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She snatched the magazine out of my hands. I pretended not to notice her quick look at his gorgeous photo before she leaned over me and shoved it back into my bag.
“Enjoying yourself?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
“M, I’m just—”
“I know what you’re doing,” she interrupted. “Meddling.”
I pointed to the center of my chest. “Me? Would I do something like that?”
“Yes. Now can we enjoy our meal?” She gripped her chopsticks a little too tightly.
“I thought we were.”
A growl escaped her, but I knew she wasn’t mad when she snagged a piece of sushi off my plate. I sucked down more sake and let the subject drop. I had something else on my mind anyway.
“Has Daniel ever mentioned that his father’s death might not have been a suicide?” I asked, picking up a piece of shrimp tempura roll with my chopsticks.
“No,” Muriella said, shock and incredulity in her voice. “What brought that up? Did he say something to you?”
I told her about finding the autopsy report, and creases formed between her eyebrows.
“How does trouble always seem to find you?” Beneath her exasperation, I heard concern. Muriella worried her lip between her teeth. “Forget about it. I don’t know what the report means or if it’s legitimate, but it doesn’t matter.”
She reached for one of my remaining sake bombs and tossed it back, shuddering as the alcohol went down. Her lips pressed together when she looked at me, all the worry, fear, and confusion I felt reflected back at me.
I sagged back into my seat. “I miss him so much, M.”
Her hand went to my knee. “I know you do. I’m worried about him.”
“Me too.”
We stared at our half-empty plates of sushi for a minute before I picked up my chopsticks again.
“I like the music they play here,” Muriella said, pointing at the ceiling as Madonna sang to us. Just like that, we were off somber ground.
“The food isn’t half bad either.” I took a piece of the dragon roll and dunked it in soy sauce-wasabi mixture. “We should have tried this place sooner.”
“Itriedto tell you that. Nobody listens to me,” Muriella lamented, and for about two whole seconds, I felt normal, even halfway smiled. A real one, not the forced kind that I’d been sporting for a week.
That screeched to an abrupt halt when Billy Vera’s voice came over the speaker, introducing the song “At This Moment.” It was a good one butnotwhat I needed to hear in the fragile state I was in. I signaled the waitress for another drink and waited for Muriella’s disapproving look.
It didn’t come, and normalcy went right out the window.
The waitress delivered my sake and refilled our water glasses, M thanking her for the both of us. When she stepped away, unblocking my view of the rest of the restaurant, my heart stopped.
Weaving through the tables behind a hostess was Daniel, and he wasn’t alone.
I gripped Muriella’s thigh as he touched the woman’s back and whispered something in her ear. A laugh escaped her before she dug her fingers into his arm.
I burned from the inside out. It had been a week. That was all. I saw this for exactly what it was. This was a date. Not business. Not a friendly dinner. A fucking date.
And fuck him for being a sight for sore eyes. Daniel was devastating as always in his three-piece suit, this one charcoal gray. The tie was one I’d bought for him, the black silk shimmering in the light. He’d used it to bind my hands while he deliciously tortured me. Now he was wearing it with this underage Barbie doll.
The hostess led them to the vacant table right beside us. I was staring, but I couldn’t stop. I should have been graceful, polite, the bigger person. Instead my mouth hung open. When Daniel’s eyes locked with mine, a little gasp of pain escaped me. I barely felt it when Muriella took my fingers in hers. My attention was solely on the man I loved more than anything and the fact that he was looking at me as though I were a stranger.
A week ago, his eyes would have lit up on seeing me. There would have been a warmth in them that radiated to my soul. If I was lucky, I would have gotten a smile. But Little Miss Perfect had stolen his attention.She’dgotten my smile. I hated her.
“Daniel, what are you doing?” Muriella hissed.
