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Angelica stopped at their tableside wearing a white, flowy dress with bodice and skirt hooked together by small golden rings that showed off her bronze midriff. Hayley Palmer stood beside her like an illogically proportioned, curvy pillar in a minidress that made her legs miles long but probably would have hit Gemma’s knees, and glowered down at them. Their friendship had been tabloid fodder for years. Their joint Instagram posts nearly broke the internet every time. And with the way Hayley was glaring atGemma, she knew she was every bit as loyal to Angelica as Lila was to her.
“Excuse me,” Angelica said to Lila, “are you that influencer who posted—” She cut off when she turned to see Gemma. “You,” she said on a breath. “You’re her! That girl from Jack’s house!”
Gemma didn’t know what to say, so she just stared up at Angelica.
Angelica turned to her very tall, very beautiful friend and pointed at Gemma as if she weren’t sitting right there. “This is the girl I told you about, Hay. I thought she was Jack’s assistant, but apparentlynot,based onhervideo.” Her voice cracked into a soggy whimper.
Hayley Palmer glared at Gemma as if she had committed an act of treason.
“Who evenareyou?” Angelica demanded. The pitch of her voice turned any heads that weren’t already staring from when the man at the neighboring table had made his announcement.
Gemma’s tongue grew heavy in her mouth. “Um, I’m Gemma.”
Angelica glared at her through her swollen eyes running with makeup. “Gemma who? What do you do? Who are you?”
“I-I’m no one,” she stuttered.
Lila scoffed, offended. “Like hell you are!” She stood and held her hand out palm up as if Gemma were a prize on display. “This is Gemma Peters—yes, as inthatPeters you are thinking of. She’s a radio producer with an impressive résumé and happens to be friends with Nigel Black, and weare on the way backstage to his show tonight by special invite. Not only that, but she’s also one of the greatest people on the planet. She’s loyal and kind and scary smart. Anyone would be damn lucky to have her even look their way, and too bad for you, Jack can’t keep his eyes off her. Yes, she’sthat girlfrom his house and the now viral video, and if you spent two seconds thinking about it, you’d realize she’s not some random assistant, and he is in love withher, not you!”
Angelica, Hayley, the third nameless yet equally beautiful woman with them, and Gemma all blinked at her, stunned.
Angelica eventually scoffed and pulled a hand to her chest. She glowered down at Gemma. “Well, if he’s so in love with you, then why is he leaving the country?”
Lila snapped back on reflex. “Because he— What?”
Gemma’s heart took a flying leap to her toes.
Angelica nodded a big bobbing motion that sent her flowing hair bouncing. “I went to find him after your little video went viral to remind him of what we have together, and he’s at his house packing to leave for London. Tonight. He said he has to get out, to go, and things are completely over between us because of what happened the other day. I mean, it’s not even that big of a deal. Joey and I are only friends. It was an accident.” Her voice clipped up again, and she turned into Hayley’s chest. Hayley wrapped an arm around her and cast them a glare that landed somewhere between devoted fury and runway chic.
Lila glanced at Gemma and mouthedJoey?in confusion, but she was too distracted to respond. The clatter of the restaurant dulled to a buzz as her hearing momentarily went offline.
Jack was leaving?
She couldn’t believe it.
The contemplative look on his face when she suggested he move as a way to end the loop came back to her in a rush. He must have honestly considered it and realized it was a viable solution.
Something soft and delicate unexpectedly cracked in her chest.
“He didn’t even mention you, but if he’s leaving the country, then I assume it’s over between you too,” Angelica warbled. Hayley shushed her and patted her back.
How like a celebrity to go out in public to have a meltdown, Gemma thought. She herself was moments away from tears at the thought that she really had ruined things with Jack, and all she wanted to do was go home and hug a pillow and hide. And there was Angelica Reyes, wailing in the middle of a packed restaurant.
Hayley rubbed her back and cast Gemma and Lila a spiteful look. She guided them off toward their table and left the dining room muttering in their wake.
Gemma saw Lila sink back into her chair and her mouth move, but she was not processing anything coming out of it. All she could think of was the single moment that had put the day in motion: when Jack crashed into her at the coffee shop. She could still feel it, the jolt like an electric shock. His hands on her arms. The concerned look on his handsome face and the shine in his eyes. And then everything that had come after. His kindness, his certainty. How vulnerable he’d made himself in his attempts to get her to believe him. Seeing her unhappiness, her problems, and trying to help her. The way she’d opened up to him. Theirkiss. The thought that she would never experience any of that again, anything with him, suddenly and completely broke that delicate thing in her chest that had cracked.
“Lila, I think I made a mistake.”
Lila paused, fork halfway to her mouth. Gemma realized at the sight of her having resumed eating that she’d lost track of how long she had been staring into space. “What, you wish you got the pasta instead?” She nodded at Gemma’s half-eaten plate.
Gemma looked down and realized she no longer had an appetite. There were more important matters to tend to.
“No,” she said, determined. She lifted her napkin from her lap and set it on the table. “I think I made a mistake with Jack.”
Lila’s attention refocused in a snap. “What do you mean?”
She stood with a resolve that surprised herself. She’d been telling Jack he was delusional all day, and suddenly, the thought of losing him felt like the most absurd part of it all. If he left and the loop broke, she’d never see him again. If him leaving wasn’t the solution and they woke up back in the same day, even if she remembered him—which was no guarantee—what incentive did he have to start all over when she’d told him to give up on her and go on to his new life?
