The hostess seats us at a table right across from the tree, handing us menus and promising our server will be right with us. I already know I’m ordering the cheeseburger and a beer. Jess is going to get the grilled cheese with tomato soup and a glass of white wine.
I hide my triumphant smile when the waiter appears and she orders exactly that.
Food and drinks ordered and menus swept away, there isn’t much left to focus on. Other than her.
“You look beautiful.” It slips out before I can think of all the reasons I shouldn’t say it.
Her full lips pull down in a frown. “I’m just in my hanging-out clothes with no makeup on. No need to try to flatter me.”
I shrug, gratefully accepting the beer the server delivers. “I’m not. You just do, and I thought you should know.”
She studies me for an uncomfortable minute before swigging from her glass of sauvignon blanc. “Thanks, I guess.”
There’s something new hidden in the depths of her brown eyes. Something different from disdain and lust, the only two emotions she’s shown me since she arrived in a flurry the evening before. There’s a whirlpool of emotion circling there, clouding her whiskey-colored eyes as she studies me.
Has it really been only twenty-four hours since she exploded back into my life?
Knowing I can wait her out, I drain half my beer.
“Did you ask SVP to have me introduce you last night at the awards ceremony?”
There’s no judgment or anger in her question, just a genuine curiosity.
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Jess. I know it can’t have been easy to get up onstage and say nice things about me, but I also know it probably felt impossible to say no. I would never dream of putting you in that position.”
“To be fair, I mostly said nice things about your books. Not that that’s any easier than saying nice things about you.”
I fight a smile as we slide into more familiar territory. “What’s wrong with my books?”
She grimaces and finishes her glass of wine. “You claim to write romance, and yet, you completely disrespect one of the founding rules of the genre.”
I sit back in my chair, ready for the debate I’ve had toengage in many times over the years. “And yet, millions of readers don’t seem to mind.”
“It’s not that your books are bad, Nick, or even that people are wrong for reading and enjoying them, it’s that they shouldn’t be marketed as romance.”
I raise one eyebrow. “So you’ve read my books?”
She rolls her eyes and signals to the server for another round of drinks. “Obviously, I’ve read them, or I wouldn’t know that you’re incapable of writing a happy ending.”
“How can I write a happy ending when my own blew up in my face?”
The shot of whiskey and the beer must have caught up with me because I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth. Shit.
“Blew up in your face?” Jess repeats, her voice incredulous. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I seem to recall, vividly and explicitly, you being the one who ended our relationship. Unless…” Her eyes widen and she sits back in her chair, a humorless laugh caught in the back of her throat. “You’re not talking about me. Of course, there was someone else.”
My hand darts across the table, grasping onto hers. “There was no one else, Jess. There wasn’t before you, and there hasn’t been since.”
She yanks her hand from mine. “Then why are you pretending like you’re not at fault? Like someone else was responsible for the way we ended? Like you weren’t the one who destroyed us?”
The server chooses this completely inopportune moment to deliver our second round of drinks, along with our food.
Jess glares at me for a second before pushing back her chair. “I think I’d prefer to enjoy dinner in my room.” She takes her plate and the glass of wine and stomps out of the dining room.
Leaving me alone, the eyes of everyone in the restaurant watching me with either pity, or curiosity, or both.
I ignore the eyes and the hollow feeling in my chest, and eat my dinner. I text Hilary in total desperation, asking if she can work her assistant magic and find an extra available room in this fully booked hotel. It takes her an hour to respond, which means she really tried to work the system, but I’m not surprised when she tells me it’s impossible. When I get back to the room, Jess is already tucked into her side of the bed. And she’s left a mound of pillows down the middle of the mattress, making sure there won’t be a repeat of this morning’s groping session.
That mound of pillows might as well be a brick wall. Jess is never going to be able to forgive me. Our second-chance romance is over before it’s really begun.
