Chapter 28
Emma
In the yearsI’d lived in New York, I’d attended quite a few events. But this was the first time I’d been invited to a Due Date Party.
Today was, in fact, Ava’s official due date. She and Dane had come into the city for a doctor’s checkup, which had confirmed the obvious—yup, still pregnant. Before Dane and Ava went home to Long Island, Aidan and Sam decided to throw a small, impromptu dinner party at their penthouse to celebrate Ava’s due date. It was sweet. It was casual.
I was dreading it.
There were a number of reasons. First, I hadn’t been all that sociable since I got back from L.A. I hadn’t felt like it. I hadn’t even wanted to go for drinks with my sister when she asked me. I’d given her my usual excuse: I was working late. Then I’d gone home, put on sweats, and watched Netflix until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
That had pretty much been my pattern of late.
The second reason I didn’t want to go was because all of the Tower partners were supposed to be there, except for Noah. I didn’t know why Noah wasn’t coming, because I hadn’t talked to him, and the rest of them didn’t talk about Noah nearly enough for my liking. Maybe he wasn’t coming because he was avoiding me. I was definitely avoiding him. We’d agreed to avoid each other, and we were right. We should not be in the same room together. Not now, not ever.
If we were in the same room together, I might fall apart.
I didn’t have a broken heart, because broken hearts were for breakups. They were for great love stories that ended badly. I hadn’t had a great love story, and it hadn’t ended badly. There had just been Noah and me, making breakfast together and walking on the beach and having incredible sex, and then there had been nothing.
It was just an affair. People had them every day. They ended every day. The world kept turning.
There was no reason for me to feel like a robot at work every day, then to turn off my phone and watch Netflix every night. There was no reason for sappy commercials to make me sob on my sofa. There was no reason for me to Google him on schedule every forty-eight hours to see if he’d turned up at a Hollywood event with some woman more beautiful than me, a woman who was basically wearing the equivalent of a piece of toilet paper. There was no reason for me to feel completely hurt and humiliated if that happened. Which it hadn’t.
There was no reason for me to feel hurt anyway.
So no, I didn’t have a broken heart. The orgasms—so, so many orgasms—had clouded my brain for a while. I was still the Boss Bitch. This was just a temporary setback.
I stared at myself in the full-length mirror in my apartment. I was wearing a T-shirt, a pair of panties, and nothing else—my usual outfit for being miserable at home. I didn’t want to change out of it, frankly. That was the final reason I was dreading this party: I had nothing to wear.
Since I came home from L.A., my wardrobe wasn’t doing it for me anymore. All of those matching suits and tight pencil skirts. Sure, those were Boss Bitch clothes, but maybe the boss could wear something else every once in a while. Like…jeans. Why didn’t I ever wear jeans? Or jersey dresses. You could actually move in those. And why hadn’t anyone ever showed me the wonders of booties? Or sneakers?
So I’d been wearing some different clothes lately. At the office, Natalie gave me a couple of raised eyebrows, but she wisely didn’t say anything. If the boss wanted to wear a flowered wrap dress and booties instead of her usual severe suit, she had no comment.
Still, I had no idea what to wear to a Due Date Party. Did anyone?
After sighing at my reflection for a few minutes, trying to get motivated, I settled on a pair of jeans and a black sweater that was soft and fell off one shoulder. I twisted my hair up and swiped on some makeup. My sister was probably going to be alarmed when she saw me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t have the energy to dress up.
I stood wrapped in my wool coat, waiting in the cold, slushy street for my Uber to take me to the Upper East Side. Winter in New York was chilly and damp, punctuated with subway-closing snows and laced with freezing slush. It was at least twenty degrees warmer than this in L.A. today. Not that I checked the weather there or anything.
I had hit the bull’s eye at last for Catharine Knowles. The executive assistant I’d recruited and trained for her was first-rate, and Catharine was effusive with her praise. She had offered to refer me to more executives on the west coast, which wasn’t an empty brag, because Catharine was connected. If I really wanted to, I could probably arrange a business trip to take some meetings, to meet some new clients?—
No. I wasn’t going to California. Absolutely not.
My Uber finally came, and I got in. I choked on the driver’s cologne for the whole ride, then got out into the slush again. It was only after I had approached the doorman and been told to go up that I realized two things: I hadn’t brought a gift with me, not even a bottle of wine, and I wasn’t wearing a bra under my sweater.
It was practically the law that you had to bring wine when someone invited you to a get-together. It wasn’t like I could offer them some gum from my purse. The bra thing was more personal. My boobs were small and the sweater was baggy, so it wasn’t like anyone would notice. But still—who the hell doesn’t wear a bra to a dinner party?
Apparently, me.
I squared my shoulders and made the best of it, taking the elevator up to Sam and Aidan’s apartment. I would brazen my way through this. A couple of hours, tops, and then I’d go home to my Netflix cocoon.
For a woman who didn’t like movies all that much, and I’d seen more of them in the past few weeks than I’d seen in my life.
Samantha greeted me at the door. Her eyes went wide when she saw me. They dropped down my body, to the lace-up ankle boots on my feet, and moved back up again. Her mouth actually opened in surprise.
“Am I too casual?” I asked her.
She blinked. “Who are you, and what did you do with Emma?”
“It’s cold out,” I said. “I’m tired. I wanted to be comfortable. You’re just going to have to deal.”
“Okay, that’s more like my sister.” She smiled and grabbed my wrist. “Come in.”
The dinner party was already underway. Ava, beautiful and very, very pregnant, had the seat of honor on the sofa in the middle of the living room. Dane sat on the arm of the sofa next to her, talking to Aidan, who was wearing his trademark black. Caterers were setting up the dining table. At the bar at the side of the room was Alex Blake, tall and dark, pouring himself a drink.
“How have you been?” Sam said to me. “I haven’t seen you in so long. We never had a proper conversation about L.A.”
“Didn’t we?” Of course we didn’t, I knew that. “L.A. was fine. I found the right recruit and it’s working out great.”
“But how did you like it?” Sam asked. “Was it smoggy? Hot? Were the people weird? I’ve never been there myself.”
“I guess it’s kind of smoggy,” I said. “There are some really great restaurants.”
“You must have been so sick of living in a hotel for all that time,” she said. “And I told you that you could have spent Christmas Day with us instead of alone, working.”
Memories of Christmas Day with Noah came back to me. God, that had been good. It was followed by memories of the fight we’d had right before I left. That fight had come out of nowhere; I still didn’t know how it had started. All I knew was that the closer I’d come to leaving, the more I felt like throwing something, and Noah had been the closest target.
Not that I’d thrown anything at him. But we’d hurled hostilities like bullets, him and me. It had felt good to fight instead of confess to him that the last thing I wanted to do was get on a plane and go across the country, away from him. I couldn’t stand what his reaction would be if I said that—probably a look of pity, and then a letdown about how I was being unreasonable and it wasn’t going to happen. No. I’d rather have a fight than that.
So we’d fought. And then we’d made up. Spectacularly.
No wonder people talked about makeup sex. Makeup sex had a lot to recommend it.
“Christmas was fine,” I said to my sister, and before she could ask me anything else, I added, “I need a drink.”
I left her and beelined to the bar, where Alex was mixing himself a whiskey and soda. “Hi there, Emma,” he said politely. We’d met once or twice before.
“Hi,” I replied. “Is there some strong shit in this bar?”
“Sure there is.” He reached for the whiskey again. “Aidan always buys the best, so I always make a point of drinking his whiskey. Are you this weirded out by a Due Date Party?”
“A bit. Is that strange?”
“Who knows?” Alex mixed me a whiskey and soda only slightly less strong than his own. “I’m not much of a baby guy, myself.”
I took the glass from him. “Well, there’s no actual baby yet, so we’re spared that.”
He smiled at me and we clinked glasses. I took a swallow of mine, trying not to think about my fallopian tubes. I was pretty sure Alex didn’t want to hear about them.
“Too bad Noah isn’t here,” Alex said. “He likes these kinds of things.”
I made a sound that tried to be a polite “Oh?” I had no idea if it succeeded. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s been a little hard to get hold of lately.” Alex frowned, his dark features scowling. “I think there’s something wrong with him. He hasn’t been his usual self.”
I didn’t know how to feel about that information. Bad, because Noah was feeling bad? Good, because maybe it meant that he missed me?
Did he actually miss me?
“That’s, uh, too bad.” God, just the mention of him made me an idiot. I tried to get a grip. “I’m sure he’ll be back to his normal self soon.”
“No, there’s something big going on,” Alex said. “He seemed different when I visited him last, too. You should call him.”
I nearly dropped my whiskey. “What?”
Alex looked bemused at my bug-eyed reaction. “Noah knows a lot of people,” he said. “He meets some big players in the entertainment industry. He could probably get you some clients.”
“Oh. Right, right.” I took another swallow of my drink, which was strong but not strong enough. “I should do that.”
This was ridiculous. How long was I going to go on, not telling anyone that Noah and I had hooked up for weeks? Not even telling my own sister? It should probably come up at some point, but preferably after I was completely over it. At a time when I could look back and laugh and tell it as a funny story instead of wanting to crawl under the dining table and curl into a ball of hurt every time I thought about it.
Meaningless affairs: you’re doing it wrong.
I finished my drink and turned toward the sofa, where Ava and Dane were. I should go greet them. Dane had Ava’s hand curled loosely in his big one even as he was turned away to talk to Aidan. Ava was laughing at something my sister said, and even as she did so, she didn’t move her hand. Her belly was big and round, feminine and beautiful. I was fine with it, happy for her. I’d seen lots of pregnant women in my life. The sting had worn off long ago.
Still, I should go say hello. I put my glass down and turned, starting toward the sofa.
I got halfway there when the apartment door swung open and Noah walked in.
I froze mid-step. It was Noah, really Noah, wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt, untucked and buttoned over a white T-shirt. His coat was open and a scarf hung around his neck. He took one step into the room and froze, looking at me.
Everything went quiet—or at least in my head it did. Maybe someone said something or the silverware clinked as the caterers set the table. Maybe there was anyone else in the room. I didn’t notice anymore, because Noah was here.
That gorgeous, familiar face. That tousled dark blond hair. That jaw, that mouth. Those hazel eyes, lighting up right this minute at the sight of me.
Deep feelings mess up your life,I thought, and it was so true. In this moment, I was completely messed up. I was done.
Noah didn’t even take off his coat. He didn’t look at anyone else. He walked across the room, straight toward me with that stride that made me weak in the knees. He put his hands around my waist, pulled me toward him, and kissed me.
I leaned into him, kissing him back. Drinking him in. It had been too, too long since I’d felt his mouth against mine, since I’d smelled his scent, since I’d felt how my body fit against his. His coat was still chilled from the cold outside, and he smelled like crisp city air. He tasted like Noah. I put my hands in his hair, feeling its soft, familiar texture, and took all of him in for as long as he would let me.
Finally he broke the kiss. I had tears stinging my eyes, and then I realized: The room really was silent.
I looked around. Ava and Dane were frozen on the sofa. Alex had his drink halfway to his mouth. Aidan had his arms crossed, scowling at us, and Sam was standing behind his shoulder, her jaw dropped open. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Even the caterers had gone still, staring at Noah and me.
Well. Everyone knew about us now. I tried to feel embarrassment, but nothing came. Instead, I just felt…happy.
Purely, incredibly happy.
Noah put his arms around my shoulders and faced the room. “By the way, everyone, I have an announcement. Emma and I are seeing each other.”
My heart bloomed with warm joy, and I smiled.