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Sadie winced. “I just reminded Ethan of that today.”
Gina curled her legs up under her and leaned back on the couch. “Sweetie, this is your chance to have a life. What’re you looking so worried about?”
“Do I?”
“Your forehead’s all wrinkled up. You should stop that.”
Instinctively Sadie reached up and smoothed her fingers across her brow. “I’m not worried. I’m...” She sighed. “I don’t know what I am. It’s been a weird day.”
“You could say that,” Gina said with a laugh. “Resigned, helping take care of a baby, poor little thing, and lots of cash.”
“And,” Sadie mused, “once I quit, Ethan looked at me differently.”
Gina snorted. “You mean he noticed you were female?”
“Exactly.” Sophie took another sip of the cold white wine. “It was...exciting.”
Gina slapped one hand to her forehead. “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“Sadie, the whole point of quitting was so you could find a life, right?” Gina reached out, grabbed her hand and shook it. “Didn’t you tell me two weeks ago that you want to find the right guy for you and give up on the fantasy of Ethan?”
God, it was humiliating to have her own words tossed back at her. But this was why she’d come to Gina. To get the truth. Hard as it was to hear. Mike and Gina had the kind of relationship that Sadie wanted for herself. They were partners. They laughed. They fought. They loved and always had each other’s back. And Sadie wasn’t blind. She’d seen the looks her brother gave his wife when he thought no one was watching.
She wanted to be wanted like that.
“Yeah, I did.” Sadie looked down into her wine. “But...”
“Do you still have your list?” Gina asked.
“Of course.” Sadie had been working on that list for the last two years.
“How many qualifications are on it now?”
“Five,” Sadie said, staring down into her glass. When she first made up the list of what she wanted in a man, there’d been more than twenty items on it. Over time, though, she’d whittled it down to the top five.
“Let’s hear them.”
Sadie knew what her sister-in-law was up to. She wanted to remind Sadie that Ethan was not the man for her. And maybe Gina was right. Today had been fun. Watching Ethan’s panic, sharing things outside the job with him. Seeing him fire Alice and take charge of a child he hadn’t wanted. It was as if they’d been a team of a different sort today. Not the work thing, where they each knew their roles and acted them out effortlessly.
This had been different. Today they’d been simply Ethan and Sadie. Man and woman. And she’d enjoyed it way too much. So it would probably be a good thing if she reminded herself about her list.
“Fine.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Sexy. Adventurous. Sense of humor. Spending time with me. Loves kids.”
“Uh-huh,” Gina mused. “And how many of those fit Ethan?”
“Sexy...” Her voice trailed off, because she couldn’t say more. “Okay, fine. He’s not the man on my list.”
“Thank you.” Nodding at her, Gina said with some sympathy, “Sadie, I know you’re nuts about the man, but you deserve someone to be nuts about you.”
“Yeah. I know. But—”
“No buts,” Gina interrupted, holding up one hand to keep her quiet. “Ethan’s not going to give you what you want.”
“What if all I want is hot sex?”
Gina laughed and set her glass down. “Who doesn’t want that? But it’s not all you want.”
“No, it’s not.” But oh boy, it was a great idea. Just imagining hot, wild sex with Ethan set off tiny fires inside her. She took a drink of the cold wine, hoping to smooth things out. It didn’t work.
“Still, not a bad idea.” Gina shrugged and took another sip of her own wine. “If you think it’ll help, get the hot sex from Ethan, then when you finally leave your job, you walk with no regrets. No what-if’s running through your head. Sadie, it’s long past time to look out for yourself.”
