Caleb shakes his head. “I’ve been in this room the whole time. Haven’t touched my phone once.”
“You don’t need to touch your phone. Devices connect to each other,” I accuse, knowing one of them—probably Caleb—has to be the culprit. “You could have texted from your laptop.”
Caleb’s mouth kicks up at the side, amused. “And told him what, exactly?”
Shit. I clamp my mouth shut before something betraying comes out. If I say too much, I risk exposing the real reason we were late. Knowing I chose making out with Audrey over being on time would catapult Dominic into a week-long meme spree and make every future meeting a misery. I don’t owe anyone that ammunition.
But there’s another problem. I can’t figure out how he found out so fast. Dominic is many things—genius, chaos agent, tea snob—but psychic is not one of them.
I glare at Caleb, but he meets my stare with such wide-eyed innocence it can only be fake.
“Maybe,” he says, milking the pause, “Dominic has spies everywhere.”
“Or,” Bennett adds, “it’s just very, very obvious.”
That stings for reasons I refuse to examine.
Across the table, Landon glances up, finally registering the shift in the social weather that he gives me a quick, sidelong assessment. “Is there a reason I’m being left out of an inside joke?” he asks.
“There’s no joke,” Jenna provides from the corner of the room where she’s been sitting quietly since she returned. “I’m the one responsible for notifying Dominic of your tardiness.”
“Youtold Dominic?” I ask, shocked. She doesn’t even like Dominic. Why the hell is she texting him?
“I did.” She doesn’t look up from her screen. “The man texts me incessantly under the guise of the Tokyo project. I merely mentioned that I was in a meeting but the team leads were running behind schedule. He drew his own conclusions.”
“His own conclusions being that something happened between me and Audrey.”
“I can’t control what conclusions Dominic draws. The man sees romantic subtext in grocery lists.” She pauses, then adds, almost reluctantly, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t tell himwhyyou were late. Just that you were.”
My face goes hot. “How do you know why I was late?”
For the first time in all the years I’ve known her, the cool and calm facade Jenna always exhibits cracks. It’s a momentary widening of the eyes, anoh shitflash across her face before her features settle back into her default setting, as if she’s dragged her own panic into the same cold storage she uses for everything else.
“I don’t,” she says, her tone deadpan. “That’s why I didn’t tell him—couldn’t tell him.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Caleb leans forward, suddenly very alert. “Couldn’t tell himwhat? What aren’t you telling us, Jenna? What did you learn when you went to the bathroom?”
“What happens in the women’s bathroom is sacred, Caleb.”
He turns back to me. “What did she learn, Logan?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Your face says otherwise.” He looks between me and Jenna. “What happened? Why would being late mean anything?”
Bennett has set down his tablet now, giving me his full attention. “Logan?”
“Can we please focus on the FDA timeline?”
“Absolutely not,” Caleb says. “Not until you tell us what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing to?—”
“You’re a terrible liar. Always have been.” Caleb’s grin is spreading. “Something happened with Audrey. Before the meeting. You’ve been like a sad puppy dog ever since she left, miserable since she returned. And tonight you’re…”
Bennett leans back in his seat and steeples his fingers. “He’s glowing.”
“The f—” I stop myself. “That’s what Layla and Serena said about Audrey. Don’t use that shit on me.”
