Free Cross the Line (Boston Love Story #2) by Julie Johnson

immediately christened S.H.A.G. — Seduction Help and Guidance) and assist me in getting over Nate for good (now known to all parties involved as S.P.A.N.K. — Severing Phoebe’s Attachment to Nathaniel Knox) she’s been making plans. Semi-terrifying plans, all of which are intended to aid me in my quest to seduce him. The only problem is… he isn’t exactly cooperating. A month has passed and, to Lila’s mounting frustration, no progress has been made. If anything, I think we’re backsliding.
    For instance, three weeks ago, she spent hours dolling me up for my first visit to Gemma and Chase’s penthouse, totally convinced that Knox would be there, as he often does private security for Croft Industries.
    He wasn’t.
    The only people at the loft were Gemma and her friend Shelby — dressed in pajamas, drinking wine like Napa Valley had just announced it was going through a dry spell, and shoving popcorn into their mouths as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days played on the flat screen. It was safe to say they looked at me strangely when I showed up in a sparkly Roberto Cavalli mini skirt and my new black Prada pumps. Sure, everyone knows I’m a clotheshorse… but that was pushing it. Even for me.
    The following week, Lila set me up on a truly awful blind date with a man named Kirk, who she vaguely introduced as a “friend of a friend.” Since I’m pretty much her only friend, and I sure as hell didn’t set myself up with a man who called to mind Star Trek for more reasons than just his name (really, the mustard yellow sweater was a poor choice) she wasn’t fooling anyone.
    I don’t care if your intentions are pure, Lila — stop setting me up with creepy dudes you meet on the internet.
    If her plan was to make Nate jealous, Kirk was not a good choice. Yes, he was handsome — but the man was dull as a box of sidewalk chalk. I’ve had more fulfilling conversations with Suki, the three-year-old toddler whose family lives in the brownstone next to mine. When the night came to a close, I begged off with a fake headache and walked home alone.
    To no one’s surprise, Nate was not waiting for me in my darkened living room, vibrating with intensity and warning me to stay away from Captain Kirk.
    When her set-up failed, Lila resorted to her tried-and-true high school tactics, back in the days when we’d stake out her crush-of-the-week in my SUV, hunched low in our seats to avoid detection. I’m not sure why she thought this would be successful — it hadn’t worked on the star quarterback six years ago, and it’s not the kind of plan that improves with age. Still, she staged a drive-by at Knox Investigations, the low-slung black building in the Seaport district where Nate runs his private investigations business. I’ve never been inside and, to my knowledge, neither has Lila…. But that didn’t stop her from riding past it three times before I realized what was happening and was able to wrestle the wheel from her grip.
    Clearly she’s getting desperate, since none of her normal schemes are working.
    But tonight…. Oh, tonight is the game changer. For the first time since I — foolishly — agreed to follow her lead, she knows with one hundred percent certainty where Nate will be.
    See, tonight’s guest list is sprinkled with Boston’s elite, all eager to drop an obscene amount of money on pieces of modern art –one more canvas for their vast collections. It’ll be a star-studded affair, full of venomous socialites, scheming businessmen, and pretentious French finger-food that, for all the allure of foie gras, can’t hold a candle to pigs-in-blankets.
    My natural habitat.
    Anyway, the result of all these wealthy patrons gathered in one place means one thing: paparazzi.
    Lots of it.
    Between the crowd of reporters staked outside and the hundred or so attendees wandering around inside… Chase won’t be taking any chances with Gemma’s safety. And there’s only one person he’d trust to run point when it