We stay.
But eventually, I pull back. I’m not even sure if this is Reid’s hotel room, and something tells me Agent Tirmizi would not approve of us having sex on her bed, not to mention Reid’s lawyer. Also, I haven’t forgotten that two of my friends are tooling around New Jersey in a rental car, waiting for news from me.
And anyway, I don’t think we can leave these promises at a kiss.
Reid clutches both my hands in his. “I don’t know how, Meg,” he says, “but I promise you, I will fix it, whatever’s been done to your business because of this.”
Wrong promise.
“No, you won’t.” I make my voice as stern as his usually is.
He looks at me, startled.
“I’ll fix it myself,” I say. “I’m not taking the Make It Happyn job, but I—”
“You got it?” he says, his eyes lighting with pride, with relief.
“Sort of.” I briefly—as gently as possible, under Reid’s current guilt-ridden circumstances—explain their offer, the “hidden messages” concept.
“You could do it, Meg,” he says quickly, before I’ve finished. “Please don’t—”
“I’m not turning it down because of you. It’s not whatIwant. It’s not what I worked for, these past few months. It’s not what all those walks with you helped me see. About myself, and about what I’m capable of.”
My heart swells when I see that curve in his cheek, another almost-thereswoonsh.
“I promise,” I tell him, “I’ve got a plan for my work, my business. Or at least the beginnings of one. You have to focus on what’s coming up for you, and—”
The curve disappears, and his brow furrows again.
“It’s going to be hard for a while, Meg. For me, it’ll be hard. I don’t know how I’ll keep you out of it, now that your name is in this.”
“Reid, I’m trying to tell you. You don’thaveto keep me out of it. If you’re in it, I’m in it. We’re in it together.”
It’s going to be such a fight, I already know it. The trial, the press. The gossip. It’s going to be so uncomfortable. It’d be so much easier to leave.
“But,” I add, and his hands tighten immediately, briefly on mine. I rub my thumbs over his skin, soothing him. “You need to know, I’m not leaving New York. I ran away from one home because of a scandal. I’m not doing it again.”
There’s a long pause.
“Good,” he says finally, a firm tip of his head. “I’m not leaving New York, either.”
“No?”
He shakes his head.
“But you ha—”
“I love it here,” he interrupts. “You’re here.”
I furrow my brow, remembering our night in Maryland, remembering all of Reid’s frustrations with the city—the noise, the crowds, the gray, the dirt. There’s all that, and now this—this spotlight on him. This reputation that will follow him.
“I don’t know if that’s enough,” I say. “For you to stay.”
“It’s enough,” he says, immediately. “It’s everything.” He leans in, kisses me again. “But there’s also all those numbers in my letter to you. Every place we ever went to together. I love those places. It’s like I said, Meg. I would’ve kept those places close to me forever. Even if you’d never wanted to see me again.”
He pauses, wipes another tear—this one, happy—from my cheek. “And also, still the food.”
I smile, looking into his not-sad eyes. “You made a joke,” I say.
