“I bet you can’t wait to get that cute little ass of yours back to San Francisco.” I look up to where Rissa is standing with her shoulder against the wall as she people watches the flow of traffic outside of my window.
Her words launch a bittersweet pang to my system. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” she asks.
“Sorry, I’m just preoccupied with this,” I say, pointing to the blank Word document she can’t see.
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Do you want to go over the rundown now or later?”
I roll my shoulders and lean back. It isn’t as if my father hasn’t grilled me over it ten times already this week. “Sure. Let’s get it out of the way.” And use it as a reminder that the time left on my clock in Sunnyville is ticking.
“The plus side, which I’m sure your dad has said over and over, is that the numbers look fabulous. You really improved every facet of the visibility, and for that, I owe you. Keeping my job is definitely a plus.”
I nod. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure the idea would take.”
“What? You thought once you become a mom, your sex drive dies and you can’t appreciate a good-looking man?” Rissa laughs at the look on my face. “I’m so glad we’ve proven you wrong.”
“You definitely have.” Images of a naked Grayson come to mind. Then of him bending over Luke helping him with homework. Both are sexy in different ways. I owe Zoey an apology. She was right. A man and his child can definitely be sexy.
“And to think we’re almost in the homestretch. In a few weeks, a man will be crowned Hot Dad, and even if we only retain fifty percent of the new interest, it still leaves our numbers above what our target was, so there will be absolutely no complaints on our part.”
A few weeks . . . hearing her say it makes it all the more real. The project I’ve eaten, slept, and breathed is almost over . . . and then what? I should be happy, right? I should be thrilled to be getting back to my life and hopefully moving on to my opportunity at Haute, so why am I not?
Grayson.
“Uh-oh. You have that look on your face.”
“What look?” I force a smile, although I know she’s not going to buy it.
“The one that says as sad as we are going to be with you leaving, you’re going to be even sadder leaving someone else.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” I say while silently begging to talk to someone about all of this.
Rissa gives me the motherly glance any child recognizes before they are able to stand, and shuts the door, cutting us off from the rest of the staff.
“You’re horrible at hiding your emotions, Sidney.”
“Emotions about what?” I feign innocence, even though I know she knows.
“Love.”
“Love?” I laugh out the word. “What about it?”
“So, it’s just lust then?”
I chortle a laugh. “Lust? I’m not following you.” But I damn well am.
“Mm-hmm. Says the woman who took off out of here a few weeks ago like a bat out of hell to break some rules . . . and hopefully a headboard.” I choke on the air I’m breathing and stare at her wide-eyed. “Girl, you wear it on your sleeve.”
“What exactly am I wearing on my sleeve?”
“You’re going to try to play it off like this whole thing with Grayson, the thing you can hide from everyone else but me, is just a case of lust and sex and everything in between . . . but I can see it in your eyes. I can tell by how sad you get every time we talk about this project wrapping up and you moving on. You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”
“Love?” I repeat the word again.
“Yeah. Love. It’s a wrecking ball flying through the air, and you, my friend, have been hit with it. Classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Rissa,” I warn.
“What?” She flashes a smile. “Isn’t that how you feel right now? Blindsided and overwhelmed by it all?”
“I’m not in love with anyone.”
“The door is shut. The conversation is off the record. Do you care to revise your previous statement?”
I laugh. My nerves rattle, but every other part of me wants to talk. “Are you going all investigative journalist on me right now?”
“Damn straight, I am. Look,” she says, and everything about her softens—expression, smile, eyes. “You’ve been high on Grayson Malone since that first meeting. It only got worse after the first gossip column. And every time you’ve tried to hide him talking to you on the phone . . . or, uh, texting you, I’ve seen it.” She winks, and I want to die.
“Being in love with Grayson Malone . . . that’s a new one.”
“Nah. You’ve known it for a while, but you’ve just refused to admit it to yourself.” I hate that she can see right through me and love knowing I’m not alone, all at the same time. “But you have now, haven’t you?”
I nod. My first and only indication to anyone other than Zoey that I’m in love with Grayson. And that simple gesture is such a relief.
“Okay. That’s the first step.” She winks before turning serious. “Now, should I guess he’s the reason you look downright miserable when I mentioned Haute?”
I stare at her and tell myself not to talk, but my lips speak anyway. “I’m leaving soon.”
“Uh-huh. And you don’t want to leave?”
My smile is soft as I fight back the emotion. “I don’t know how it happened.” And I don’t. I’ve tried to pinpoint when Grayson Malone became more than just a hot dad in a contest I was running and became someone I fell in love with—God, even thinking those words surprise me—and I can’t.
“No one ever knows how it happens, Sidney. It kind of just creeps up on you and then subtly hits you everywhere at once.” I laugh despite the tears welling in my eyes. “Did you have a fight?” she asks.
I sigh because I still don’t know what we have. “Yes and no. We fought. We made up. We admitted this was more than just a thing . . . but we never went beyond that.”
“And what does he say about you leaving? Are you going to try to make things work—oh. Oh.” The expression on my face must give everything away, because the shocked look in her eyes and her sudden epiphany tells me she gets it. “You haven’t told him, have you?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know how to.”
“Sidney.” It’s a scold. It’s shock. It’s compassion.
“One minute we were nothing, just a little fling to have some fun—and the next minute he’s telling me he wants to try to figure this out. Take each day as it comes. When I tried to tell him, he cut me off with his own apology.”
“You have to tell him.” The foreboding in her voice has nothing on how I feel and what I fear inside.
“I know. Communication doesn’t seem to be our strong suit.” I shake my head, using the cop-out, which is nothing more than a bullshit excuse.
“Love is a bitch, ain’t it?”
“You can say that again.”
“Let me ask you this, if he were to ask you to stay, would you?”
“I don’t know.” The answer is automatic, and yet, my head and my heart don’t match up on this one.
“What would it hurt to try it and stay? I can find a spot for you here. You’ve done a hell of a job so far, so I know you’re good for it.”
“But I have a life back home.”
“Do you?” She angles her head and studies me for a moment. “Do you really want to go home to an empty apartment at the end of every day when you’re so very used to going home to him?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”