“I see. So if I have it right, you ended things, not him? What’d he say to that?”
“He apologized . . . with a Butterfinger.”
“Girl, that can’t mean what I think it does.” Luciano pursed his lips. “You’re not that experimental.”
I shoved him. “I’m talking about the candy bar.”
“In under forty-eight hours, he took you and Bruno on a date, gave you the best sex of your life, and brought you chocolate. And you’re upset—why?”
I bit my bottom lip. “I never said it was the best sex of my life.”
“I’ve only met the man once, but his BDE is off the charts.”
“Geez, are they passing out pamphlets about it or what?”
Luciano laughed. “So was it the best sex or not?”
I thought of how Sebastian had brought me to the brink of orgasm, then flipped me over to get the job done. He’d looked me in the eye and hadn’t shied away, even when intimacy had overwhelmed the moment. “It was the most, I don’t know . . . connected,” I said. “It was special, and I have a feeling we only scratched the surface.”
“If you want my advice, which you do, don’t write him off so easily. We can’t ignore that he apologized, which Neal never would’ve done.”
I picked at invisible lint on my skirt. “I thought you’d be proud of me for sticking up for myself.”
“I am, I just don’t want you to go the opposite direction and let your past with Neal scare you into being alone. Then it’s kind of like you’re still not calling the shots, you know? He is.”
I looked up, eyes wide. “That’s like what Sebastian said before he walked out of the breakroom. That by running away, I was letting my fear make my decisions for me.”
“He has a point.”
I chewed my bottom lip. The fact that I’d been so tempted to forgive Sebastian in the breakroom had only scared me more. He could’ve walked when I’d pushed him away, but he’d stood where he was and given it right back to me.
He made sure I knew he wanted me in his life.
And if I was honest, I wanted him in mine.
It was the simple truth, but now, things were even more complicated than they’d been that morning. “That’s not all,” I told Luciano. “Dionne offered me a new position.”
He perked up. “A promotion?”
“Yes. All the way to Boston.”
“What?” he screeched. “Why?”
I covered my ears with a light laugh. “These past couple months got me thinking about how I’m ready to take on new challenges, but where I am now, there’s not much room for me to grow. I told Dionne all that earlier tonight, and she wants me to go to Boston to open a new branch.”
“Like, permanently?” He sounded worried.
I nodded. “But, Lu, lately I’ve been feeling like a change would be good. Maybe different scenery, maybe learning some new things.”
“Don’t you know enough already?” If not for Botox, wrinkles would’ve formed between his eyebrows. “You can’t leave now. We finally became official New Yorkers.”
I wrinkled my nose. “When?”
“It happens automatically once you’ve been here long enough to not only map out but pee in every acceptable public bathroom between fourteenth and thirtieth.”
“We’ve done that?” I asked.
“Probably.” He pouted. “Do you actually want this? Or could it be that something else is missing?”
“I think I might want it,” I said and purposely didn’t ask about the “something else” he was referring to. “Besides everything I already mentioned,” I reasoned, “I’ll make more money and get more space for what I pay now. Plus, I’ll basically be my own boss.”
Luciano narrowed his eyes. “I’m not convinced. Something stinks here, and it’s not that grandma perfume I warned you not to buy.”
“Hey,” I said, sniffing my wrist. Damn him and his keen sense of smell. The commercial for the fragrance starred Aliana Balik, the model on Sebastian’s desktop and the one woman he’d never been able to score for the cover of Modern Man. It wasn’t that I wanted to be her, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least smell like her.
“This is all a little too convenient, Georgina. You were on the verge of starting something new and fabulous with a luscious Latin man—”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant—”
“And suddenly you have to leave?” He took a deep breath, his expression sobering. “Are you sure you’re not looking for ways to sabotage this relationship before it starts?”
It wasn’t as if I’d picked the one place Sebastian would never return. Or had even asked to be promoted. “Yes, it would be easier to leave town than risk getting hurt again, but that’s not what I’m doing. Maybe I was wrong this morning, but does having feelings for Sebastian automatically mean I shouldn’t take this opportunity?”
“I just want to make sure you’re making this choice for yourself and not because Neal scared you. I tell you to be a bitch because I already watched one guy undermine you over and over, slowly draining your confidence.” He took one of my hands. “I want you to make decisions based on your needs, not others’. Take what you want. Do you want Sebastian?”
If Sebastian had truly meant what he’d said earlier about making this work, and if he could forgive me for the way I’d treated him in the breakroom, then . . .
I nodded slowly. “I do.”
“Do you want the job in Boston?”
I inhaled deeply, thinking back to my conversation with Dionne. Some of it was a blur, my memory short-circuiting from everything that’d come after. But I hadn’t forgotten the confidence she’d had in me. “I would have a team, Lu, one I get to assemble, train, and mentor. We’d be entering a new space where there’s not really much competition yet, so I’d be on the forefront of that. And I’m not bored with my job as it is, but I’d be taking this next step on my own, moving out from under Dionne’s wing after all these years.”
Luciano watched me. “Yeah. I guess you do want the job.”
I squeezed his hand to say what I couldn’t. Leaving wouldn’t just mean saying goodbye to New York, but to Luciano and all the memories we’d made here.
His eyes doubled in size.
“Oh, don’t get emotional,” I said. “I won’t be able to—”
“I’m not crying.” He glanced behind me. “I, um . . . I’m sorry . . .”
“For what?” I asked as he grimaced. “What’s wrong?”
“I probably should’ve mentioned that Sebastian called while you were sleeping.”
“Oh. It’s fine.” Sebastian’s text during Bruno’s crisis had been a request to come over and talk. Once I’d checked Bruno in at the vet, I hadn’t had the emotional capacity for anything else, so I’d ignored the message. “I’m avoiding his calls.”
“You were until I picked up.”
I slow blinked. “You talked to him?”
He lowered his voice, looking furtively over my shoulder as he rushed out, “Yes, and I was waiting to see how your story played out before I decided whether to stick around for this, but honestly, he got here much faster than I anticipated.”
“He’s here?” My heart stopped. I whirled around in my seat to see Sebastian striding down the hall with a bouquet of white roses at his side. Still in his suit, his hair was disheveled, his tie crooked. “Why?” I whisper-hissed. “Up until an hour ago, you still thought he was my enemy.”
“He didn’t sound hostile on the phone when I answered it,” he said defensively. As Sebastian neared, Lu quickly added, “He sounded sad. Said he needed to talk to you. For a moment, I was worried he’d start unloading on me, so instead, I told him about Bruno.”
And here he was. “I came as soon as I heard,” Sebastian said, pulling up a chair. With authority in his voice, the sharp angles of his suit, and the crease in his brow, I almost felt as if I was in trouble. He sat across from us, leaned his elbows on his knees, and let the flowers sag between his knees. “What happened?”