Chapter 55
Her eyes moved to the hotel entrance, the low-key elegance of the stone facade, navy canopies above the windows and timeless brass revolving doors.
It was an if-you-know-you-know kind of place, loyal customers who only told a handful of people about it for fear of it becoming well known.
Very Charlie, in other words, she thought, composing a text to Liv in her head.
A small dog veered close by on an extendable lead, and its owners took the hint and clustered around the other end of the bench, a young family with ice-cream-faced kids, a stroller, and the dog.
“Sorry,” the mum laughed as her toddler clambered up in the middle and almost upended himself onto Kate.
Kate smiled, reminded of Alice at that age, looking forward to experiencing the baby days again secondhand with Liv.
“It’s fine,” she said, taking it as her nudge to get going. “I was just leaving, you guys can spread out.”
She wandered toward the hotel, enjoying the flick of her skirt around her calves.
She’d known straightaway what she was going to wear tonight, a midnight silk Max Mara–inspired halter-neck Liv had made for her a few years ago.
It was a confidence-booster dress, cut to skim and flatter, backless with a thigh-grazing split on one side revealing enough skin to feel daring.
It felt appropriate: she’d dared to do difficult things over the last few days—baring her soul on the Good Morning Show, stepping outside to confront balaclava man alone, or so she thought, this morning.
And now she was here, tonight. Meeting Charlie in her favorite dress.
She’d made several weighty decisions over the last few weeks, and she knew he’d been wrestling with some hefty ones of his own too.
Twenty years previously, she’d walked into Jojo Francisco’s office for a life-changing conversation. It didn’t escape her notice that she was here again now, walking into a conversation with a different Francisco, knowing that, one way or the other, it would change her life again.
Placing her hand on the brass door bar, she lifted her chin and stepped inside.