Page 148 of Wait for Him

“I still think you're incredible.”

“You've known me for five weeks.”

“And?”

“And I could be a terrible person.”

Macy gives me a long, exaggerated look over the rim of her wineglass before taking a sip. “Are you?”

“Probably not.”

“Then we're good.”

I laugh and take another drink, shaking my head at her. “You're very trusting.”

“No, I'm an excellent judge of character.”

“Based on five cello classes and three glasses of wine?”

“Four.”

My eyebrows lift. “This is our fourth?”

“Don't judge. We've been through a lot tonight.”

My laugh is loud enough that the couple at the next table glances over. “How will we ever recover?”

“I don't know. Probably another glass.”

She reaches for the bottle, and I slide it toward her.

“Now that,” I tell her, “I can help with.”

Macy fills both of our glasses before settling back into the booth, and somehow the conversation simply moves on. No awkward silence afterward. No look that says she sees me differently now that she knows everything. Five minutes later she's telling me about one of her students who spent an entire lesson insisting the cello was out of tune when he was actually playing the wrong fucking note.

And somewhere between laughing with her and finishing another glass of wine, I realize I'm having fun.

Not distracting myself. Not performing okay.

Actually having fun, and I'd almost forgotten what that felt like.

Chapter Fourteen

Jackson

May

I pride myself on remaining professional and composed under pressure.

So the fact that I'm currently choking on a mouthful of water is doing absolutely nothing for that reputation.

In my defense, I was just proposed to.

Literally.

The Los Angeles skyline glitters beneath the balcony of the hotel suite, traffic crawling along Sunset like someone spilled rubies and pearls across black velvet. It's the kind of view corporations pay obscene money to impress people with, and judging by the woman standing beside me, it works.

I agreed to meet Rian Fields, CEO of Lane & Fields, expecting a conversation about a potential partnership. A quiet dinner, a little networking, maybe some talk of distressed acquisitions over an overpriced Cabernet. Instead, somewhere between dessert and my near-drowning, she informed me that the smartest business decision either of us could make was getting married.