Page 76 of The Frog Prince
Her head jerks back. You’d think a snake had bitten her between the eyes. “Dating?”
“He’s coming over for dinner tonight.” I’m so numb and scared and the words are just pouring out of their own accord. “We were finalizing plans.”
She looks at me so long that I shrink in my chair.
“You better not have been involved with that article, Holly.” Her voice is hard. Ruthless. “Because a mistake is one thing. Betrayal’s another.”
I can’t wait to get home. I hardly leave my desk the rest of the day. Josh shoots me an e-mail: “You okay?”
I answer, “Can’t talk about it right now.”
Later Tessa sends me an e-mail: “Everything’s fine. Take a deep breath. Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Maybe not to her.
Even Sara stops by my desk, leaves a big chocolate-chip cookie on the corner. “Thought you could use a little something sweet,” she says.
Why do I suddenly feel like a death row prisoner getting her last supper?
*
I go toCircuit City after work, buy the computer I saw advertised in the Sunday paper, haul it home, shower and change, and am just getting dressed when Brian arrives.
Brian’s brought a big pizza and Caesar salads and a bottle of red wine. “She was standing there, wasn’t she?” he asks, opening the wine in the kitchen.
I reach into the cupboard for wineglasses. “How did you know?”
“You sounded like Dead Woman Walking.”
I still haven’t quite gotten over the shock of seeing Olivia standing there behind me, and shudder a little remembering. “I felt that way, too.”
I rinse out the Waterford glasses, and Brian pours the wine—the first time I’ve used the stemware since moving to the city.
“I think I’m doomed,” I say, clinking glasses with him, far less celebratory than I was this morning at ten.
“She can’t fire you without David’s approval, can she?” he asks, leaning against one counter.
“I’d hope not.”
“You’ve been pulling your weight, haven’t you?”
“I’m working hard.”
“David will see that. From everything I’ve heard, he’s a reasonable man.”
I nod and get busy setting the little kitchen table with a red-and-white-checked picnic cloth that now looks Italian and festive, and we sit down and eat and drink and continue talking.
“She’ll get over it,” Brian says later, as we finish eating.
I wipe my hands on my napkin. I’ve had two and a half glasses of wine and am mellower but not yet fully recovered. Those bad feelings today were so bad, they’re hard to forget. “So what’s the story of you and Olivia?” I ask. “Because you both are a little cagey about each other.”
Brian eyes me above his wineglass. “Really? What does she say about me?”
“Not a lot. It’s what she doesn’t say.”
He shrugs. “We went out once.”
“Just once?”