Page 134 of Terms of Exposure
Emma smiled brightly. "Please, call me Emma. The whole Ms. Sinclair thing is reserved exclusively for Nathan."
Tessa snorted. "And how's that going?"
"He hasn't said it once," Emma replied, deadpan.
Tessa rolled her eyes. "Of course he hasn't. The man's a prick."
Delight bloomed across Emma's face before she could hide it. "Oh," she said, leaning in slightly, "so you're one of the good ones."
"I'm offended you would think anything less," Tessa said, laughing.
It should have been simple.
A lunch. A salad. A woman I loved beside me.
But Nathan's voice still scraped at the edges of my focus, the memory of his comfort in my office, his confidence, his hands on my woman.
Tessa kept talking—about Italy, about a missing agenda, about a client who'd demanded sparkling water flown in from Zurich—and Emma laughed along, normal and bright.
And I let myself sit there, beside her, seen.
Because normal was the point.
Visibility was the shield.
Three weeks.
I could wait three weeks.
But as Emma reached for her fork, her shoulder brushing mine for the briefest second—accidental, harmless, ordinary—I felt my patience turn razor thin anyway.
Three weeks suddenly felt much too long.
Chapter thirty-three
Candace
"I still think the nose is crooked."
Sebastian followed my line of sight to the framed puzzle hanging on the wall opposite his bed—three hundred pieces of golden retriever, finally complete and mounted behind glass. The fluorescent lights caught the glossy surface, the dog's eyes gleaming with judgement. Rosie had brought the frame last week, insisting that anything requiringthat much suffering deserved to be preserved.
"The nose is fine, Candace," Sebastian said. "You're just mad because I placed the last piece."
"You stole it out of my hand."
"I strategically intercepted it." His grin was slow and irritating. "There's a difference."
"There really isn't."
He shrugged, entirely unrepentant.
My mouth betrayed me—the smile pulling free before I could stop it.
The golden retriever stared back at us from the wall with its slightly crooked nose and patchy fur—a monument to weeks of terrible hospital coffee, worse hospital pudding, and conversations that had somehow become the best part of my day.
My phone buzzed in my purse.
Then again.
