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“Okay. Good.” I turn my head and press a little kiss against his shirt. “Thank you.”
“You’ll stay here, right?” he asks after a few seconds, the first trace of uncertainty in his tone. “I know you mentioned space, but you don’t want to go somewhere else do you?”
“No. Not really. I mean, as long as it’s okay with you.”
“I’d like you to stay. If only because it will be safer for you. Montaigne is still out there, and we need to deal with him before you’ll really be safe. After that, if you decide you want to go, then of course…”
“Yeah. I agree.”
I can’t imagine myself wanting to go. To leave. Not William and not this apartment.
It’s the closest thing to home I’ve ever had.
* * *
The next day, I open the oven to check on how my lasagna is coming along.
I’ve spent an hour working on it, going through the detailed steps of an elaborate recipe mostly to distract myself from everything else on my mind. The lasagna still needs to cook for another half hour, but it’s already looking and smelling delicious. Part of me is quite pleased with my evident culinary success.
The rest of me is still confused and anxious about all the recent developments.
We spent most of the day talking to lawyers and Houston-based FBI agents and Internal Affairs in the Houston police. I’m not sure what exactly will happen with Montaigne, but we’ve got a restraining order against him at least. And Detective Curtis is being put under the microscope, which is nothing more than he deserves.
William is working in his home office now. He got behind because all of this ate up so much of the day. He’s been quiet and composed and gentle, but I can’t help but wonder how he’s feeling.
He was so sweet and genuine yesterday, but today he’s been mostly professional. Maybe he’s pulling back. Rethinking.
He’s allowed, although the idea makes me want to fall apart.
I’m not really sure how I should act with him now that things have changed. Normally, I’d ask if he wants to have dinner with me. But maybe he wants more space. Maybe he doesn’t feel like eating dinner with me.
I give a shrug and head to his office anyway. It would be rude not to ask, and he has to have dinner sometime after all.
I knock on his closed door and open it at his greeting.
“Hey,” I say with what I hope is a casual smile. “I made lasagna. If you’re hungry, you could join me. Or eat it in here. Or whatever.”
The invitation doesn’t sound as breezy as I hoped, but William smiles at me anyway. “Sure. Sounds good.”
When I see him start to close out a document on his computer, I add, “It won’t be ready for a half hour or so, so you can finish up what you’re working on. I just wanted to know if I should make a salad or not.”
“I was done anyway.” He gets up and walks toward where I’m standing in the doorway. He’s wearing gray trousers and a black long-sleeved shirt. “I’ll help with the salad.”
I can’t suppress a surprised smile as he walks with me back to the kitchen.
We work on washing lettuce and cutting vegetables together with companionable ease. We chat about inconsequential things—not about how we’ve spent the past several weeks lying to each other. And I’m feeling pleased—almost giddy—when the lasagna is ready and we set the table out on the terrace to eat.
The lasagna is a definite success, and I enjoy it even more since I spent so long making it. The terrace is lit with a subtle, well-designed lighting scheme and the candles on the table, and William’s expression looks unusually warm in the soft light.
He smiles at me like he doesn’t hate me. Like he doesn’t resent me. Like he really understands why I lied to him.
And I can’t blame him for not trusting me immediately and therefore not telling me when he discovered my real identity.
Ridiculously, it feels like we could have been any other couple having dinner together early in a relationship, like we’re really starting to get to know each other. And I have the same kind of excited quivers in my chest and belly as I would have on a date that was going really well.
I try to remind herself that, despite the feelings that have developed between us, there still might be no future here. He’s a supremely guarded man, and he might put back up his walls at any moment. But I can’t seem to take my wise mental reminders to heart. It feels like we’re on a date, like there might be hope.
We’ve finished the bread, lasagna, and salad and are finishing off the last of the red wine when we fall into a comfortable silence. William has been gazing out on the lit cityscape, obviously wrapped up in his own reflections. I’m watching him, thinking how incredibly attractive he is and how I’ve never met anyone who was as deep and complex and sensitive and generous as he is—no matter how much he might try to hide those characteristics.
