“Don’t tell him I said so, but it was a good idea.”
As the air-conditioning circulates, I’m hit again with Will’s scent. Cedar in sunlight. I peek at his profile and let myself watchhim while he focuses on the road. There’s a tenseness to the set of his jaw, but his posture is almost forcibly relaxed. I wouldn’t have guessed he felt out of place with me unless I’d known to look for it.
Has Will told Zoe about this yet? That we ran into each other after all this time, that he signed a contract with my company? I wonder what their relationship is like these days. Are they closer than they were as teenagers? More estranged than ever?
“How do you like Austin?” Will asks.
“I never want to leave.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “I remember that feeling.”
“What about New York?” I ask.
“New York is great. It’s always been great.” He shifts in his seat, eyes darting over to me briefly. “I’m just tired, I think. I sleep better here, away from the noise of Manhattan. This is my favorite place to visit clients.”
“Sothat’swhy you changed your mind about Revenant,” I joke.
“No,” Will says. “I changed my mind because I was in the wrong, and you deserve better.” When I don’t immediately reply, he adds, voice going soft, “You’ve always deserved better from me, Josie.”
My voice catches in my throat. “Yeah, well, Zoe deserved better from both of us.”
After a moment he says, “I leaned in first.”
“We leaned in at the exact same time,” I say, while goose bumps erupt over every inch of my skin. “Don’t rewrite history to ease my conscience. It was perfectly mutual.”
We pull up to the restaurant parking lot thirty seconds later, but neither of us makes a move to immediately vacate the car. I’m envisioning his lips on my skin. His fingers in my hair. His voice, urgent and broken, murmuringYou feel perfecton a deserted stretch of beach.
He’s thinking of it, too. I can tell.
Will turns to me in his seat, his eyes as dark as the water thatnight. “I can’t change what happened in the past, or the way I wasn’t there for you afterward. All I can do is give you my absolute best from this point on. You haven’t seen me at my best—not then, and not yesterday—but that changes starting tonight.”
I bite my lower lip in amusement. “Did you practice that?”
“Three times. How did I do?”
“Pretty good,” I say, laughing.
Will offers me a small smile. “Shall we go swindle the most notorious retail shark on the West Coast out of a four-hundred-dollar bottle of wine?”
“Five hundred,” I counter. “He’s got property outside Napa.”
Derrick ends up surpassing both our guesses, and I think it’s because he’s pleased with this turn of events—buddying up with Ellis Consulting, and at a discount. I’ve discovered that Derrick Lovell wines and dines people only when he thinks he’s getting the better end of a deal, and tonight, he’s pulling out all the stops on Will. But after the appetizer plates are cleared away, Derrick takes a phone call and comes back to our table in a rush.
“I have to get back to SF.” He pulls his coat off his chair, nodding at us once with no further explanation. “I’ll flag down our waiter and pay the bill. See you both soon.”
With that, he’s gone. Will turns to me, his brow hitched.
“He’s like that,” I explain. “It’s either his wife, his kids, or another one of his investments that needs tending to.”
“He flies private, I assume?”
I nod. “I was on that jet once. The pilot’s name is Gerald. He likes to joke about maintenance issues.”
Will blanches.
Our entrées arrive, and as we tuck in, I make a calculated ploy to turn the conversation on him.
“Tell me about your time in New York.”
