. . . AUTHOR’S POV The living room was quiet for a moment, the air thick with the kind of charged tension only a successful scheme could create. The soft afternoon light filtered through the windows, casting gentle shadows across the faces of the three women. Darlene, Sloane, and Vivian sat together, each of them wearing an expression that was a blend of triumph and disbelief. The task they had set out to accomplish—the task they had worked so hard for—had been more successful than any of them had anticipated. They had managed to get them—the three notoriously stoic, emotionally distant men—to fall for them. To fall for them. Sloane was the first to break the silence, her voice bursting with excitement, barely able to contain her enthusiasm. “I can’t believe it,” she said,

