she’s been gone so long.” I needed to tell her what happened in person. All she knew was, after Dauphine’s kidnapping, Xavier decided they didn’t need to be on the boat anymore and no longer had need of someone to help since his mother was going to move in for a time.
“Between you and me, I think Tabs has hooked back up with her high school sweetheart. There’s something about going home after so long for a family wedding that feels an awful lot like a cable TV happily-ever-after movie.”
My jaw was hanging open, so I closed it. “No. She wouldn’t.” I racked my brain for all the high school stories we’d swapped over the years. “Would she?”
“And leave the big city for the one that got away …? Yes, I believe she would.”
“Are we calling Charleston the big city now?” I asked.
“Well, when you come from horse-country-Aiken, South Carolina, yes, Charleston is the big city.”
“But she has a business—”
“That she can run from anywhere.”
“Hmm. That’s a good point. But you guys have been looking at apartments by the yacht club. Tabitha seemed into it.”
“I think I was mostly driving that bus. I’ve been getting the feeling lately that she was homesick since her parents retired back to where the rest of her family is. And let’s face it, you weren’t into the idea of a move either. Anyway, you won’t even be living here by the end of the year.”
My eyes widened, and I choked on my drink. “Excuse me?”
She shrugged. “Just saying. You’ll be living the cush-life in France.”
My belly twisted, and I set my drink down, positioning it to line up perfectly straight with my water glass. “No, I won’t. Don’t say that.”
“I give it two months tops.”
“Until what?” I rolled my eyes. “Until I throw away my self-respect and beg his mother for a job just so I can be near him.” I added a dramatic shudder at the ridiculousness she was suggesting. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind in my weakest moments.
She flicked her long, auburn hair behind her shoulder. “No. Until he comes for you.”
My stomach dropped into free fall. The idea that he would ever do that was impossible while also intoxicating and dangerous thinking. It was a daydream. An easily crushed fantasy. An idea made worse by the fact that in the deepest, most buried part of my heart—a place where I’d stuffed my love for him under a pile of self-ridicule at being a nanny falling for her widowed billionaire boss—a little flicker of hope pulsed to life. Fuck. I’d never get over him if I couldn’t stop fantasizing he missed me and couldn’t live without me.
I gritted my teeth. “Just stop it, okay. It fucking hurts, Mer. I told him how I feel. He knows. He knows and he isn’t capable of meeting me there. He’s too damaged. He’s untrusting. His heart is closed to me. It’s not happening. And I can’t afford to even entertain the idea that he’s thinking about me. I can’t. I’ll break apart. I’m barely hanging on here. Please, as my best friend, help me forget him, help me heal, don’t stick a lever in the cracks in my chest to pry them open.” Tears had sprung to my eyes.
Meredith’s face grew slack. Her hand covered mine where I’d pulverized what was left of the coaster. “Dammit. I’m so sorry, Josie. I’m so thoughtless sometimes. I… I didn’t realize that you really and truly fell for him. Shit.”
“I told you I did,” I whispered and swiped a hand across my cheek.
“And I guess I just thought it was lust and a massive crush … shit, I’m sorry.”
I laid my head down on my arms.
“Okay. I’m closing us out and then we’re going home to Taye Diggs. I’m sorry.”
Nodding, I mumbled, “Thank you.”
A few minutes later, we were walking down King Street toward home. The fall evening was still warm and balmy, but the breeze was laced with a cool undertone.
“I’m sorry,” Meredith said for the fourteenth time.
I slipped my arm through hers and linked us together. “I know.”
“So how was your first week at the new job,” she asked.
“Great, actually. I’m definitely among my people. Half the salary, of course, but twice the satisfaction level. Also, I’ve dusted off my old blog I started in college. I sent out an email to my old subscriber list and they’re all still there, been missing me.” My chest filled again with warmth at how awesome it