The Trouble with Love
Page 35

Cassidy gave her a dark look.
“What? Your star reporter is hot.”
Cassidy smiled his thanks at Jana for the wine. He started to take a drink, but then held up his glass.
She lifted hers in response. “What are we cheering to?”
Cassidy paused. “To being able to sit here with someone who I don’t have to impress.”
Emma laughed in surprise, but clinked his glass anyway. “Seriously?”
“Well, see, that’s what I like about us, Emma. We ignore each other when we want to ignore each other. Which is most of the time. But when we are in each other’s orbit, there’s something almost soothing about hanging out with someone who’s already indifferent to you. Can’t really mess anything up, you know?”
Emma thought about this as she sipped her wine. “I don’t know that that’s true. There are worse places we could sink, right? Say from indifference to all-out hate?”
Something flashed on his face, and he picked up the menu again instead of meeting her eyes, as though trying to hide something.
Then he seemed to change his mind, and glanced at her anyway. “Sometimes I think I’d prefer you hate me. At least then you’d notice me.”
Everything inside Emma seemed to freeze. I notice you—too much. Do you notice me?
Instead, she forced a slow smile. “Well, if you keep running your mouth about our past to our friends, I could probably muster some hate.”
He grinned, and the moment was gone. “Hey, you started it. If it were up to me, we’d never talk about it.”
“Not even to each other?” she asked curiously.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Emma sipped her wine. Contemplated. “I think I’d rather have that hamburger you mentioned.”
“Good girl.” Cassidy slapped the menu down on the bar, and Emma was oddly charmed by the almost boyish look on his face.
“So if this is a first date, but not a dinner-worthy date…why the heck are you wearing a suit?” she asked.
He glanced down. “I don’t know. Habit? Does it not work? Bad move? I skipped the tie.”
“It works,” she said somewhat begrudgingly. “It’s just an odd choice for someone who’s so gun-shy of first dates he won’t even take the woman to dinner.”
“You’re really hung up on that, huh?” he asked.
She shrugged. Sipped her wine.
“Emma.” His voice was cajoling.
She ignored him, and he turned around to face her, his smile teasing but not mean. “Emma, honey, is that a little bit of your old southern belle I see peeping out?”
Emma pursed her lips, and he laughed softly. “It is! Tell me, how many people know that beneath the Manhattan ice princess lies a southern debutante?”
“None,” she snapped. “Because I’m not that girl anymore.”
“Which girl?” he pressed. “The one whose shared debutante ball with her twin was so elaborate that it rivaled most women’s weddings?”
“You weren’t even there for the debutante ball. It was before your time.” And you weren’t there for the wedding, either.
“I saw the pictures,” he said. “I got the idea.”
“Hey,” she said, voice testy. “Just because my parents were determined to turn Daisy and me into little princesses doesn’t mean that I have to stay that way.”
She felt him studying her profile. “But Daisy did.”
“Yeah. Daisy did. Does,” Emma corrected. “Even after the divorce she’s still all pretty manners and bless your heart.”
Cassidy smiled and Emma’s heart twisted. “Guess my dad had the right idea all along when he tried to set you guys up.”
His smile dropped. “Emma—”
“Don’t, Cassidy. Don’t tell me you didn’t want to date my sister.”
He swore softly, dipping his head. “When I was twenty years old and didn’t even know you. And once I did—”
“It doesn’t matter. You got what you wanted. A job with my father. And a blissfully ignorant girlfriend—no, fiancée—who had no idea that you had asked her out just to get a job.”
He pointed a finger. “Asked you out, yes. Proposed, no. That was all me.”
“Was it?” she asked, taking a healthy sip of wine. “Or was it because my father had no intention of handing over his company to someone who wasn’t family?”
Cassidy swore softly and dropped his chin.
“Emma—”
“Don’t,” she said softly. “Please don’t.”
Then she lifted her hand to wave at Jana, who glanced at them, grabbed two bottles of wine, and made her way toward them. “Refill?” she asked, holding up the red for Cassidy and white for Emma.
“Yes, please,” Emma and Cassidy said at the exact same time.
“And two burgers would be great,” Emma added, handing Jana their menus.
Cassidy glanced at her. “You’re staying for dinner?”
She understood what he was really asking: You’re staying for dinner with me?
She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you?”
In response he turned to the bartender. “Can we get Gruyère on those burgers?”
When Jana had refilled their wineglasses and gone to punch in their orders, Cassidy steered their conversation toward safer topics, and Emma let him.