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When he saw her, he got up to take her coat.
“Thank you.” She shrugged out of the wet raincoat and sat down.
He eyed her new red dress. “Is this a makeover thing?”
She shrugged. “Just a promise I made myself.”
He took his seat and poured two glasses of champagne from a bottle in an ice bucket. “What’s wrong with your other dresses?”
“Nothing. I like red.”
He handed her a glass. “You look beautiful, and I’m happy to see you.”
“Thanks for coming. I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”
“Do we toast or not?” He lifted his glass and waited.
She clinked her glass to his. “We toast.”
“To us?”
“To life.”
He gave an indulgent smile. “All right.” His eyes slipped to her left hand. “I see you’re not wearing my ring.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you going to?”
She took the velvet box from her handbag and pushed it across the table.
He stared at it for a moment. “Right.” He took a gulp of champagne and leaned back in his chair. “May I ask why not?”
“For starters, we don’t have the kind of relationship where you’d get down on one knee to propose or feel like dying every day you’re without me.”
He adjusted his tie. “Is that what you want?”
“That’s what I would’ve liked. That’s what I deserve.”
“A romantic proposal?”
“Romantic love. The kind that explodes like fireworks and makes you dizzy. The kind of crazy that makes normal bearable.”
He tapped a finger on the rim of his glass, studying the action intently while he processed her words. After a short silence, he looked up. “Where does this leave us?”
“Hopefully as friends.”
“It’s going to be hard looking at you as a friend.”
“Does that mean I won’t get breakfast and preferential treatment when I come to your office?”
He laughed. “Breakfast it’ll be, but I’ll have to treat you like a colleague and not as a future wife.”
She sipped her champagne. “You already got all the dirt on me there is. The story about how I failed on stage was a nasty one.”
“It was business, and you know it. Half the town was already running it on social media, anyway. I tried to be gentle.”
“So you did.”
It was true. It could’ve been worse. At least they didn’t drag her mother’s suicide and Ivan’s contest compromise into the article like the rival newspapers.
“What about Ivan?” he asked.
She stiffened at the mention of his name, but hid it behind her smile. “What about him?”
“Where is he?”
She bit her lip. “I honestly don’t know.”
His tone was bitter. “Looks like he walked out on a contract … and you.”
“No.” She allowed the knowledge of Ivan’s incredible love to warm her. “He just gave me a chance to live, again.”
He traced his tongue over his teeth, nodding slowly. “I hope you’ll find the life you’re after.”
She’d certainly do her best. Her mediocre living was in the past. It was time to be herself and embrace risks. The enormity of it, especially without Ivan, still scared her, but she’d take one small step at a time.
He pushed back his chair, got up, and slipped the velvet box into his jacket pocket. “If you don’t mind, I’m not going to pretend I have an appetite.”
“I understand.”
He regarded her for another moment before simply squeezing her shoulder as he walked past her to the door.
A baffled waiter scurried over. “Are you still ordering, miss?”
She picked up the menu. “Most definitely, but it’s dinner for one.”
Johnny leaned on Alice’s kitchen counter with a mug of tea in his hand, finishing off his second scone. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay in town?”
She stopped humming to the song playing on her sound system, finished wrapping the plate in paper, and packed it in the box. “It feels like the right thing to do.”
“New York isn’t London.”
“I know.”
“Will you stay with your dad?”
“I’ll get an apartment. I need my independence.”
“If I’d known how it was going to turn out, I’d never have signed a contract with Ivan Kray.”
She threw a roll of paper at him. “Make yourself useful instead of contemplating what ifs. Thinking that hard will only give you a headache.”
He grinned. “God, I’m going to miss you.”
“You’re going to miss my scones.”
“That, too.”
She walked over and gave him a hug. “Come visit me. Bring Stephen.”
“Hell, yes. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“Thanks for being a friend, Johnny.”
She’d never reached out to people, not until Ivan’s death. Before, she’d always feared the rejection. Now, feeling more at ease in her skin, pleasing others wasn’t important, any longer. It made it easier to be herself, and surprisingly, some people—like Johnny, Maya, Clelia, and her dad—actually liked her for herself.
“You’re welcome.” He looked at the kitchen with half of the cupboards open and the crockery stacked everywhere. “Moving gives me a migraine.”
She pointed a finger at him. “Uh-uh. You offered, and I’m not letting you off the hook.” She laughed as he meticulously tore a piece of paper and folded it in a square. “What are you doing?”
