I want to ask about the two of us. But I chicken out at the last second, and another question emerges from my mouth. “How do you feel about…”Me?“Allegra?”
Ugh. I’m a coward.
“I mean, what happened between the two of you?” I amend, trying to sound like this is totally normal.
“Are you kidding? I don’t want to talk about her now, of all times.”
“It’s a legitimate question.” I double down. Now that I’ve asked, I’m genuinely curious.
He sighs. “We were never compatible. I shouldn’t have tried dating her. It was stupid.”
Does that mean him trying any relationship was stupid? Or just with her. Inquiring minds want to know.
I want to kick myself. This inquiring mind doesnotneed to know the answer. I’m in bed with my ex-boss, someone I’ve tried to get out of my heart for years. This is me living. This is me having a once-in-a-lifetime experience without having a twenty-page list of dos and don’ts mapped out in advance. I know I’ll likely have a broken heart at the end of this long weekend, or at least a slightly dented one. I don’t need to make it worse byoverthinking things. I need to just enjoy this for the short time we have.
Naughty daydreams are okay.
Daydreams about hitting theForbes’s“30 under 30” list are okay.
Engagement ring fantasies are not.
No matter how good and how special this is, when we leave here, I will go back to making my practical, real-life dreams come true by building a business. And he will likely go back to film sets and yachts and famously beautiful women.
He whispers a kiss against my hair, and my heart turns over, despite all the defenses I’m trying to put back into place.
“I-I’d always been scared of relationships,” he explains. “Seeing the example my parents and grandparents set, I was raised believing that if you let people too close, it would turn toxic.”
“My parents taught me that also,” I admit.
“But the way your dad spoke about your mom… I thought they had an epic love story.”
“They did, before she died,” I say slowly. I’m not used to sharing things about my past. But I find myself opening up more and more to the man beside me. “They were deeply in love. And look how that turned out. My dad couldn’t function because of his grief. He buried himself in drugs and alcohol. And my aunt, who raised Sadie and me, turned into a hoarder who could barely leave the house when my uncle passed.” I shake my head. “We Reynoldses love impossibly hard. But it decimates us when we lose that love. Maybe I used working for you as an excuse because you didn’t leave me with a lot of time to get on Tinder,” I joke.
He tilts my chin up. His expression is deeply sincere. It’s very un-Sebastian-like, but I’m realizing that the boss I thought I knew so well has depths that I haven’t begun to fathom.
“I’m sorry, Em. I’m sorry it took you quitting to open my eyes. To make me see so much. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you at first, didn’t respect what you were trying to say about going after your goals. I figured if you had more time off, if you had your own assistant, that would solve the problem. But now I see how happy Dream Space makes you when you talk about it. You glow.” His mouth quirks. “Getting coffee for me does not light you up like that.”
“Hmm, it depends. Sometimes I very much enjoyed bringing you coffee in bed. Especially since you have a tendency to sleep naked,” I tease, touching my finger to the small indentation in his chin.
He kisses my forehead. “You said your family loves impossibly hard. Have you ever been in love?” he asks.
Besides with you?The thought pops into my head, unbidden. I kick it away. I’ve fallen in deep, deep like. But it can’t be love. Love would be reckless, and I’m not a reckless person.
I shake my head. “I thought I was once. But it wasn’t real. I was so damn grateful for my first boyfriend. I thought he was the first person who looked past my background. Who really saw me forme. We met in high school, and then we went to community college together. I realize now that I was just desperate for stability. We were a couple for four years until he transferred to a university a few hours away. He said we’d be together forever. But it only took a month of separation for him to break that promise. One day, he stopped returning my calls. I saw on social media that he was with a cute sorority girl. And that was it. He never officially broke up with me or explained. He just ghosted. We’d been talking about moving in together and then… nothing.”
“I want to fucking kill him.”
I laugh, gratified by his feral expression. “Same. I can’t believe I wanted to live with that asshole.”
“He didn’t deserve you.” He runs a finger down my face to my chin and lightly brushes my lips. “We’ve lived together,” he smirks.
“I’m not sure if your giant mansion counts,” I tease.
“That wasn’t the only time. Remember being on set in the middle of nowhere, Australia, when we were both staying in that small condo filming the Kahale brothers movie? You’d stayed with me plenty of times in Malibu or on set before. But that was the first time we’d been in such tight quarters. And I fucking loved it.”
My heart races at his words. I hadn’t originally planned on joining him in Australia, so when I tried to book accommodations, the tiny town was completely sold out. I stayed with Sebastian while I was there. It made sense. It was a two-bedroom, and he was always on set. But it felt unexpectedly intimate.
“That place was so small. We even had to share a bathroom,” I say.
