Because then you force his hand. He’ll have to say something nice about you in return or have his deepest, darkest secret revealed. And trust me, it’s a good one.”
“You wouldn’t,” Ash said flatly.
“Excuse me? Have you ever met my twin before?” I pointed out. Ash grumbled and finished his beer. “You’re up,” I said to Zoe.
In a way, I admired my brothers’ villainous side. Once we got too old to ski, he had the makings of a fine evil genius.
Zoe looked torn as her gaze went from Kai and me, then over to Asher and then back again. “It’s a reallygood secret,” Kai taunted. “And once you know it, you’re not going to be able to stop thinking about it.”
She looked intrigued in spite of herself. “The secret about you and Landon or the secret Asher doesn’t want you to tell?”
“Both.” Kai’s voice was smug.
“All right,” she finally said. “He?—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Say it to him.”
She glared at me with a stern expression she usually reserved for the other two. “All right. That duck you served last night, with those fondant potatoes? That was really good.”
“I know that,” Ash said.
“Drink,” Kai and I said together. When he held up his bottle, showing it was empty, I handed him mine. “Go on,” I told Zoe.
“That was it.”
“That’s the best you can do?” Kai asked. “Calling his food good?”
“What am I supposed to call it? Delicious? Better than life itself? Orgasmic?”
Silence descended after that last word, and her cheeks heated, but she didn’t take it back.
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone called it that,” Asher remarked.
“Your turn,” I told him. “Say something good about Zoe.”
He glared at me. Jesus, was it really that hard?
Finally, he sighed. “She’s good with the guests.”
Instead of taking the compliment, Zoe challenged him. “How the hell would you know that?” When I looked pointedly at her beer, she took a drink. “I’m just saying that he just said the first thing he could think of to get you off his back.”
