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But the man’s face was blurring in her head. It looked a little bit like James, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. Surely not.
But the unease that had been plaguing her, that had made her take off and come without being invited, shot to life.
Her brain said that she had been a fool, and she needed to keep her eyes on the door.
Her heart told her to trust everything that James had said, because he was a good man.
Sometimes she thought her heart was the stupidest organ in her body.
She was just a few feet from the door when it opened again.
She froze.
It was James. It was definitely James. And yes, he had a woman in red beside him. He looked down on her with affection, with the same look that he looked at Chi with. He looked at her like that in the diner when she sat down beside him, tired and aching, her feet hurting, her ankles swollen.
He said to her that she shouldn’t work so hard, that she should come away with him.
She’d always resisted. She didn’t want to live with someone, she wanted to be married to him. She wanted to mean enough that he made a commitment, a lifetime commitment, to her.
She wasn’t just a trial or someone to keep his bed warm until he found someone he liked better.
The woman stood at the door, taking off her wrap, as a man in a smart black suit waited for her to hand it to him. He stood back and to the side, not stealing any of the spotlight from the beautiful lady.
Was that a Hollywood actress?
She looked a little different in person than on screen. Her hair was a slightly different color, but Chi was pretty sure that woman was a movie star. Maybe not the highest-paid, most popular one, but one she’d seen on TV. She was almost certain she was.
What was James doing at a diner in a tiny town paying attention to the waitress in the diner, when he had a movie star on his arm?
But she knew. She knew exactly what James had wanted with her. And she knew now that there had been no marriage in her future.
At least he wasn’t married himself. That would’ve been far, far worse.
Except... Maybe he was.
He had told her he was divorced, but everything else he had said was a lie. Maybe that was a lie too. Maybe she wasn’t the only one that had been deceived, since the movie star on his arm laughed up into his face like she actually liked him.
Chi glanced down, down where his hand lay wrapped around the woman’s waist. No ring. Just that faint white band, like sometimes there was a ring.
Somehow, as she stood there, whether or not he was married was the question that burned in her mind. She was jealous of that woman he had on his arm, upset with herself for even being there, and part of her wanted to duck away without him seeing her at all. Knowing how pathetic she was. Knowing that she had followed him the whole way to Chicago. Suspecting that she was there to move in. She was going to debase herself like that. But a big part of her wanted to know, needed to know, had to know, whether or not James was married.
Had she been messing around with another woman’s husband?
Taking a breath, trying to push back the shades of red that were shrouding her vision, she walked, no, she stomped, over to the man who had been whispering sweet nothings in her ear just yesterday at the diner.
“James. Imagine meeting you here.”
She could tell immediately he recognized her voice. Because he froze. He had been in the middle of saying something to the woman in red, but his voice trailed off as her words penetrated in his head.
She could wait. Let them penetrate.
Slowly he turned his head, and his eyes focused on hers.
She thought he was going to deny even knowing her. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Putting her hands on her hips, she lifted her eyes, gave him her most haughty look, and said in her most cultured voice, “James Connolly, are you married?”
He laughed, derisively, insultingly, like she was a child who had asked if Santa Claus was real, demanded that her parents tell her.
But the woman beside him stopped. Her eyes went to Chi, and her brows furrowed.
