Breaking Emily's Rules. Heatherly Bell

had heard the commotion, saw a statuesque blonde sobbing and yelling in a foreign language and stupidly followed her into the ladies’ room. Emily blamed it on her years of fixing Molly’s messes, but before she’d known what she was doing, she was comforting Nika. Trying to fix it for her.

      “What can you do?” Working as the head event manager at her family’s company gave her a lot of connections.

      Unfortunately, it had turned out Nika wasn’t good at much of anything, but Greg needed a maid. Emily had taught her how to clean the house the way Greg liked it, and Nika was reliable and energetic, showing up three times a week. The house was always spotless.

      “Watch out for that one,” Rachel had said to Emily the first time she’d introduced Nika.

      “Why? You think she’d be interested in Greg? I mean, look at her. She used to date an NFL player.” Emily never dated über-handsome men. Too much temptation to other women.

      “All that money he makes is attractive, even if Greg isn’t.” Rachel had said in a thinly veiled warning.

      It was true Greg’s software start-up was about to go public and his shares would put him into an entirely different income tax bracket. Not über-rich, though. Not athlete-rich.

      But hindsight was twenty-twenty. Nika, like most women, wanted security. Being swimsuit-model gorgeous didn’t take that need away, it turned out. Greg was the marrying kind. Nika saw that, and loyalty was not part of her repertoire. Survival was.

      Now Greg reached for Emily’s hand. “I didn’t want you to hear about this from anyone else. Nika and I, we’re getting married.”

      Greg already getting married? To the woman he’d cheated on her with? “Married?”

      Greg studied his cup. “She’s pregnant.”

      Emily swallowed the golf ball in her throat. It had been a year. Emily didn’t want to think about how Nika and Greg had spent that year and whether they’d eventually made their way to the bed for some of Greg’s paint by numbers sex. Or maybe he and Nika enjoyed something altogether different than Emily and Greg had had.

      “I see.” If there’s one thing Greg did know, it was how much Emily wanted to start a family. Right after the wedding, had been the plan. He’d reversed the order with Nika.

      “I’m so sorry.” Greg shot her a look filled with pity.

      Oh, no you don’t. “Don’t be sorry. You’re having a baby.” Nika would hopefully be a better mother than she had been a friend.

      It was better this way, and Emily needed to keep telling herself that. After a few more torturous minutes, Greg left and Emily watched from inside the coffee shop as he drove off.

      “What did that douchebag want?” Annie stopped by the table to ask.