“No, I’ll be . . . um, fine.”

I almost walk away. But before I go, Reid catches my hand, pulls me toward him. When he’s got me close he wraps his arm around my lower back, gathering me against him, something desperate in his hold, something reminiscent of that night in his old bedroom. He has to lean down to put his mouth close to my ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says, so quiet that I have to strain to hear him. “Thank you for coming here. For having dinner with me.”

I pull back, setting a hand against his cheek and looking into his eyes. They’re all mixed up now. Part sad, part sorry. I try to put a question in mine.

“We’ll talk about it,” he says. “I promise. But I have to get back in there.”

I nod and smile, press my mouth to his in a brief kiss. It should make me feel better, I guess, that he acknowledged it. I’m giving it time; he’s giving it time. It’s not a scandal. It’s only something uncomfortable, something he maybe needs to work through on his own. And he did promise to talk about it.

But when I finally walk away, I have the most sinking, unpleasant feeling.

I have the feeling that I can’t count on that promise at all.

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

On Friday afternoon, I’m sitting on a cushy love seat outside of a rented conference room inside a huge, swanky Midtown hotel. Behind a set of double doors across from me, nine members of the Make It Happyn creative team are apparently settling back in after a long lunch they’ve taken, having heard two other pitches this morning. When I’d arrived fifteen minutes ago, checking in with the front desk per the e-mailed instructions I’d received last week, a hotel staffer had made a quick phone call, and within minutes I was being greeted by a young, energetic assistant named Daniel, who’d updated me on “the team’s” morning while escorting me to my waiting spot. Daniel had offered me coffee or tea or Pellegrino, as well as a sleek promotional booklet about Make It Happyn’s parent company, a Florida-based crafting retailer that mass-produces everything from yarn to scrapbooking tools to jewelry-making supplies. Daniel had called me “Miss Mackworth” three separate times and had also told me he was “rooting” for me, though something tells me he might’ve said the same thing to the other two artists who were apparently here before me.

I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that I don’t belong here, that something’s off.