“No. I was by myself for weeks since you’ve both been gone. And then you were back with post-vacation blues, and no job, and refusing to go out. Now you have that job at the Charleston Historic Foundation, and now I have you here, we are staying out. We are having fun, dammit,” she ordered.

Saluting her command, I took a small sip of my cocktail. “Okay. Also, when is Tabs coming back? I can’t believe she’s been gone so long.” I needed to tell her what happened in person. All she knew was, after Dauphine’s kidnapping, Xavier decided they didn’t need to be on the boat anymore and no longer had need of someone to help since his mother was going to move in for a time.

“Between you and me, I think Tabs has hooked back up with her high school sweetheart. There’s something about going home after so long for a family wedding that feels an awful lot like a cable TV happily-ever-after movie.”

My jaw was hanging open, so I closed it. “No. She wouldn’t.” I racked my brain for all the high school stories we’d swapped over the years. “Would she?”

“And leave the big city for the one that got away …? Yes, I believe she would.”

“Are we calling Charleston the big city now?” I asked.

“Well, when you come from horse-country-Aiken, South Carolina, yes, Charleston is the big city.”

“But she has a business—”

“That she can run from anywhere.”

“Hmm. That’s a good point. But you guys have been looking at apartments by the yacht club. Tabitha seemed into it.”

“I think I was mostly driving that bus. I’ve been getting the feeling lately that she was homesick since her parents retired back to where the rest of her family is. And let’s face it, you weren’t into the idea of a move either. Anyway, you won’t even be living here by the end of the year.”

My eyes widened, and I choked on my drink. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged. “Just saying. You’ll be living the cush-life in France.”

My belly twisted, and I set my drink down, positioning it to line up perfectly straight with my water glass. “No, I won’t. Don’t say that.”

“I give it two months tops.”

“Until what?” I rolled my eyes. “Until I throw away my self-respect and beg his mother for a job just so I can be near him.” I added a dramatic shudder at the ridiculousness she was suggesting. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind in my weakest moments.

She flicked her long, auburn hair behind her shoulder. “No. Until he comes for you.”