Page 72 of Neap & Spring

“Vivienne,” he says, and the smile fades slightly. “We have ten days to put together something that would normally take months.”

“We can do it.”

“Can we?”

“We have to.” I start gathering papers and organizing them into piles. “We already have most of the pieces. We just need to put them together in a way that looks professional and comprehensive and —”

“Convincing.”

“Yeah. Convincing.”

Callum leans back in his chair, tilting his head up to stare at the ceiling. “You know what the crazy part is?”

“There are literally so many crazy parts to our situation right now.”

“A month ago, I thought I’d never see you again.” His voice is quiet but steady. “I’d made peace with it. I told myself you were just … gone. Just part of my past. Someone I used to know.”

My hands still on the papers.

“And now you’re here,” he continues, still looking at the ceiling. “Sitting at this table. Saving my restaurant. Making presentations to investors. Putting your hand on my thigh under the table to keep me from losing my shit.”

Heat floods my face and pools in my belly. “You noticed that.”

“Vivienne.” He looks at me now, a knowing gleam in his eyes. “I noticed all of it.”

My mouth goes dry. I reach for my water glass and take a drink just so he doesn’t see the blush creeping up my neck.

“Thank you,” he says, before I can say anything. “For all of this, really.”

“You don’t have to thank me. It’s literally my job.”

“I don’t think it’s your job to care this much.”

He’s right. It’s not my job to care this much. My job is to analyze, to strategize, and to present options, then let the client decide. My job is to be objective, professional, and detached.

But there’s nothing detached about the way I’ve been working these past weeks. Nothing objective about the hours I’ve spent thinking about this restaurant and about Callum, and how to fix what’s broken without breaking what’s beautiful.

And there was nothing professional about what just happened under that table, and we both know it.

“Well,” I say finally, “maybe I’m just bad at my job then.”

“You’re not bad at your job.” He’s looking at me with a dangerous look. “You’re incredible at your job. You just — you care. You’ve always cared. Even in school, when we were competing for top of the class, you cared about everyone around you. Made sure people ate, made sure they slept, called them out when they were pushing too hard.”

“Someone had to.”

“It didn’t have to be you.”

“Yes it did.” The words come out more intense than I intended. “Because if it wasn’t me, it wouldn’t have happened. And people would have — people would have broken.”

Callum studies my face, and I can see him processing.

“What happened, Vivi?” he asks quietly. “What happened that made you stop cooking?”

My throat closes up.

We were doing so well. We were laughing and finally working together. We were finding our way back to something that feels almost like friendship.

“I can’t,” I whisper.