Chapter 137

"I'm so curious just how wonderful this person must be, to leave our Diana so heartsick. Lucky Sam, getting to actually see Diana's crush."

"However wonderful he is, it won't do Diana any good."

Giggling, the girls chattered among themselves about my mysterious, unrequited love.

Sam, who'd been grinning along the whole time, suddenly turned serious.

"I won't allow any man who hurts Diana."

"Sam, who are you to allow or disallow anything?"

Anne and the other girls closed in around Sam. Raised among a crowd of older sisters, Sam was braver than most boys when it came to girls his own age — but that confidence applied to one or two at a time.

Surrounded and pressed by a dozen or so of them at once, like now, even he was bound to panic. Sam stammered, unable to muster a comeback, so I stepped in.

"I already told you,…