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I closed my eyes. “No, there isn’t.”
“What? Your budding writing career couldn’t have gone off-track just because of your family. Come on. There’s something you’re leaving out.”
I shook my head. There wasn’t anything else—that was the most shameful thing about it. The part I couldn’t excuse. I had settled for a mediocre life. “No. I stayed for the wedding. And then I stayed after the wedding. Then Frannie got pregnant. Everyone wanted me to stay for my niece. And then it was a nephew. And then another niece. More showers. More nurseries to decorate.”
His eyes widened. “Frannie has three kids?”
“What did you expect? She married a damn pediatrician.” I covered my mouth. “Sorry, that sounded bitchy. I really didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Evie, I don’t give a shit what you say about your sister.” He grinned and I relaxed. He might have been the only person who didn’t put Frannie on a pedestal.
I hadn’t finished my wine, but Jeremy was already topping it off. I took a sip. It tasted full and expensive.
“So that’s it. I came home. And I never left. But you know, I have an incredible screenplay.” I leaned on the table. “Ok, I actually have ten incredible screenplays. They are very successful in Bella’s cellar,” I joked.
“If you’ve married off your sister and played aunt, why don’t you leave now instead of living out a tragic Jane Austen character’s life.”
I almost choked on my wine. “You remember Jane Austen? And used her in a social reference? Who is this version of Jeremy Hartwell?” I teased.
“Steel trap.” He tapped the side of his tanned face. “And I’m well-read.” He took the banter well. I couldn’t be the first girl to throw a dumb jock joke in his face. “You should do it, though. Go. Get out of this town a second time. Write and do something else. I’ve been back all of twelve hours and I can see it—nothing is happening here.”
“You think I could show up in L.A. now? I’m practically thirty, Jeremy. Thirty.” I said it like the numbers were a death sentence looming in front of me. They felt like one. A lethal blow to my biological clock.
I stared into my glass as if it held the answers to aging. Was there a fountain of youth potion inside Italian wine? Was that why my father kept it buried in the back of the cellar? Is that why we never drank it?
“What’s thirty? I’m thirty.”
“First, you’re a guy. That basically disqualifies you from this conversation. A guy at thirty, at forty, even fifty is not the same. Second, your resume at thirty blows mine out of the water.”
He stretched his arm against the back of the booth. His forearms tensed as his muscles flexed. I had to stop staring at his every little movement. What if he noticed he made my mouth water?
“Let’s see, my resume includes a failed three-year career as a professional athlete, which prepares me for exactly zero other careers in life. Other than commentating. And have you ever listened to baseball play-by-play? Not my true calling. So you can mark that off your list while you’re doling out career counseling advice.”
I laughed. The banter came easily between us. I didn’t think we had ever talked together this long as teenagers.
“Come on. You’re a Hartwell. What about the family business?” I didn’t believe life was hard for him. He’d always been privileged and wealthy. Stellar at everything he touched.
“I don’t want it.” His eyes flared.
“You don’t want to run Hartwell Global? Why not? Isn’t that your destiny?”
“Do you want to devote your life to running Bella’s?” he retorted.
I sighed. “Ok. That’s fair. I guess the family business is the family business whether you’re serving gasoline or spaghetti.” I paused. “So if it’s not HG, then what do you want?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. But I’m going to be doing it on my own. My father made sure of that. I learned today I have to start from scratch. So I will.”
Jeremy kept topping off my wine. I lost track of how many half glasses I had possibly drunk. Was it four or five? And how did I add that to the first one I drank too fast? It could have been more like two it was so full. The candle fell into the chianti bottle and a small swirl of smoke drifted upward. It should have been my cue to clear out for the night, but Jeremy pushed it to the side and staggered to the table behind us to grab another candle. He returned, placing it in front of me. The small flame struggled to flicker, but finally glowed between us.
“There. Much better.” He smiled. “I like how your eyes look in the candlelight.”
I didn’t mean to frown, but I did. Was he hitting on me? And what if he was? Shouldn’t that be ok? He was an attractive man in town for the night. And we had a history even if it was a very loose and distant one. Maybe I didn’t think it was ok for him to flirt because he was Jeremy Hartwell. Known wealthy playboy. A teenager and now a man with a reputation for loving and leaving. He had slept with the entire cheerleading squad. I couldn’t remember a single time he had ever flirted with me in high school. But now? Alone at Stella’s, twelve years later, and he was offering wine and candlelight?
I wanted to pull my hair down around my shoulders as a shield from his flirting, but it was in a ponytail. I couldn’t help the way he made me blush. Taking my hair down would throw him a signal. I couldn’t do that.
“Going back to you, there’s one part of your story you haven’t told me,” he pried.
“What’s that?”
