Free My Favorite Mistake by Georgina Bloomberg, Catherine Hapka

and say good-bye.”
    Zara thought about refusing. If it had been anyone else asking, she probably would have. But she liked Mickey—he was her favorite member of the posse—and so she climbed to her feet.
    â€œWhatever,” she muttered. “Let’s go.”
    Cousin Stacie was watching as the bodyguards hauled the last of the luggage out of the apartment. She turned as Zara plodded down the steps, but didn’t say a word.
    â€œThere you are.” Zac sounded distracted as he hurried over. “We’re off. All the digits and schedule and crap are written down in the message center, so just call if you need anything.” He bent and planted a quick kiss on her curly dark hair. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do while I’m gone, okay?”
    â€œHow can I?” Zara shot a sour look toward Stacie.
    Zac ignored that. Or maybe he hadn’t even heard it. Zara couldn’t tell.
    â€œReady, guys?” he shouted with a grin. “Let’s motor!”
    The remaining posse members let out a whoop. Moments later, they were all gone.
    Zara walked over to the window to watch the line of limos and vans pull away from the curb. When they’d disappeared around the corner onto Broome Street, she turned away. Stacie was standing there, staring at her.
    â€œListen,” Stacie said. “I think we should sit down and have a little talk about how the next few weeks are going to work.”
    â€œMaybe some other time. I’ve got a really ugly headache all of a sudden.” Zara headed back upstairs, ignoring Stacie’s tentative calls.
    Zara locked herself in her room, then flopped onto her bed and pulled out her phone. No way was she hanging around here with Stacie Poppins bossing her around. No. Way.
    â€œZara? Hi!” Grant sounded pleased when he picked up the phone. “What’s up?”
    â€œWas just going to ask you the same thing,” Zara said. Tucking the phone between her head and shoulder, she wandered over to the mirror to see how much work she had to do to make herself look presentable. “You doing anything? ’Cause I’m bored. Want to hang out?”
    â€œYou mean right now?”
    She smiled at the note of surprise in his voice. Yeah, it was pretty obvious this guy was used to hanging out with girls like Tommi. Girls who expected to make plans ahead of time, and who probably wouldn’t even let a guy hold her hand on the first date, let alone anything more.
    â€œHell yeah, right now,” she said. “You got something better going on?”
    â€œNo, now’s great,” he said. “Just tell me where to meet you.”
    A few minutes later, dressed in her best sexy-slinky clubwear, Zara stepped to the edge of the landing overlooking the first floor. Stacie was nowhere in sight. A second later Zara heard the ice maker in the kitchen clunk.
    Good. Maybe she’d get away clean.
    She hurried down the stairs. Just as she closed the front door behind her, she heard Stacie calling her name.
    But she ignored it. Maybe now Cousin Stacie would get the hint about exactly how these next few weeks were
really
going to work.

FIVE
    Tommi stepped to the end of the diving board, bounced once on the balls of her feet, then sliced cleanly into the sun-warmed water. She kicked a couple of times to propel herself forward, then surfaced, reaching up automatically to push back her wet brown shoulder-length hair.
    Alex watched from one of the teak lounge chairs as she hoisted herself out of the water and reached for a towel. They were the only two still hanging out by the free-form pool overlooking the beach. It was almost six, and everyone else had gone inside to get changed for dinner.
    It had been a hot day and hadn’t cooled off much yet, so Tommi wrapped the towel around her waist, leaving her upper body and Luli Fama bikini top to air dry. Then she grabbed her watch, which she’d left on a table.
    She groaned