Chapter Seven

Annabel

It’s a date. It’s a date. Could I have been any cheesier? Not unless I was literally covered in queso. No. I could not have.

And Beau Bennett . . . it’s all in the name, isn’t it? He’s not the kind of guy who goes for cheesy. I don’t even know why he came to the Pearl this morning in the first place.

I suppose if you own a hotel, you can show up there whenever you want.

I bury myself in work, in following Marilee’s instructions, all day long, hardly daring to think about this date. I set up appointments to fit dresses and costumes. I push the date out of my mind.

Where’s Beau going to take me? Please, let it not be the lobby of the hotel. No. That would never happen. He would not stoop to taking me to dinner in the lobby restaurant.

Or would he?

That’s my debate, standing here on the front steps of the Pearl. Beau didn’t say that I should meet him here specifically, but I have a feeling it’s a good guess. This is, after all, where he practically chased me down for the chance at . . .

At what?

How far am I willing to go? He doesn’t strike me as the one-night stand type. He strikes me as the sit-down-with-my-parents, put-a-ring-on-it first type. I don’t want a ring on it. I’ll never want a ring on it. A ring is like an anchor—it’s wonderful until the storm sets in, and you can’t haul it off the bottom of the ocean to set your boat free.

At least, that’s what I imagine. I’ve never been much for boating.

I’m still in the same clothes—all black. There was no time to go home and change. Honestly? I might not have changed. This is dinner, not the opening night of The Lovers, and I’m not going onstage.

It feels like it, though.

Bethany sends me a text while I wait on the sidewalk, rescheduling our evening session for the morning. Score.

The sweet spot of excitement is upon me now, in the hazy evening light, and the longer I wait, the more the sweetness seeps away. I shift my weight uneasily from one foot to the other. If he doesn’t show up in the next minute, I’m going to—

A black Town Car, gleaming like it’s been polished to a high shine, smoothly pulls up to the curb right in front of the Pearl. My heart beats faster at the sight of it. There are a thousand cars like this in New York City. I don’t want to get my hopes up if I’m going to be disappointed.

The back door opens. Beau unfolds himself from the car and stands up tall on the curb. When he sees me, his mouth curves upward in a smile tinged with the same relief I feel.

“Hungry?” he calls out across the space between us.

With the golden light on his face, the fine cut of his suit, the way his confidence overrules even that little flicker of doubt, I’m hungry for more than dinner. If I had any excuse to tackle him right now, I would. My muscles tense in anticipation.

I hold myself back. Beau is not that kind of man.

“Starving,” I answer him and bound down the steps toward the car.

*****

“Tell me about yourself, Annabel Forester.”

We’re sitting in an intimate dining room of a restaurant that is a thousand times too fancy for what I’m wearing, but Beau Bennett didn’t blink an eye and neither did the hostess. She gave him a subdued smile and asked him if he wanted his usual table. His usual table, at a place like this. It struck me when we sat down in front of the immaculate white tablecloth that Beau probably owns more than the Pearl. He probably owns half the city. My heart leaps into my throat. He’s somebody. I’m just the woman he pushed out of the way of a speeding bicycle.

“I’m nervous,” I tell him. Honesty is my default policy. When you move around as much as I do, it’s the one thing that can make you some easy friends.

He grins. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.” He spreads his hands, the gesture encompassing everything on the table. The gleaming silverware. The one-of-a-kind china. The basket of bread, still warm from the oven. “It’s the least I could do.”

“You leaped out in front of a speeding bike to save a complete stranger. You don’t need to take me to dinner.”

“I did.” Beau sweeps his napkin from the table and drops it into his lap with a graceful fluency that must have come from an etiquette class of some kind. “Walking away from you was a mistake. So I see your coffee, and I raise you dinner.”

“A mistake?”

He gives me a look of guarded heat. “A mistake.”

I catch my breath. “Where did you go to school?” It’s a neutral question, one that won’t stoke the desire already building between my legs. Needlessly, I realize, because this is a friendly dinner. Nothing is going to happen here. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

“I don’t think so,” he says, another smile flitting across his face. “I asked first.”

“What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”

“What made you want to work at the Pearl?”

“I saw Marilee North on the sidewalk. She was shouting into her phone about needing a seamstress.”

“So, not only can you sew, but also the idea of a frazzled costume director appealed to you?”

I shimmy my shoulders. “It seemed like the best idea at the time. Plus, it led directly to . . . a nice thing happening.” It’s a lame cop-out, but there’s no way I can describe how it felt to be held in his arms, even for that brief moment. Embarrassing . . . and hot.

He leans back in his seat, considering me from across the table. “It’s not my usual approach to women.”

“Desperate times . . .”

Beau leans forward again, a sudden intensity in his eyes. “Start at the beginning. I want to understand how all of this came together.”

I laugh, dispelling some of the tension. “The beginning beginning? That’s a long-ass time ago.”

The spotlight is focused on me again, with all its heat, leaving no shadow to hide behind. It’s an odd feeling to be held in someone’s gaze like this. For years, for years, I’ve been bobbing in and out of people’s notice, getting in, getting out, moving on. This time I feel caught.

Is it so bad that I like it?

What was it that my mother used to say? Always jump in with both feet. You can always jump back out.

“The very beginning,” Beau says, the slightest note of command in his voice.

I clear my throat. “Here’s the beginning. I was born in a town called Patriot. That’s where it all started.”