Eva grins at me. “Where’s my munchkin, by the way? I forgot to ask you earlier. I know I said that I would make it up to the cabin, but…”
“But you were too busy having sex with the asshole.” I finish her sentence, and we both laugh.
“Fair enough. I deserved that one. But that doesn’t answer the question about Grace. I thought she might want to go to some of the museums.”
“My mother’s bringing her up early tomorrow morning, after the meetings are all finished.”
“She’ll love it. And I, for one, am filled with enthusiasm at the thought of seeing Claire again.”
Eva’s voice is filled with anything but enthusiasm. I wag my finger at her.
“My mother is going to hop a flight back to Michigan just as soon as she drops Grace off, so you might just miss the pleasure of her company.” I sigh. “I didn’t want to drag Grace into all of this. I couldn’t take the chance of someone snapping her picture.”
It’s true. But what I neglect to tell Eva is that the thought of keeping my daughter in the same hotel as Chris Jensen fills me with dread. As far as I know, he’s completely unaware that she exists. I’ve done everything that I could possibly think of to keep her out of the press, and while a few people with cameras managed to snap pictures of her with me in those awful days after Ben died, the paparazzi have been surprisingly well-behaved when it comes to her. Maybe even the vultures have hearts.
But that just means that unless he did some serious digging, which I wouldn’t put past him, he doesn’t know about her. I had wanted to tell him, back in the suite, but something about the mixing of different worlds made me run instead. If I can’t even bear for them to be in the same hotel, what does that say about any possibility of a future for him and me? Was there even a future there to begin with?
“Hello! Hallie, wake up. Where are you taking Grace when she gets here?”
“Sorry. Sorry. I promised her a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo before we head back up to Lake Geneva. You should come with us.”
“Oh, good. I brought the most darling little…”
“No. No more gifts. Sam already turned her into a monster last week by having all five members of 4Sure call her for her birthday. They even wrote a song for her. ‘Grace of My Heart.’”
Eva looks appropriately horrified. “Sam’s title, I suppose?”
“I think it was all his idea. I promise, it’s even worse than it sounds. I’ll have to get the recording for you. Of course, Grace thinks that it’s the next masterpiece. She’s probably right. It has just the right mix of pop and rock. That’s what Sam said, anyways. And Marie send clothes that were ‘straight from the Paris runways.’ The saddest thing is that I think her favorite gift was this hideous trucker hat that my mother gave her last week.”
“The kid is on trend. Trucker hats. Chic again. Who knew? Randomly, that’s the only late 90s trend that I did not want to come back. But that’s fashion.” She gives me her best runway pout. “Enough about Grace. We don’t have time to argue about my spoiling of my favorite preschooler. You know I’ll win anyways. Now, how do I look?”
She’s wearing her signature red and does a little twirl to show off the dress to its full effect.
“Marcus will die when he sees you in that.”
“As long as it’s a long, slow, painful death, I’m fine with that.” Eva touches my arm. “You look gorgeous, Hal, and we both know it. Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
The dress keeps riding up on my thighs, and I yank it down at least five times in the elevator ride, trying desperately to make it cover more of my body. When we reach the maitre’d stand, I notice that a couple of the diners are staring blatantly at me. Of course. I look like a total slut. I’m too old to pull off something like this. Just as I’m about to run back up to change, I notice that a man has gotten up from his seat at the bar to approach us. He’s probably closer to my mother’s age than mine.
“May I say that you look lovely tonight? May I buy either of you a drink?”
Eva’s inner mama bear takes over and she thrusts me behind her. “Thank you for