Page 23 of Don't Tell

I sigh. She’s a company I don't need. She didn’t tell me she was coming. Well, Lila never does. Lila likes to act as though we’re closer than we actually are. I let her, because I think that’s her way of dealing with the breakup. Two years later, and it appears she’s still dealing.

“Send her in.”

James retreats, and two minutes later, Lila strolls in. She walks in wearing a wool coat I bought for her on our first vacation together and sunglasses she does not need indoors.

She kisses my cheek before I stand up. Her blonde hair brushes my shoulder and sways as she moves.

"You're back!" She beams at me and settles into a chair in front of my desk. “I’ve missed you terribly. Where have you been?”

I’m sure she’s been by the office a few times to see me. I don’t ask. “I’m just here for the day. I’ve been staying at the Cresswell for some time.”

“Oh? What a coincidence. I have a meeting with a client there today.” She claps her hands. “This just works out perfectly.”

I raise one eyebrow. “How?”

“I need a ride. My driver has the flu. Terrible thing. I’ll be late if I try to get a car service, and you know how brides are. Very demanding.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

She giggles. “Oh, Cade. You’re always so funny. I need you to give me a ride, silly, since we're heading in the same direction. You can do this for me, can’t you?”

Lila bats her long eyelashes at me. It’s supposed to make her look adorable, but it just looks like she has something stuck in her eyes. I don’t comment on it.

I grab my keys and rise to my feet. I was going to head back to the hotel soon anyway.

"Sure."

Her green eyes light up. “Thanks, Cade. You’re truly a saint.”

I don’t respond.

She talks the whole drive back to Napa. I register about a third of it. She is funny. She has always been a person I could be in a room with.

Halfway through the drive, she asks me what I’ve been doing in Napa.

"Work."

"That’s hardly an explanation. Your office isn't in Napa. Is there an artist you’re scouting there?”

I think of Suzanne. “Something like that.”

Lila soon moves on from that topic. She talks about her favorite thing…us, how much she knows me, and how good it was when we were together.

“Doesn’t it ever make you wonder…”

I’m glad when I pull into the hotel’s garage, effectively ending the conversation. We walk into the hotel together. I instantly begin searching for her. It doesn’t take me long to find her, even within a sea of identical uniforms.

Suzanne is at the front desk with an armful of fresh white linens. A woman is handing her a delivery slip, and Suzanne is signing it. The woman says something I can't hear from across the lobby, and it makes Suzanne laugh. The sight of her face doing that is worse than anything else that has happened to me today.

I’ve never made her laugh. It’s the first time I hear the sound, and I want her to make that exact same sound for me.

Then she looks up. Her eyes find me first. They go to Lila next. They come back to me.

I see the second she registers what she is seeing. I see her face close for less than a second. She turns. She walks toward the service corridor.

Lila kisses my cheek. I’m grateful that Suzanne at least didn’t see that part.

"Make actual time for me, Cade. I miss you." She turns toward the restaurant.