I shook my head. “No, you don’t. I mean, you do, but it’s okay if you’re late.”

She raised her eyebrow and sat down.

“McCann acquired Sea & Sky.”

Her face went red, and she said, “If you are here to tell me I’m fired again, I swear to God, Parker—”

I laughed and then cut her off, taking her hand from midair, bringing it back down to the table and putting mine on top of it. “You’re not fired, Amelia. In fact, you’re promoted. To whatever you want. I was thinking executive editor this year, maybe managing editor in another year or two?” I paused. “Not that you aren’t clearly suited for managing editor. I just wasn’t sure if you wanted all the pressure right away.”

She visibly relaxed, and I moved my hand, feeling sorry as I did.

“So I don’t need to get ready because you’re my new boss.”

I shrugged. “No. Not really. But also yeah. I won’t be in the office day in and day out or anything, but I wanted you to hear it from me this time.”

She nodded resolutely. “Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I’m excited to be working for a McCann company. Despite firing me, I think you guys make some really responsible, positive changes in your acquisitions.”

She was so robotic toward me now. The smiling, flirtatious Amelia of my past seemed to have been replaced by this other woman, whose hair was falling seductively out of her messy bun but who refused to reveal her real inner power.

“Is that why you got on a plane at four thirty in the morning? So you could tell me that?”

I took a beat before I responded.

“The thing with that guy. Is it serious?”

I could tell she was trying not to smile. My stomach sank all the way to the floor. “It’s new,” she responded shortly.

It was new. All the hairs on my body suddenly stood on end. I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t stop thinking about her. That she was the first woman in a long time who had made me feel alive.

“But we aren’t,” I said, getting up and walking to the door. I wanted her to confirm that my feelings weren’t one-sided, that this wasn’t all in my head. But I couldn’t sit there while I waited.

I noticed the article I had sent sitting on a small table by the door that housed a stack of mail. I wondered what it meant that she hadn’t responded.

“Parker…” she started. I turned, ashamed of how expectant I must have looked. She smiled and shrugged.

I picked up a copy of Southern Coast that was in her mail pile and held it up, attempting to cover my pain with a joke. “No non-McCann publications allowed, young lady.”

She smiled. “If you want me to quit reading non-McCann magazines, then you’re going to have to buy Southern Coast.”

Greer always used to say that, too. Greer and Amelia. Two very different women. One a product of the luxury, pomp, and circumstance of Palm Beach and New York, the other raised by the simplicity of a small slice of Southern shore. But they both loved Southern Coast. And, as was becoming clearer by the minute, I loved both of them.