Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Poppy grabs it and accepts the call, putting it on speaker. “Ben, it’s Poppy. I’m chatting with your roommate.”
I sigh, even more irritated now, because I know that if I did that to Poppy, she’d totally lose it.
“Ahh,” Ben says, noncommittally. “What were you chatting about?”
A smile twitches at the edge of my lips. He wants to know if we’d been discussing last night.
“I was telling her that Worth and I are having dinner at his house with a bunch of friends and Avril has FOMO—oh, you should both totally come! Oh yes, perfect.”
“Poppy,” I say. “Ben doesn’t want to—”
“Sounds good to me,” Ben interrupts. “Unless you don’t want to go, Avril?”
I’m not sure if he’s just challenging me because he thinks I’ll say no or whether he really wants to go. “I—”
“Believe me, she really wants to go. But you probably have something planned.”
“No, dinner with the fam sounds great,” Ben says.
I groan. “It’s not dinner with the fam—”
“It’s totally dinner with the fam,” Poppy says, “except the fam includes found family as well as blood family.”
I smile at her description. She’s right.
“What?” Poppy says, looking at me and reading my expression all wrong.
“Nothing. But I’m sure Ben doesn’t want to deal with our particular brand of crazy.”
“Count me in,” Ben says. “What time?”
“Any time from seven,” Poppy says, before I can say anything.
“I’ll pick you both up from the hotel at six forty-five.”
My stomach flips, half in excitement that I’ll see him and half in disappointment that it won’t be until then, and we won’t have any time on our own.
No, this is good. If Poppy is there, she can dilute any awkwardness.
“Awesome,” Poppy says. “We’ll see you then.”
“Catch you later,” Ben says, and hangs up.
And then I realize I didn’t find out why he was calling.
TWENTY-TWO
Ben
As I walk to Hotel on Ninth Street, I mutter to myself, a group setting is better, for the millionth time today. It’s cold and my driver is going to meet me at the hotel, so he’s probably taking this exact same route, but I wanted to walk. I needed time to clear my head.
Even if it is dinner with the fam, a group setting has to be a good idea tonight. I’d planned a low-key dinner at a popular Tribeca steak house tonight, it wasn’t a big deal to cancel. When Poppy mentioned the family dinner, it seemed a good solution to avoid Avril and I sitting opposite each other across a table, not knowing what to say.
Because what is there to say?
We had a time-out and now things are back to normal.
Everything is fine.
Except it feels like things changed between us last night.
Maybe it’s just me.
Then why did she run off? There could have been a simple explanation—maybe she forgot something back at her place. Or maybe Poppy called her and needed her to come over for some reason.
Or maybe she regretted the time-out. Regretted our night together.
Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. She just looked so beautiful, and I’ve enjoyed spending time with her so much that I was impatient to have more of her.
I’m an idiot. I’m an overthinking idiot. And this is why I keep my relationships with women separate from my business deals. There’s no doubt about it, Avril and I are in messy territory, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid.
But what I’m excellent at doing is faking casualness. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, I’m just saying I’m excellent at it. So that’s what I’m determined to be tonight—casual.
I take a breath in as I get to the entrance to the hotel.
I take in the lobby—which is beautiful—the Art Deco of midtown mixed with the cool downtown vibes. I start to head toward one of the receptionists when someone calls my name across the lobby. I look up and see Poppy. I smile and head in her direction.
“I just have to speak to someone before I go,” she says, as I kiss her on the cheek. “But go into the office over there.” She gestures to a door on the far side of the lobby. “Avril’s in there.”
I give Poppy a two-fingered salute and head to the office, my heart thundering in my chest like I’m halfway through the New York City Marathon.
Why am I nervous? I’ve met presidents, dined with A-list actresses, holidayed with billionaires, but Avril Huntington makes me nervous? It doesn’t make sense.
I knock on the door and open it, not wanting to appear too formal. I’m overanalyzing and overthinking everything.
“Hi,” Avril says, before I’ve even located her in the room.
My eyes finally settle on her over to the right. The light is coming through the window, highlighting her face. She looks ethereal, like a goddess or something, and my breath catches in my throat.
“I have an eyelash,” she says in explanation of why she’s standing with a mirror in one hand and poking her eye with the other.