Scandal in Seattle (5 page)

“Eve?” he said at last, sounding as dumbstruck as he looked. “Evie?”

I internally cringed. No one had called me by my given name in years—at least not as a name and not a profession—and it hit me with the impact of a wrecking ball. No, the irony that my name matched my career field wasn’t lost on me. I was swimming in a sea of irony.

“Henry,” I said slowly, working up a smile that fell flat. Letting the Errand get personal was making me weak, but it was also what would keep my strong. When the Errand got long and arduous—as G and I both knew it would—the knife of revenge would keep me going strong. It was a first, but I’d have to strike a balance between the personal and the impersonal. That was the only way it would work. I tried on another smile. That one stayed in place and didn’t feel so artificial. “Long time no see.”

Then he did something I didn’t expect. He kneeled beside me, shouldering his way past Molly, and wrapped both arms around me. He pulled me close. It was painful at first, like his touch was radioactive, and then I started to melt. In fact, I felt a sob threatening to choke out of my mouth.

What the hell? Who was I, and where was the best Eve in the business?

Ahh, that’s right. Melting under the embrace of an ex who’d nailed another woman in the bed we used to share. If it wasn’t already apparent, I really was a lost cause.

“What are you doing?” I whispered after making sure no sobs would escape. I might have unfrozen beneath his arms, but I certainly wasn’t idiot enough to return his embrace.

He squeezed me just a bit harder before tilting his head toward my ear. “What you didn’t give me a chance to do the last time I saw you.” His voice was that same mixture of soft and strong. “To apologize.”

I flinched and tried to weave out of his embrace. “I seem to remember a long string of
I’m sorry
s as you chased after me with a sheet wrapped around your waist and another girl’s lipstick on your neck.”

Dammit. Leading with the whole “bitter bitch” act would certainly not work me into his better graces.

Henry let go, gave me a sad smile, and plopped down next to me as he let out a long breath. “You ran away that day, and I never saw you again. You never gave me a chance to explain.”

I exhaled sharply. “Trust me, what I walked in on was all the explanation I needed.”

And strike two. One more, and I would be out of the game. Since I seemed incapable of saying anything without a bitter bite to it, I just had to stay quiet or practice that whole think-before-you-speak thing.

“Evie—”

“Eve,” I interrupted, flashing him a look. “You don’t get to call me Evie anymore.”

He sighed, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, Eve. I know it’s all probably just a bunch of shallow words to you now, but if you’d ever be willing to give me the opportunity to explain, I’d love the chance to.”

I bit my tongue and took a moment before replying. “In all fairness, Henry, your explanation could include your body being invaded by an alien and you having no control of it, and that wouldn’t change anything.”

That was the truth. The
why
behind his actions wouldn’t change where we ended up. It didn’t change the person I was or the person he was. Explanations, in my opinion, were always too little, too late. Men who kept it in their pants in the first place didn’t need explanations.

“You’re right. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything.” His gaze shifted from the brightening ocean to me. I didn’t need to look into his eyes to feel their intensity. “But maybe it would change everything.”

He’d always been good with words. However, that wasn’t my first rodeo with Henry Callahan, and I knew all of his tricks. Neither his words nor the way he said them would make my breath catch ever again.

Since that topic of conversation was like trying to weave through a field of land mines, I diverted the conversation. Patting the dog’s head—she was now resting beside me—I smiled at her.
That
smile I didn’t have to fake. “How’s Molly girl doing?”

After a few moments, Henry followed me down the topic-shifting path. “Getting old.” He scratched her barrel-sized belly, making her back legs flap in the air. “I’m not sure which one of you recognized the other first.”

“It was probably me. It’s hard to forget the mug of a dog who chewed through every pair of shoes in your closet when she was a puppy.”

True story. Although to ensure we knew she loved us both equally, she chewed through every one of Henry’s, too.

“She still has one of your old sneakers tucked in her bed. It’s so ratty and holey, I keep waiting for it to disintegrate, but I don’t doubt Molly’d take my hand off if I tried to take it away.”

She still had a piece of me. A piece of me—old, ratty, and about-to-disintegrate as it was—was still in Henry’s life. I couldn’t decide how I felt about that, so I stayed quiet and let Henry pick up the slack in the awkward silence.

“Are you going to bite my head off if I ask you a question?” he asked.

I stared at the horizon and lifted a shoulder. “That depends on the question.”

“What are you doing here?”

That was a loaded question. I had so many answers to that question, all of them true, that I had to sort through a few responses before I decided on an appropriate one. “Here at the beach at an unholy hour or here in Northern California?” I casually scooted a bit farther away from him. I didn’t know if he’d done it deliberately or not, but he’d sat a little too close.

“Both heres.”

Of course
both heres
.

“I’m here this morning because I couldn’t sleep and thought a walk along the beach would be nice, and I’m here in Northern California for work.” Both answers were true, although I might have omitted some of the details.

“Work? Where? How long now?”

He was just as curious and unabashed as I remembered. It was endearing. It was also enraging.

Keep things vague
, I reminded myself. “I’m contracting for a software development company. It’s about a six-month contract that I just started.”

“I probably know every little start-up and giant software empire in the state. Who are you working for?”

Your wife.
I lifted an eyebrow in answer.

He smiled into the sand and gave a nod. “What’s the project?”

You.
I lifted my other eyebrow.

He chuckled that time. “So secretive. This must be something cutting edge. Or else you’re working for the government.”

“Or maybe I’m working for one of your competitors,” I said, realizing my slip one second too late.

Of course, Henry didn’t miss it. The skin between his eyebrows lined. “What makes you think I’ve got competitors in the software industry?”

Dammit
. I’d had no contact with Henry since our junior year of college. Other than knowing he was the kind of computer geek-slash-genius who made Microsoft’s software engineers look like a bunch of bush leaguers, I
shouldn’t
know anything about Henry’s post-college career. And I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t studied and memorized every little detail in the file his wife had put together for me.

It was a good thing I’d been trained to be quick on my feet. A small smile lifted into place. “Because you were programming C++ in your sleep when you were in first grade. If you don’t own your own company that other companies can only dream about competing with, then you must have had a lobotomy somewhere along the way.” I had to pause and suck in a breath before I could get out the next part. “The boy I knew was destined for greatness.”

Those words stung for two reasons. One, because I hated saying them despite knowing any man,
every
man, craved people believing they were destined for something great. And two, because at one time, I’d believed it wholeheartedly. Henry Callahan was a guy anyone could have a one-minute conversation with and walk away knowing big things were on the horizon for him.

As expected, his expression softened a bit as his smile lifted higher. The pallor of his skin seemed to brighten as his shoulders lifted an inch or two, like a heavy pack had just been removed. “You’re right about one of those two things. I was programming C++ in first grade. But the whole destined for greatness thing . . . that’s been gone for a while now.”

The sadness in his voice was unmistakable. The weight returned to his shoulders as the fresh color drained from his face.

“Why’s that?” I asked, genuinely curious. Nothing in Henry’s file gave away that he’d been brought to his proverbial knees somewhere along the way, so why did he look as though he’d never been lower?

“Long story,” he said around a sigh. His eyes made their way to me again. I almost shifted under their scrutiny.

I tried a small laugh to diffuse the intensity. It failed. “And you say
I’m
the mysterious one?” I laughed another few notes. Not. Working. “What happened to the open book of a guy I remember?”
And, obviously, the open bed of a guy policy.

“Everything.” His voice was as strong as it was weak. Everything about Henry was different, yet the same. He was a ghost of the man I remembered.

But then, I was a ghost of the girl I’d been, too. Life had turned us into shadows.

Okay, enough with the heavy. “So what have you been up to? Besides being mysterious?”

“And other than programming C++ in my sleep?”

He joined me halfway through my laugh. It was an honest-to-goodness one that time, which made me ache all over again. Laughing with Henry brought back so many good memories, it was painful.

“After college, I started up a little software development company.” He gave a half shrug.

He was still modest, or humble, or exceptional at keeping up the act. “And that start-up stayed little for how long? A year? Maybe two?”

Henry smiled into the sand. “We went public eight months after opening.”

From start-up, to going public, to being worth billions.

“Underachiever,” I mumbled.

“What about you? What have you been up to since”—I didn’t miss him casually glancing at my left hand—“that day you seemed to fall off the face of the earth?”

You mean the same day I found you naked in our bed with a strange woman?
Go me for keeping my biting remarks to myself. Progress.

“I transferred schools, finished my degree, and have been contracting ever since.” All true. My career just didn’t include sitting in front of a computer like I knew Henry believed.

“Anything you’ve been up to besides work?” Yet another glance at my left hand.

I don’t know if he was expecting a ring to magically appear, or wondering if one had been there recently, or just remembering the engagement ring he’d gotten me years ago. “I’m not married. Nor have I been, nor do I plan on it anytime in the future.”

His eyebrows came together. “Why not?”

I exhaled. “The stars haven’t aligned.” Sarcasm at its finest.

“Not why
aren’t
you married.” Henry nudged me lightly. “Why don’t you want to in the future?”

An image seared into my mind leapt to the forefront. I almost winced. “Because this one guy I used to love turned me off to the whole concept.”

Henry didn’t hold back his wince. It was so intense, it looked painful. Once he’d recovered, his mouth opened, and then his phone buzzed in his shorts’ pocket. He slid the phone out, glanced at it, and sighed.

“Bad call?” I guessed.

Hitting ignore, he slid it back into his pocket. “They all are these days.”

“Is your company taking a hit due to the economy?” I asked, though I knew it wasn’t. Henry’s company was one of the few IT companies thriving in a floundering market.

“Not . . . exactly.” Still leading with the obnoxious humble thing. “We’ve been extremely fortunate.”

“So what’s the deal with all of the bad calls?”

His face lined like he was searching for just the right way to put it.

“Mo’ money, mo’ problems?” I suggested.

He smiled. “Something like that.” To prove it, Henry’s phone buzzed to life again.

“Looks like you’re busy.” I rose and dusted the sand off of me. “I’ll let you get back to your money and problems.”

Henry popped up beside me, punching ignore on his phone again. “I could use a sharp tech head on my team, Eve. Whatever hourly rate that top secret company you’re contracting for is giving you, I could double.”

I lifted my hand.

“Triple—”

“Thank you,” I said, cutting him off, “and tempting, but . . .” I caught myself right before I tacked on
I’d bet your wife wouldn’t love an ex coming to work for you.
Technically, I didn’t know that Henry was married, and I didn’t miss the absence of a wedding ring on his left hand. Whether that was because he didn’t like to exercise with it on, or because he’d forgotten it on the nightstand, or because he’d lost it, or because of any one of the dozens of possible explanations, one thing was certain: I needed to get and keep a grip. One slip, and it was all over.

“Tempting but . . .?” He was waiting.

I cleared my throat and stepped back. The wind had shifted, and at that proximity, I could smell Henry, the same smells I’d fallen in love with. “Tempting but, you know me. I can’t ditch out on a project early. I have to see it through, or I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Still stubborn?”

“Always.”

Henry studied me with a small smile for a few seconds. He pulled a wallet from his pocket and slid a business card from it. “If you change your mind, here’s my card. Or, you know, if you ever just want to get together and catch up. That has my private number. Feel free to use it.”

I took the card and shot him a smile. Less than five minutes into the Greet and I already had a business card with his private phone number. Maybe the Callahan Errand would go quicker than I expected.

“It was nice seeing you, Evie. I mean . . . Eve.” Henry started heading back down the beach. He patted his legs for Molly, but all she did was rest her head on her paws and close her eyes.

I had to give her a few nudges before she’d go with him, although she wouldn’t leave until she’d given me one last drooly lick. I probably shouldn’t have watched them continue their jog down the beach, but I did. They were the only part of my past I’d had contact with in years. At one time, they’d been the most important part of my life. Sighing, I finally shifted my gaze away. That was no time for nostalgia.