It made sense on paper. It was logical. It should work.
Her heels clicked faster on the pavement.
Tomorrow, she had her meeting with Harper. Soon, Grant would go on his date. Emmy Woodhouse was going to prove to Cecelia, to Sabine, and to everyone watching that she wasn't just a girl who brought home stray cats.
She was a professional. And she was going to win.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emmy was trying to read, but the words had declared mutiny somewhere around page forty-seven.
It was 10:15 PM. She was sitting in her favorite armchair—a vintage velvet find she'd had reupholstered in sage green—with a glass of Pinot Noir and a bowl of fresh cherries.
She looked calm. She knew she looked calm. She was wearing her favorite silk lounge set—the pearl-colored one that made her feel like a 1940s film star—and she'd even lit the Diptyque candle on the coffee table. If anyone walked in, they would see a woman enjoying a sophisticated evening of solitude.
Except the exhale wouldn't come. She'd been sitting here for forty minutes, and her body didn't know what to do with the absence of a task. Her left knee bounced. She'd caught herself checking her phone eleven times—not for anything specific, just for input, the way someone starving opens the fridge knowing it's empty. The book was supposed to help. The wine was supposed to help. She'd arranged this entire evening like a set piece—candle, cherries, cashmere—because she'd read somewhere that successful women enjoyed their own company, and Emmy was going to enjoy her own company if it killed her.
It might, actually. She'd spent the last forty-eight hours emailing revised questionnaires, analyzing response times, and flagging two new potential matches for Grant. Her entire life, at this specific moment, was other people's love lives. She hadn't even had time to buy groceries. Dinner was a bowl of Bing cherries and a Pinot that deserved better company.
But internally, the calm was a lie.
The date had started at seven. Silence at 10:15 meant Grant was either having the time of his life, or he was currently drafting a lawsuit against Elite Connections.
"It's fine," she told the empty room, taking a sip of wine. "They're hitting it off. Juliana is fascinating. Grant appreciates efficiency. They're probably discussing the architectural integrity of the Zakim Bridge."
She refused to be the anxious matchmaker pacing the floor. She was a professional. She had standards.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound cracked through her carefully staged calm like a rock through plate glass. Heavy, rhythmic, authoritative.
Emmy set her wine glass down on a coaster—carefully—and went to the door. She checked the peephole, though she already knew who it was.
Grant.
She unlocked the door and swung it open.
Grant stood in the hallway, looking like he'd been through a war.
His blazer was slung over one shoulder like it had personally offended him. His tie hung loose, a casualty of whatever battle he'd just survived. His hair looked like it had been raked by hands that were having a very bad night. Without the baseball cap, without the soft cotton of a Saturday afternoon, he looked like a man wearing a costume he'd already half-shed.
He looked exhausted. Frustrated. And—her brain supplied this unbidden, without permission, completely unhelpfully—deliciously rumpled. Like aGQspread about the morning after.
But the most jarring detail was the large, grease-stained box from Sal's Pizza in his left hand.
"You," Grant said, his voice rough, "owe me."
Emmy stepped back to let him in, her eyebrows lifting. "That bad?"
"She sent the salmon back, Em." Grant walked past her, bringing the scent of cold night air, expensive cologne, and pepperoni into her sanctuary. "Twice."
Emmy closed the door and turned, crossing her arms over the silk of her top. "Was it undercooked?"
"It was 'improperly sourced.'" Grant walked straight to her kitchen island—which was spotless,thank God—and dropped the pizza box. He tossed his blazer over the back of a barstool. "She called the chef out to the table. Literally asked for the chef. She asked for documentation. The man was holding a spatula and she demanded his fish papers."
Emmy winced. "Okay. That's... intense."
Grant flipped the pizza box open. He looked at the pizza like it was a holy relic. "I didn't eat. I couldn't. I felt like if I chewed too loudly she'd deduct points from my performance review."
