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22
TWO SECONDS LATER, EMMA REALIZES SHE’S OVERREACTINGagain. Tom probably told Taylor shewouldlove the designer, not that she already did, and Taylor misheard. The fact that he bought her the same kind of designer bracelet Derrick used to give her is simply a coincidence. Surely plenty of women in the tristate area owned jewelry by the popular brand at any given time.
And it’s not as if Tom ever had the opportunity to play much of a long game with her. Yes, they crossed paths in Miami, but it was nothing more than chance that put them in the same room together six months later.Right?
Emma struggles up from her desk chair, grabs a bottle of water from the minifridge, and gulps down half the contents, hoping the hydration might help defuzz her brain. Bottle in hand, she circles the large, quiet room. When she worked in advertising research, a wonderful female mentor used to say that if the information you’ve gathered to help solve aproblem doesn’t immediately make the next steps clear, the solution isn’t necessarily to keep studying the data. What you need is evenmoreinformation.
That’s what she needs to do: gather additional data. One thing that would really reassure her would be confirmation of the reason she was recruited at Halliday: because Scott Munroe read about her work in an article and thought it would be great to bring her aboard. Meaning, Tom wasn’t in the picture at all.
After locking up, Emma hurries back to the house, giving Scott a call on the way.
“Oh, hey,” he says, clearly surprised to hear from her on the weekend.
“Sorry for interrupting your Saturday, but I have a small favor to ask. Since I have a block of free time this weekend, I’d love to sketch out preliminary thoughts about our next project, and I wondered if I could pick your brain? It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes on the phone.”
“Yes, of course. You mean today?”
“If that works. Or tomorrow if it’s better.”
“I’m shopping for potted herbs at Terrain right now, but I should be done in ten minutes and—hey, do you just want to drive over and meet me at the café here?”
Emma glances at her watch. She has just enough time to squeeze in the trip before Tom gets back.
“Perfect,” she says, and less than fifteen minutes later Emma rushes into the café at the garden center to find Scott sliding into one of the apple green-cushioned chairs. Though he’s dressed casually—cream-colored pants and a dark purple T-shirt—he looks as spiffy as usual.
“My pleasure,” he says after she thanks him for giving up time on a Saturday. “You’ve spared me a trip to buy car mats, so I should be thankingyou.”
The waiter stops by almost immediately, and after ordering cappuccinos, they spend a couple of minutes discussing the herbs Scott purchased and the recipes he’ll use them in. The café abuts the garden center, and the air is redolent with the smell of clean dirt and mulch.
With the small talk out of the way and the cappuccinos in front of them, Emma runs through several questions regarding the goal of the next research project, questions she’d drummed up on the drive over and which Scott answers thoughtfully. Though they’re a pretext for what she really needs to know, his feedback will actually be beneficial to her.
“I think that does it,” she says, having kept her queries to about ten minutes. “I’m so grateful, Scott.”
“Glad I could help. It’s great to be teaming up with you again.”
As she hoped, he’s given her an entry point.
“How long ago was it, anyway, that we first started working together? Around two years, right?”
“Yeah, around there. You were still living in New York at that point.”
Emma takes a final sip of her coffee and sets the cup into the saucer with a clink. “Remind me, too, will you?” she says lightly. “What first gave you the idea to reach out? I think you said once that you saw me quoted in an article.”
“Yeah, that’s right—and I was really impressed by your predictions about the travel industry, which, by the way, are proving completely accurate.”
Instinctively she breaks into a grin as relief gushes through her that the story is as simple and innocent as she thought.
“What’s so funny?” he asks, grinning himself.
“Oh, nothing really. It just amuses me how some connections happen.”
Scott nods, but as he presses the rim of his cup to his lips, he lifts his eyebrows.Something’s coming, she thinks, feeling a ripple of worry.
“I’m sure you know, though,” he says, lowering the cup, “that I can’t take all the credit.”
Oh, no, she thinks.Please, no.
“It was Tom who got the ball rolling,” he continues. “He read the piece first and passed it along.”
