“Sorry I’m late. There was an accident—traffic was completely backed up.”
Jasper stood beside the table—tall, composed, wearing a dark jacket. His hair was slightly rumpled, keys and phone in hand. He gave Margo a brief, assessing look, clearly trying to figure out why she was there.
“Good evening,” he said politely.
Margo froze. The smile slid off her face as if erased. She looked from Jasper to Nina, her expression shifting as the realization slowly sank in.
“You… you’re together?” It wasn’t really a question—more an attempt to make sense of what she was seeing.
Jasper sat down beside Nina, and Nina suddenly felt something warm flicker in her chest. The situation was absurd. Watching Margo’s face cycle through confusion, embarrassment, and disbelief was oddly satisfying.
“We… run into each other a lot,” Jasper said calmly.
Margo blinked again. Understanding arrived in pieces. Her cheeks flushed. In her mind, assumptions, rumors, and half-baked theories collapsed all at once.
She forced a thin smile.
“Well… then I won’t interrupt,” she muttered.“Have a good evening, Nina.”
“You too, Margo,” Nina replied with such sincere warmth that she almost laughed. Margo’s discomfort was painfully obvious.
She left.
Jasper watched her go, then asked,“Do I know her? She looked at me like I was familiar.”
“I don’t think so,” Nina shrugged.
She took another sip of tea and laughed softly. The tension she’d been carrying all evening suddenly lifted. She hadn’t planned anything. She’d just come to dinner.And yet, simply by sitting here with Jasper, she’d erased piles of filth that had been thrown her way.
Let them think it was all Frank’s revenge, a hit piece from an ex-husband angry that his wife had left him for another man. A stronger one. A better one.
Jasper leaned in slightly, studying her face.
“What?” Nina asked.
He shook his head.
“Nothing. It just seems like you look… different tonight.”
Dinner turned out to be unexpectedly easy. Even… pleasant.
Nina caught herself realizing that she was genuinely interested in listening to him.
He talked about ordinary things—how Lynn had once rescued a puppy from a garbage truck, how a new resident at the clinic had mixed up a stroke with a pinched nerve. Simple stories. Nothing extraordinary. And yet Nina found herself smiling.
Really smiling.
And that frightened her more than anything else.
She didn’t notice time passing. Somewhere between her second cup of tea and dessert, it suddenly dawned on her that she didn’t want the evening to end.
The thought startled her—and something clicked inside her mind.
Jasper Garth split into two separate figures.
One was the man from her past, the one who came to her in nightmares.
And the other was this man sitting across from her now. Smiling. Adult. Intelligent. Attentive. Interesting. A man she was beginning to see differently.
