Please, God, let moving forward include her.
Trying to make light of it, she swallowed hard. “Is it a demon?”
“I’m sorry for canceling dinner last minute,” he said.
“Why didn’t you just tell me where you were going? I am your assistant.”
Caroline gave her an encouraging nod.
Instead of answering, he gave another wince. “You’re right, I should have. Were you really worried about me? Why?”
“Surely you’ve figured that out.” Probably everyone except Ben had figured it out. She felt she might as well be wearing a sticky note on her forehead announcing it. “It’s because I’m in love with you!”
And over the phone probably wasn’t the best way to tell him that for the first time.
“Shit,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he’d been stabbed by a sharp needle or if her love caused him to swear. “You don’t mean that, you can’t mean that.”
Oh, the hell she couldn’t.
“I most certainly do mean that.” Mandy glanced over at Caroline, who was gaping at her, but now that she’d opened her mouth, she couldn’t stop. He had to know, had to understand how much he mattered to her, how wonderful she thought he was.
“I am in love with you, Damien. Completely and totally. So what are you going to do about it?”
There was a pause where her entire future hung in the balance, as traffic on the street shot past her and cigarette smoke from a pedestrian drifted up her nostrils.
Then he said, “I have to go.”
Not quite the sentiment she’d been hoping for.
“This is really uncomfortable, Mandy.”
Lovely. Her feelings made him uncomfortable. Her face went hot.
“I don’t remember this hurting so much the first time I did it.”
Even better. She was painful. Her mouth opened but no words came out.
“So let me call you back when I’m done getting the tattoo.”
He said goodbye and hung up before she could even say a word. Not that she could think of any. A strange wheezing sound came out of her mouth.
“What did he say?” Caroline was leaning across the table eagerly. “Did he say it back? God, I envy you the courage to just blurt it out like that.”
“He said he had to go. He’s getting a tattoo and he’ll call me back later.” It was a small comfort that he’d been talking about a needle and not her when he’d been using words likeuncomfortableandpainful. On second thought, no it wasn’t.
Caroline’s lip curled back in astonishment, and Mandy was so certain her face looked exactly the same that she covered her mouth and started to laugh. Air squeezed between her fingers and made a snorting sound.
She had blurted out her feelings for Damien, and he had rushed off the phone. It was so horrible it was almost comical.
Tossing her napkin on her plate, she said, “Wow, I’m so pleased I called him. Now I only need to be mortified instead of worried.”
It was one in the morning when Damien’s plane landed at LaGuardia. By the time he had waited in the cab line and ridden through the tunnel, it was two when he pulled up in front of Mandy’s building in the Village. He had been planning on picking her up there for the dinner plans they’d had the night before.
The plans he had canceled on her after he’d walked out of the hospital.
And now she’d told him she loved him.
Biting his fingernail, he climbed out with his carry-on and paid the driver.
