Two Wrongs Make a Right (The Wilmot Sisters #1)

by Chloe Liese

For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? — WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing

A word to the wise: don’t have your fortune read unless you’re prepared to be deeply disturbed.

Wrong is right and right is wrong. I foresee war—merry or misery, brief or long? A mountain looms built on deception. Surmount it and then learn your lesson.

NRB: Why do chess players use dating apps in Prague?

BEA: I don’t know. Why? His response comes seconds later: NRB: Because they want to find a Czech mate.

“Your dino nuggets, madame.” Jules lays down the plate with a flourish. “As Jean-Claude would say, bon appétit!”

I love her already 🩷🩷🩷🩷

I pick up my T. rex nugget, stomp it across the table, and bash her diplodocus until its head falls off. “Rude!” Jules flies her pterodactyl to my plate and smashes my triceratops. “That one’s my favorite, you butthead!”

OMG they are me!

I dip a carrot in ranch and use it to paint her cheek buttermilk white. Jules gasps. Then she fishes out a halved cherry tomato from her salad and wedges it onto my nose. “So there, Rudolph!” she crows. “Juliet!” I screech. “I hate tomatoes!” We’re on the verge of a full-on food fight when our apartment’s buzzer cuts through the air.

“Juliet.” I fish out another ranch-soaked carrot, turn, and lob it at her. Except it hits Jamie in the face right as he crosses the threshold. The carrot drops with a sad little thud to the floor, and a Rorschach splatter of ranch marks his forehead.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“Are those dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets?” he asks. “And if they are?” He clears his throat. “Surprising choice for an adult’s meal. Then again, your vegetable is a solitary baby carrot drowning in ranch. Perhaps your regard for nutrition is like that of most Americans. Deplorable.” “It was four carrots!” “Ah, but you only ingested three,” he says. “Considering one of them hit my forehead.”

“And because they crossed a line, we should, too? Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Dammit. First, he’s a baby doctor. Now, he rescues zombie cats in their hour of undead need. Ugh.

I have no business daydreaming about getting on my knees and turning Mr. Prim and Proper into a swearing, disheveled mess.

“I have a feeling you’re going to be a bad influence, Beatrice.” “Ah, James,” I tell him through the buttercream sweetness lighting up my tongue. “Now you’re catching on.”

We’re in this together, I told her in the cab. And now I realize how much I meant it.

Because if I were honest, I’d tell her, Well, now that you say it, Bea, the fact is you were the best kiss of my life. Kissing you, I wanted to do things I’ve never allowed myself to even consider. I was thirty seconds away from dragging you into some germ-infested corner of that dusty old bowling alley, hiking up your dress, and—

“Don’t downplay your work,” she says fiercely. “Don’t make yourself small just because someone else has.”

“I hope you know this without me saying it, but you are the farthest thing from a disappointment that I have ever met, Jamie Westenberg. The people who matter know that. As my mom says, anyone who can’t love you for you doesn’t deserve your heart.”

“Oh shit.” My eyes widen with evil glee. “You’re ticklish.”

“My fake boyfriend isn’t supposed to ruin me for everyone else,” I whisper. Jamie’s eyes fall shut as he drops his forehead to mine. “Sometimes, Beatrice, I want to ruin you for everyone else.”

“You know it’s okay, right? For someone to see the best in you. For them to like the things you’re way too hard on yourself for.”

“I’m saying, you’re the best kind of chaos I’ve ever met. And while chaos used to terrify me, you make me crave it. I’m saying, even though this is an absurd situation we’ve backed ourselves into . . . I’d do it again in a heartbeat because it’s given me you.”

You’re the best thing in my life, I want to tell her. You’re safe and real and perfectly imperfect. We started as a lie, and now we’re the truest thing I’ve ever known.

“As you wish, mon cœur.”

“What did the lovers call each other when they played chess?” His thumb trails lower, along my jaw as he kisses me. “Checkmates.”

“You still ironed your underwear, didn’t you?” “I’ve never ironed my underwear, you gremlin.”