“Yes.” If you wanted something, you took a chance. I wanted Charlotte, so I’d take the chance, tell her everything, and pray she saw the risk was worth taking, too. If not, I could at least walk away knowing I’d been honest and vulnerable and willing to imagine better.
It had all the makings of a disaster.
––––––––
I WANTED TO say I hadn’t spent the past two weeks thinking about Ford, but I didn’t have the energy to lie to myself. I’d worn myself out with work. My clients were better represented than ever. I couldn’t get them back the years they’d spent chasing love or unbreak their hearts, but I could get them the best damn settlement possible. And if not happiness, maybe a little vindication. It was more than I’d managed for myself. When Alex bugged me one more time about the blind date, it was easier to say yes than to work up the energy to say no.
The car pulled up in front of the Antoinette Center, and I checked my lipstick and smoothed a hand over the ponytail I’d fastened my hair in. Alex and Erik offered to pick me up, but I just couldn’t bear playing third wheel to the happy couple. Going out was bad enough. My heart ached, and I missed Ford. A half dozen times every day, I thought of something I wanted to text him. A picture of a recipe we could try or something I wanted to ask him. The few minutes I wasn’t working, I spent cruising food blogs in some kind of weird culinary version of emotional cutting. At least getting dressed up and fielding advances from the guy Erik set me up with would be a distraction.
But it was another thing to feel bad about. It didn’t matter how charming the guy was, or how good on paper; he didn’t stand a chance. I was one of those baby ducks who imprinted on a golden retriever and then couldn’t transition back to being a duck again. The ones who followed the object of their affection around, living their best dog life when they should be paddling around in a lake somewhere. Or maybe it was nothing like that. Regardless, when I imagined kissing someone, it was Ford’s face I saw. Ford’s voice calling mecherin that way that sounded likesha, telling me to sugar the beignets and don’t hold back. I didn’t know how long it would be before I could picture someone else in that role, but I knew tonight wasn’t the night.
I made my way up the stairs, careful of my strappy sandals and the skirt of the celadon column dress I’d chosen as armor for the evening. I couldn’t go out defenseless,and the height of the heels and the low drape of silk baring most of my back projected a confidence I didn’t feel. This was one situation where I was perfectly comfortable faking it until I made it. Or until I was safely back home again—whichever came first.
I scanned the room at the top of the stairs and exhaled when I saw Alex and Erik. Under the premise that ripping off a Band-Aid was better than inching it off, I started toward my friends. Alex shifted slightly, laughing at something someone said. Erik followed her like a satellite. My heart softened a little. The guy clearly adored my friend. It might not change my views on love, but even his unconscious body language was directed at Alex. He leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek, and I caught a glimpse of a familiar set of shoulders. A familiar jaw and—fuck.
Ford turned to face me. Ford in a tuxedo that fit like it had been made for him. My heart did a kind of stutter, and I froze in place. I’d barely been holding it together when he was just a thought in my head, a memory of the things we’d done together. Faced with the reality of the man in front of me, I didn’t stand a chance.
“What are you doing here?” I grabbed onto the one thought I could actually handle, and given the circumstances, maybe the most important one.
He took a step toward me, his expression shifting from warmth to a heat that had nothing to do with sex. Ford was angry. Justifiable given the way I’d left him and ignored his texts. Anger was fine; that was something I could work with.
“You two know each other? How?” Alex moved into my line of sight, breaking the rage sex web that bound me to Ford the second I saw him.
“Ford is the praline guy I mentioned at Meredith’s.” I couldn’t say I told her about him because I hadn’t told her anything. Maybe if I had, we could have nipped this case of mistaken identity in the bud.
“Oh.” Her eyes went wide in surprise a second before she broke into a grin. “Ohh.” She dragged the word out to two syllables.
“No,” I said, cutting her off before she went tripping too far down the happily ever after path. I didn’t know what was going on, but Ford and I and a two-syllableohweren’t it.
“Introductions seem redundant at this point, but we might do better if we threw in some last names.” Erik put his hand on Ford’s shoulder and turned to face me. “Charlotte Ellis, I’d like you to meet Ford Landry. He’s a client, a wildly successful restauranteur, and your date for the night.”
I’d been looking for a reason to hate Erik, and he’d finally given it to me. Either that or he just got caught in the ricochet. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think of anything beyond the fact that Ford lied to me. After all the “just be honest with me” bullshit he’d spouted while we were in bed together, he’d lied to me about who he was. I was walking around nursing a broken heart for a man who’d never really existed. Which confirmed my reasons for walking out the door of the hotel room in the first place. At least I didn’t have to deal with the niggling doubt anymore. The thought that I might have turned away from something real. True love, my ass.
But I could turn away now.
“I’ll talk to you later.” I directed my comment to Alex before I turned to go.
“Charlotte, wait,” Ford called after me.
A smart woman would ignore him, keep going out the door, straight home and out of the uncomfortable heels and dress, not stopping until she was on the couch with a pint of peanut butter cup Halo Top and an e-reader. But my couch held too many memories of snuggling with Ford, watchingDiscovery of Witcheswith his arms around me. His lips pressed to the top of my head.
Apparently, I wasn’t as smart as I liked to think. I spun around to face him, channeling the full force of my anger without raising my voice. Years in the courtroom taught me when a woman yells, she’s ignored, but get quiet and they start to get afraid. “You lied to me. You had weeks to tell me the truth and you didn’t. We don’t have anything else to say to each other.”
“Like hell we don’t. You’re the one who snuck out of bed in the middle of the night without so much as a good-bye. Who didn’t answer my texts. You closed the door and never bothered to look back. You’re the one who thought you were going on a date with a stranger. Didn’t take you long to get back on that horse.”
“Fuck you.”Asshole.He did not get to judge me. Not for that or anything else. I turned away, determined to get the hell out of there, even if it meant leaving one of my heels behind like Cinderella. I harbored no delusions about a prince chasing after me. Ford was the only one there.
“Charlotte, wait. I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. Please.”
It was thepleasethat stopped me, but just for a second and just because I needed a place to direct the rage and hurt I didn’t want to carry anymore.
“You know what? You are a stranger to me. I have no idea who you are.” I leteverything else go for the moment, including the fact that he seemed to have known I was the one showing up tonight. I’d deal with that and Erik later.
“You know all the important parts. You know I want to be with you. That I wanted to take a chance on us. I still do.” He looked sincere—if you were into that kind of thing. I wasn’t. “I never meant to lie to you. You’re the one who insisted on no last names. You just assumed you knew who I was.”
“You really want to have a spirit of the law versus letter of the law argument with me? You were working behind a fucking bar. I assumed you were a bartender. It wasn’t exactly a stretch.” I drew in a deep breath, letting my anger push away some of the pain. “You had plenty of chances to tell me the truth. You chose to lie to me instead.”
“You’re right. A lie of omission is still a lie. I’m not going to make excuses. I could have told you the truth—I should have, and I didn’t.”
