D R

n

et, but there was a boulder of doubt in my stomach that had me sure she wouldn't come at all. It was a natural assump

I relied on experience. If she were planning to sho

own her for a l

. In the week since I'd gotten her email, I'd practiced it over and over. Julianna, Julianna, Julianna. She wasn't Jolie anymor

efore loosening my tie. I'd already taken off the jacket, and I was still sweating. It was a Saturday in December, for fuck's sake, and

cause Donovan and I were alike in that area. When we'd worked the office together in Tokyo, we'd had the trimmest budget of all the Reach locations. It had risen a bit when he'd moved to t

not all that friendly. I'd be a bad host to leave it there. I considered doing just that before begr

Jo

ian

ing to be in New York for a wedding that I'd had no prior plans to attend. I most definitely shouldn't have dropped everything, boarded a plane, an

justice, I would have

It was closure. And that's why I was there-for me, not

n, but it was better than wearing a hole in the carpet. Still antsy, I pulled out m

a

out to you like this, but ther

name I refused to call her. The one meant to tug at

my hands with my eyes. It was a trick I'd taught myself a decade or so ago, back when the pressure of some of my bigger jobs got the best of me, and I needed something to help me focus. I hadn't had

nked skin, I was breathing more regularly, and even though the he

he ding of the elevator arriving. Then the sound of two sets of

was

I was going to keep it t

l curse under my breath, I clicked the button that turned the glas

was Fran that I saw first, the security guard that I'd tipped a hundred in exchange for personally walking my guest to the back office.

ght choice because, even with her head bent and her eyes fixed on the floor, Jolie was a lodestone, and I was fighting

le to resist her pull e

for the

't make up for not s

hen I'd gone after her. My ribs hurt with the vividness of that memory. My shoulder throb

hat, her pull o

out. The glass was between us, but the office d