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  “Most men don’t order for their dates these days,” she murmured, taking off the shrimp and setting it aside without comment. “It’s considered a little overbearing.”

  “You’re not allergic,” he said with a glance at the cast-off shellfish.

  “No,” she said, and offered him no more explanation than that, because she didn’t owe him a damned thing, especially not about the changes she’d made to her life as part of her now-defunct marriage.

  Reese stroked a thumb along the sweating edge of his water glass, drawing her attention to his hands. God, how she’d always loved his hands. Strong enough to break her, although he never had…at least never physically.

  “Anyway,” he said, “this isn’t a date.”

  Corinne arched an eyebrow. “Of course it’s not. I was joking.”

  “I guess my sense of humor’s changed since the last time we saw each other,” Reese replied.

  At least he was acknowledging there’d been a last time. He’d greeted her the way a stranger would and had seemed surprised when she hugged him. Corinne sipped her wine, relishing the earthy flavor.

  “I never thought I’d see you here. I knew the offer was coming from Ebersole Enterprises,” she said after a moment. “I did have a minute where I thought… But then, no. How could it be? What kind of coincidence would that have been?”

  He sat back in his chair. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Hard to believe what?” She studied him. “In coincidence?”

  “That you’d have even for a second imagined it might have been me.”

  The tone of his voice was hard to read. Corinne paused before answering, then said carefully, “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I find it hard to believe you’ve spared a passing thought for me in the past fifteen years, that’s all.” He shrugged and gestured to the passing waitress, who turned at once, all big eyes and bouncy, swinging hair. “Another glass of Cabernet for Mrs. Levy.”

  Corinne shook her head. “Actually, no, I’ll take an iced coffee, please. Cream and sugar.”

  She waited until the girl had left before she added crisply, “One glass is enough. I have to drive, not to mention I have to head back to the office after this.”

  Reese said nothing.

  “And it’s Ms. Barton. Not Mrs. Levy. I never took my husband’s name.” She paused again, watching him. When they’d been together, she’d prided herself on being able to know his emotions just by looking at his face. Now she had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. “Should I ask how you even know that?”

  “I saw it in the paper when you got married.”

  It wasn’t an implausible explanation, but something in the way he cut his gaze from hers told her it wasn’t quite the truth. Corinne frowned, not at his words but at the way her stupid heart had lifted at this casual admission that he’d somehow paid attention to her life. “Anyway, we’re divorced.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded vindicated. Corinne felt her frown threatening to become a scowl, and she deliberately smoothed her features.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s for the best. He’s very happy with his new wife and I—”

  “And you’re very happy with your career, I’m sure,” Reese said in a low, angry voice.

  It was her turn to sit back and look him over. “Yes. I am, as a matter of fact. Why do you make that sound like some kind of sin?”

  Interrupted by the arrival of the waitress with the appetizer of Thai sweet chili spring rolls and Corinne’s iced coffee, they were quiet until the girl left. Then Reese leaned forward to speak across the table.

  “You told me once you didn’t believe in the idea of sin.”

  “It’s a turn of phrase,” Corinne told him. “And by the looks of things, you’re not exactly an unsuccessful slug yourself, so why are you being so judgmental about my career? Or about anything in my life, for that matter?”

  His mouth thinned. “Right. Of course, what you do isn’t any of my business.”

  Something occurred to her. She narrowed her eyes. “You knew. Didn’t you? That I worked for Stein and Sons. You knew I’m the CFO, and that you’d be meeting with me.”

  “I did,” he told her without so much as a blink or the faintest blush of shame.

  A vivid memory of the red imprint of her hand on his cheek reared up inside her head, so fierce and gut-punching that she recoiled. He noticed too. She knew he did. Again, she wanted to slap him, right there across the table in front of everyone, for that single tilting quirk of a smug fucking grin.

  Of course she didn’t slap him. Normal people didn’t go around slapping people in public. Or in private, she reminded herself, shoving away the memories again, harder this time. Put those motherfuckers in a box, she thought. And close that goddamned lid.

  “This meeting is over.” Corinne stood and shouldered her bag. She tossed her napkin on the table. “Thanks for the wine. I trust you’ll take care of the check.”

  Head high, back straight, she headed for the parking lot without looking from side to side. She couldn’t. If any tiny thing distracted her, she was going to burst into huge, ugly sobs.

  This was not how she’d imagined seeing him again. In her dreams they ran into each other at a party, both of them dressed in their best. He was with another woman, she another man, but that didn’t matter. The second they caught eyes across the room, he’d move through the crowd toward her. He’d take her hand. Kiss the knuckles. Ask her to dance. He’d pull her close and whisper in her ear that he’d been a fool to ever leave her.

  God, she was so stupid.

  At her car, Corinne dug for her keys in her overstuffed purse, but they eluded her beneath the drifting tide of receipts and permission slips and used tissues with pieces of gum inside. It was a mom purse, like her shoes and her hair and her entire freaking life, and then shit, she was crying. Silent, painful sobs tore at her throat. She closed her eyes and gripped the roof of her car, hating how something so ridiculous and simple could make her so fucking sad.

  He was surprised she’d ever spent a minute thinking about him in all these years? Of course he couldn’t know how sometimes all she felt like she did was pine away for the past, and her boy, and how it had felt to be young and kinky and in love.

  Love.

  She could admit it now, looking back, though for years after it ended she’d told herself it hadn’t been anything close to that. Corinne had learned the hard way that love could never be assumed or even really understood. You could say the words a million times without making them true; you could deny them for eternity and never make them false.

  “Here.”

  She looked up through the blur of her tears to see Reese. Corinne swiped at her eyes. He took her bag from her with a gentle tug. Dug through it. Pulled out her keys. He clicked the remote to open the driver’s door, then carefully snapped the carabiner around the strap of her purse exactly as it was meant to be done so that she wouldn’t lose her keys in the first place.

  He handed her back her purse along with a paper sack emblazoned with the StockYard Inn logo. “I had them box up your salad. You should take it along.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “You’ll be hungry later,” he said. “Then you’ll want it.”

  Corinne dabbed at her eyes and gave him a long, hard stare. She did not take the bag from him. “The question is, Reese, what the hell do you want?”

  “We have terms to discuss,” Reese told her. “A business meeting. Remember? This isn’t personal, it’s not about you and me.”

  Corinne opened her car door and tossed her purse onto the passenger seat. She straightened to look him in the eye. “Oh, no?”

  Reese shook his head.

  “You’re a liar,” she told him. “And you’re not any better at it than you used to be.”

  Then she got in her car and drove away.

  Chapter Seven

  Before

  They a