"Glad we clearedthat up."
"Me too."
We kept dancing. The song ended. Another began. I didn't let go.
Graham caught me near the bar an hour later, while Willow was in the restroom.
"Who are you," he said, "and what have you done with Callum Hayes?"
I set down my empty champagne glass. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You laughed. Out loud. Multiple times. I counted four."
"That seems excessive."
"It's unprecedented." Graham leaned against the bar, studying me with undisguised curiosity. "You're different tonight. Looser. More... human."
"I'm always human."
"You're usually an impressive facsimile of human. Tonight you're actually enjoying yourself." His gaze moved to where Willow had disappeared. "This is her doing."
"Don't—"
"I'm not criticizing." He held up his hands. "I'm observing. Whatever's happening between you two, it'sgood for you. I haven't seen you like this in... honestly, I don't know if I've ever seen you like this."
I didn't have a response for that. The observation was too accurate to deflect, too close to home to acknowledge.
"Just be careful," Graham added. "You've got a lot riding on the next few months. The Ashford contract, the firm's trajectory, your reputation. Don't let?—"
"Let what?"
"Don't let your heart overrule your head."
Too late, I wanted to say. Much too late.
We left at eleven.
The gallery crowd had thinned, the jazz quartet packing up, the waitstaff collecting abandoned glasses with the quiet efficiency of people who'd done this a thousand times. Willow's hand found mine as we walked to the car—casual, proprietary, no longer pretending.
I opened her door. She slid inside. I walked around to my side and sat behind the wheel.
Neither of us moved.
"Tonight was..." She trailed off. Tried again. "I had a good time. A real one. Not a 'this is going wellfor our arrangement' good time. An actual, genuine, I-didn't-want-it-to-end good time."
"Me too."
"You defended me to that slimy developer guy."
"Reeves deserves worse than what I gave him."
She turned in her seat, facing me. In the dim interior, her features were soft, her eyes bright.
"Callum." My name in her mouth did things to my composure. "What are we doing?"
The question I'd been avoiding. The question that had been building since the couch, since the piano, since the moment she'd walked into Brew & Bean and handed me a coffee with an insult and rearranged my entire life.
"I don't know," I admitted. "But I don't want to stop."
