Chapter 11
11
Gage
Noon comes and goes on Tuesday, and Amelia doesn’t show for our meeting. I give her fifteen minutes before deciding something’s happened. I checked social media this morning, something I don’t do often, and saw the updates on her. A lot of nasty shit has been posted, but most concerning is the speculation over her contract for Velocity Reign .
I call her at 12:15 p.m.
She doesn’t answer, but within a minute, she calls me back.
“Oh my god, Gage, I am sooooo sorry!” She’s a burst of frantic energy and words that are slightly slurred. “Shit! Shit, shit.”
I frown. “Have you been drinking?” It certainly sounds like it.
I’m met with silence, and in it, I hear the distinct sounds of low music, laughter, and the soft hum of a midday crowd.
“Where are you?” I ask, already out of my seat.
“I am so embarrassed.”
“Amelia. Where are you?”
“I never do this. I’ve never missed anything in my life. I can’t believe I forgot.” Her words trip over each other, unfiltered.
“Amelia.” My tone is firm. The kind I use when I need answers. “Tell me where you are.”
She takes a moment. “At The Langham. I’m sorry I missed our meeting.”
“Wait there. I’ll come to you.”
She says something that’s muffled, as if she’s got her mouth covered. It sounded a lot like, “For the love of God, don’t wear a tuxedo.”
I grab my jacket and walk out of my office. “Did you just tell me not to wear a tux?”
“Shit. Did I say that out loud?” Before I can answer, she adds, “I’m not taking it back.”
My lips twitch. “Amelia, are you day drinking?” I’m both amused and concerned by that idea.
“In my defense, I have reasons.”
I chuckle. “Good to know this isn’t just something you do for fun.” We end the call, and I eye my assistant who I’m now standing in front of. “Cancel my afternoon.”
Lucy’s eyebrows hit her forehead. “No way. Don’t do this to me, Gage,” she whisper-yells. “You’ve got John at three.”
John’s one of the most powerful men in global finance. He hired me to assess cross-market risks tied to rising geopolitical tensions. It’s the kind of work that shifts forecasts and rattles portfolios.
I don’t cancel on men like John. Ever. Not when the work we do reshapes markets and moves governments. But I’m already walking.
I meet Lucy’s panic with a firm, “Reschedule it.”
She mutters something about updating her résumé, but I block it out and head for the elevator. Lucy has worked for me for five years, and this isn’t the first time she’s threatened to quit. We’ve seen some shit together in those five years and she has my back just as much as I have hers. She’s not going anywhere.
It’s a ten-minute walk from my office to The Langham. Less if I’m walking with intent, which I am today.
I spot her the moment I walk in. She’s alone at a table near the bar. Dressed in a black sleeveless jumpsuit that’s belted at the waist. Her blazer hangs on the back of her chair. Her heels have been kicked off under the table.
A cocktail glass sits in front of her, half-empty, the stem caught between her fingers while she stares at it like she’s considering all her life choices to date.
She doesn’t see me until I reach her. When she glances up, I catch the look of someone who’s past the point of pretending. Her eyes are a little glassy, her smile wobbly.
“Oh, thank god,” she says. “No tuxedo.”
I take the seat across from her. “You really hate the tux, huh?”
She rolls her eyes, and this isn’t just any eye roll. This is dramatic and so un-Amelia. “You really have no idea, do you?”
Fuck, I’m invested in this conversation to the point I’d blow off a thousand Johns for it. “I really don’t. You’re going to have to enlighten me.”
She lifts her glass to her lips and takes a sip, all while keeping her eyes very much locked on mine. “You wear a tux like nobody’s business. It’s actually rude how good you look in it.”
I bite back a grin. “Got it. A tuxedo is required the next time we blow off work together.”
“If I ever see you in one again, there will be hell to pay.”
“That’d be the kind of hell I think I’d enjoy.”
The flare of heat in her eyes tells me that landed. And then the alcohol she’s consumed does all the talking, telling me things Amelia would never say sober.
“Honestly, I’m convinced God put you on earth to drive me wild. Between your eyes, your mouth, your voice, your hands, your muscles”—she makes wide eyes at me—“that cologne you wear. Not to mention the way you just”—she waves her hand in the air, searching for the right word—“I don’t know, exist. It’s too much.”
I let out a low laugh. “The way I exist.”
“Yes!”
“I think you may need to explain that to me too.”
“I thought you were just like James. The kind of guy who thinks he owns everything in his life, including the people. But no, you had to go and show me you’re not like that at all. You’re a good dad, a really good dad , and you care about people. Although, it was mean that you wanted to scrap all those science fair plans without taking Stephanie’s feelings into account. So, you could work on that.” She pauses, giving me those dramatic eyes again. “It’s a lot, Gage. Like, I’m just over here trying to live my life and get through my days. Which, can I just tell you, are already busy . And now I have to add thinking about you to my schedule.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she’s not finished.
“And dating. Good. God,” she carries on. “I don’t know how to date anymore. I don’t know how soon men expect sex. I don’t know what ‘soft launching’ really means. I don’t know if emojis are flirting or just punctuation now. I don’t know how you’re supposed to be chill and honest at the same time. I don’t even know if it’s okay to ask if you’re the only person someone’s seeing anymore. Is that desperate? Or, God forbid, cringe?”
Fuck me.
Amelia just placed her heart down between us. Handed me her truth, piece by unfiltered piece like she didn’t even realize what she was giving me. And I have never seen anything more beautiful.
“It’s not desperate or cringe.”
That slows her down. She narrows her eyes at me like she’s not sure if I actually know the answer to her question. “Really?”
“It’s real. And fucking refreshing. As for emojis, they should be banned from dating. They leave too much room for misunderstandings. Soft launching? No fucking idea what that is either. And sex? You decide that for yourself, Amelia, and you don’t ever let any man tell you your decision is wrong. Dating is your choice. All the way around.”
It’s like I’ve knocked the wind out of her with that. Gone is the wildly expressive woman of a moment ago, and in her place sits a woman stunned by my response.
“I think I need another drink to process all of that,” she finally declares.
I’m not convinced that’s her best course of action but far be it from me to tell a woman what she should do. Instead, I ask, “What happened today?”
Her gaze drops to her empty cocktail glass, and she runs a finger back and forth over the base of it. She does that for a long moment before glancing back up at me. “I lost the Velocity Reign contract. I came here for a meeting, but the studio canceled at the last minute and didn’t show. They said they’re moving in a different creative direction now, which is studio-speak for ‘I’m a liability now.’”
“I’m sorry.”
She nods. “Yeah. Me too.” She goes back to the base of the glass, but only for a few seconds before looking up again. “No, I’m pissed off, actually.” Her expression turns fierce. “I’m fucking angry that Sofia Reye can spread lies about me and ruin my career. I’m fucking angry that strangers who don’t even know me get to say shit about me on social media. I’m fucking angry that I have to stay silent. That the lawyers I’m paying a fortune to won’t let me defend myself in public. I’m fucking angry that I now don’t get to work on a film I really wanted to. And ”—she inhales a sharp breath—“I’m fucking angry that I lost one of my favorite earrings today.”
She exhales a long breath after unloading all of that. I can’t tell if she feels better or not now. I watch her silently, giving her space. She doesn’t look away. Just takes all the time I give her to direct the conversation.
“I didn’t do it.” Her voice is raw, stripped of the anger now. “I didn’t steal Sofia’s work.”
She watches me like she’s bracing for my response.
“Amelia, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you would never do that.”
“You don’t even know me,” she says softly. “How can you be so sure?”
I lean forward. “Because I’ve been watching you for a year. I’ve seen the way you carry yourself, what’s important to you. You show up, even when it’s hard. You speak the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. You own your shit. I’ve never once seen you pass the blame or spin a story to make yourself look better.” I let that sit before continuing. “You don’t perform for the world. You don’t play the game. Fuck, I don’t think you even know what the game is. You’re too real for that. And your work? You’re fucking talented. And you’ve got pride in what you do. But more than that, you’ve got pride in who you are. That’s how I know. I see your standards. I see your integrity. People like you don’t steal. You don’t need to.”
I sit back, watching her process everything I just said. I don’t think she was expecting any of it when she asked how I could be so sure. And once again, I’m hit by how wrong I’ve been about her this past year. She’s absolutely all the things I just said, but where I saw cool confidence before, I misread what was underneath. I assumed that meant she was in control. Content. Had her shit sorted.
Amelia is confident. I’ve seen it. But I think she’s been taught to keep herself small. Manageable. I think if the world would just get the fuck out of her way, she’d stop playing by its rules and rewrite every damn one of them.
“So,” she says after a lot of processing, “it turns out you’re not an asshole after all.”
I laugh. I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to. Amelia unfiltered is fucking disarming. “That’s the second compliment you’ve given me. I thought the first one was an outlier and there would be no more.”
“Well, you just gave me some, so I thought I’d return the favor.”
“By my calculations, I’m still due a few if you’re returning the favor.”
She lifts her brows. “Did I, or did I not, tell you that your ass is hot when you first got here? I think that makes us even.”
Christ, I could do this with her all day.
“No, my ass wasn’t mentioned. But I’ve just made a mental update to your list.”
Her own enjoyment of this conversation is written across her face and I fucking like seeing that in her.
“Honestly, I don’t think you need me to help you out with compliments. I’m pretty sure you’ve got a long line of women ready to throw them at you.”
“Yours are the only ones I’m interested in hearing, Amelia.”
That causes heat in her eyes again. Then, a long stare before she stands abruptly. “I need to use the bathroom,” she announces. “And you need to stop saying things like that.” She grabs her heels from under the table. “When I get back, we should have our science fair planning meeting.”
She’s slipping her shoes on when the server approaches to ask if we’d like food or drinks.
“Sure,” Amelia says. “I’ll have another cocktail. An Everything All At Once, please.”
“Jesus,” I say. “What’s in that?” It sounds like something I would have chosen in my early twenties. Something to really fuck me up.
She shrugs. “I can’t remember, but it’s good.” She looks at the server. “Do you know?”
He nods and rattles off the list of ingredients. “Whisky, rum, pear spice, and walnut liqueur.”
Fuck . That’s not a drink. That’s trauma waiting to happen.
“And you, Sir?” he asks.
“I’ll take a bourbon. Neat. Someone here has to remember their name tomorrow.”
He gives me a quick grin before leaving.
“How many have you had?” I ask Amelia who’s now hunting around in her purse for something.
“Three. I think.” She locates what she’s looking for and then glances at me. “I’m going to the bathroom now. Don’t steal my drink if it arrives before I come back.”
She says that like it’s a real possibility, which I find highly amusing. My amusement vanishes the second she heads for the bathroom and I see what those three drinks have done to her.
I should have discouraged another drink. She’s walking like the floor’s shifting beneath her.
I signal for the check and push my chair back, ready to get us out of here. By the time Amelia returns, the bill has been settled, and the drinks returned.
She gives me a questioning look. “Are you leaving?”
I button my jacket. “No, we’re leaving.”
Her expression shifts into a frown. “I thought we were going to do some science fair planning over drinks.”
“Amelia, I’ll never tell you what to do, but from where I’m standing, you’re looking at a bad headache in the morning if we stay for drinks. If you really want to have another one, just say the word and I’ll make it happen, but I’d rather take you home and help prevent a hangover.”
She’s silent for a long beat and I can’t tell which way she’ll go. Finally, she says, “God. You really are a whole-ass situation, even when you’re not wearing a tuxedo.”
And then she’s reaching for her blazer, turning, and walking out of the bar while I’m left wondering what the hell she means by that.
The thing I’m not in the dark about?
Amelia’s been thinking about me just as much as I’ve been thinking about her.