The Trouble with Love
Page 19

Emma scratched her eyebrow. “Yeah. I sort of saw that happen.”
Danielle blushed. “I thought maybe you might have. And I wasn’t going to do anything about it, I swear. I’m not that girl. But then the other day, Alex had a bunch of Stiletto articles on his desk and he was asking my opinion on some of them, and I saw yours….”
“Ah,” Emma said, beginning to understand. “And you learned that Benedict was very much still on the market.”
Cassidy’s girlfriend—no, ex-girlfriend—blushed. “You must think I’m terrible. Dumping one guy and five minutes later hitting up his ex about her ex. It’s just that…I’m thirty-four, and I want so badly to find someone—”
Emma smiled and held up a hand. “You don’t have to explain. I get it.”
Danielle broke off. “You do?”
“Sure,” Emma said with a shrug. “Finding someone you have sparks with is rare. And nobody should stay in a relationship that they don’t think is going anywhere. It wouldn’t be fair to you. Or Cassidy.”
Danielle tilted her head slightly. “You guys sure are mature about this. How is it possible that there’s no bad blood between you?”
Emma laughed. “It’s more like the blood froze. What you interpret as civil is more like…deliberate indifference.”
Deliberate indifference—that was a good one. She liked it. Suspected Cassidy would, too. If they’d ever stay in each other’s company long enough to talk about it.
“Well, regardless, I guess I just wanted to double-check that I wouldn’t be moving in on someone else’s guy if I called Benedict.”
“I can’t promise that he hasn’t started seeing someone in the past couple weeks,” Emma said. “We haven’t spoken. But if he is seeing someone, it’s not me.”
“Okay,” Danielle said, taking a breath. “Okay, thanks. And now for the extra awkward part…”
Emma smiled. “You want his phone number?”
The pretty brunette all but sagged in relief. “You’re awesome. Seriously.”
Emma retrieved her phone from the counter and scrolled through her received calls until she found where Benedict had called her to confirm their date.
She gave Danielle the number, and felt a little flicker of alarm that she didn’t feel the least bit weird in doing so. The flicker escalated to a flame as she realized that she was happy.
Happy that Cassidy and Danielle had broken up.
Uh-oh.
She knew her friends and sister thought she was emotionally closed off. Emma herself sometimes worried that she was partially dead inside.
Well, she definitely wasn’t dead inside now.
“Sorry I interrupted your evening,” Danielle said as she pulled her purse higher onto her shoulder and stepped into the hallway, having gotten what she came for.
“No problem,” Emma said, swallowing her panic and the flurry of emotions rolling through her. “Kept the night from being boring.”
Danielle glanced briefly at Cassidy’s door, her expression not so much sad as thoughtful. “You know the weirdest part of all this? I don’t even think Alex will mind. When I suggested that he and I end things, he was just…”
Danielle ran a palm down over the front of her face as though to indicate expressionlessness. “Nothing. Straight-faced, no reaction beyond a polite smile and a good-bye hug. It was like I was his sister, or something.”
“I’m sure he cared,” Emma said kindly. But even as she said it, she knew she was probably lying. Like Emma, Cassidy wasn’t cruel—he never meant to toy with anyone’s emotions, or lead women on. But, like Emma, he held himself back. From everyone.
Danielle shrugged. “Maybe. Okay, I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks again for not throwing me out.”
Emma waved good-bye, and was about to shut the door when her gaze landed on Cassidy’s front door. How perfectly fitting that he got dumped on the same day he’d antagonized her by mentioning her exes.
Thank you, karma.
And then, because Emma apparently didn’t have any sense whatsoever, she listened to an urge she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
She walked forward and knocked on the door of her ex-fiancé.
Chapter 9
Alex’s best guess as to who could be knocking on his door was Danielle.
Not that he thought she’d changed her mind. But the woman had forgotten her umbrella. Again.
But it wasn’t Danielle.
“Emma.”
For several seconds after he opened the door, they merely stared at each other. She was wearing gray pants and a white blouse unbuttoned just enough to hint at subtle cleavage. Her brown hair was loose around her shoulders.
And her eyes? Unreadable as ever.
“You owe me a meeting,” she said finally.
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she said, sweeping past him and entering his apartment as though she owned the place. “I talked to Julie and she said that you had in-person discussions with the rest of the columnists about their December stories. I didn’t get the in-person part, or the discussion. A mandated story topic via email? Really?”
“Gosh, I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to have this friendly chat in person,” he muttered as he shut the door.
Emma moved into the main living room area and looked around. The layout of his apartment was almost identical to Camille’s, but that’s where the similarities ended. Camille preferred fancy, fussy furniture and a billion pillows and pictures and lamps.