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“I’m fucked. I’m so royally, horribly fucked.” I couldn’t stop bouncing my legs or chewing the inside of my cheek, couldn’t focus and bring myself to calm down, and the incessant tapping of my feet on the sticky plastic floor of the taxi only made the cycle worse. We were three blocks away from the Japanese restaurant, and even though Emily had agreed to join me for support as my assistant, I knew this wouldn’t end well.
“You’ll be okay,” Em cooed, tapping the binder in my lap. “Just follow this and don’t go off script. Get the answers to your questions and then just let me do all of the communication from there.”
I’d caught her up on everything that had happened. Much to my dismay, she’d taunted me for sleeping with him so easily. But I still didn’t feel like she understood the gravity of this. The woman he thought he’d slept with, the woman who had begged him to stay that morning for just a little more time with him, the woman who had given him a fake number even when she offered it up—that wasn’tLily.And that realization was minutes away from taking hold.
I didn’t even want to imagine how he’d react, let alone witness it.
“He’s going to hate me,” I said. I pushed the hair out of my face as we passed the Charging Bull statue, traffic finally letting up and letting us down one final block of Broadway. “He’s going to fucking hate me and never want to see me again.”
Emily’s brows knitted as she turned to me, her blonde ponytail flying. “Isn’t that what you want, though? For him to never see you again?”
The cab pulled over to the side of the road and the man clicked the button on his machine, but fuck, I wasn’t ready to get out. We still had at least fifty feet to walk, but even being this close and knowing he could walk down the street alongside me was enough to put me on high alert. “I don’t know what I want, Em.”
Dad had given me his number in case I needed to contact Adrian before the meeting. I’d stared at it almost all night in my apartment, tempted to call and tell him in advance so that he wouldn’t be surprised and caught off guard in a public location. But telling him privately meant he could react how he wanted, and although there wasn’t a single part of me that expected violence, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t yell at me in a restaurant.
“That’ll be sixty-two eighty.”
I swallowed down the bile creeping up my throat and tapped my phone against the card reader on the back of the driver’s seat, waiting for the audible beep. “Thank you,” I said, sliding the door open and invading the warm taxi with the chill of the October air. I tightened my suit jacket around my shoulders and waited for Em to step out, checking around me for any sign of Adrian.
But it was one minute to eleven, and the likelihood of him already being there waiting for me hung heavily on my shoulders.
“Regardless of how this goes, you will be okay,” Em assured me as she started walking toward the restaurant. “We’ll figure it out.”
But it didn’tfeellike it would be okay. It felt like it would all go to shit in the palm of my hand. The night I’d had that I’d never wanted to end might end up so horribly, disgustingly soiled that I would never be able to think about it again. “Okay,” I choked.
Em walked in front of me, her hand locked in mine as she dragged me. Her all-white pantsuit complimented my black one, and without evening meaning to, we’d picked the exact same button-up to wear beneath—a light gray shirt we’d purchased together two years ago during college. We were like the grown-up version of when people dress their twin toddlers in matching-but-not-matching clothing.
Wait.
Before I could get the idea out of my mouth, the restaurant came into view, and I nearly ran. Right there in the window, with his back turned to my side of the street, Adrian sat at a table, his phone in hand. I could just barely see his profile in the glass, and oh my God, I couldn’t do this, couldn’t destroy that night, couldn’t deal with the consequences of my actions?—
“Ava,” Em complained, tugging on my unmoving hand. “Come on.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t. He’s right there.”
“Youcan.” Her head turned to look in the window. “Oh shit, he is hot.”
As if on fucking cue, his head turned in our direction, and before he could manage to make eye contact, I practically dove into the little space beside me between a cafe and an office building, lifting the binder to shield my face.
Emily moved to the space between me and the sidewalk, her lips forming a hard line as she looked at me, brown eyes boring a hole into my skull. “You can’t keep running from him. He’llask more questions if you don’t show up, and your dad will hear about it.”
Fuck it. It’s worth a shot.“He hasn’t seen me in ten years,” I explained. “Hasn’t seenAva, I mean. The last time he saw me as Ava, I had jet-black hair and thick-as-shit eyeliner. I’d look different now. Idolook different now.”
One slicked-down brow rose. “I don’t understand.”
“You go,” I insisted, the idea taking shape in my mind and flowing from my mouth without a second thought. Her eyes widened in response. “Be Ava. He’ll probably be a little surprised, but I don’t think he’ll question it. Just greet him like you would if you saw one of your parents’ friends that you haven’t seen in years.”
“You want me to pretend to be you?” she asked, and I nodded. “Ava, that’s insane. You’d just be delaying the inevitable.”
“Not if I change my entire look by the next time I have to see him.”
“Oh myGod.What if he brings it up to your father? Mentions how different you look?”
“Idolook different. As long as he doesn’t go into specifics with him, I doubt my dad will probe him further on that,” I explained. I pushed the binder into her arms before she could protest. “Every question is in here. The whole fucking script is. Just follow it.”
“Av—”
“Please,” I begged. “Please.I’ll go to Louis Vuitton right fucking now and get you that little bag you said you wanted in exchange for your help.”
