The One In My Heart

“You are very understanding,” I murmured.

“Only because I’ve made every mistake in the book—and a few more besides.” He was looking at me again, in the way he had that made me feel unbearably transparent. “Someday you should tell me what it’s like to have never set a foot wrong in your life.”

I snorted.

The next moment I gripped his arm. “Moira—I assumed earlier that she’d died from cancer. She—it wasn’t anything related to her depression, was it?”

“No. And it wasn’t cancer either. She died from double pneumonia.”

I expelled a breath and let go of him. “I see.”

He seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but after the space of a few heartbeats he glanced down at his watch. “I’d better go take another look at that girl before I start a movie.”

I stared for some time at his empty seat before I put on my earphones and selected a movie for myself. But in my mind’s eye I kept seeing the photograph Google had found, all those happy people at their cheerful potluck dinner.

The lives of others were like icebergs, largely hidden from view, even for someone standing only a short distance away.

“Is the girl okay?” I asked when Bennett came back.

“Fast asleep,” he answered, pressing start on his movie.

“She’s lucky you happened along.”

He looked at me, surprised. “Thanks.”

Just as I was lucky, too, that you happened along.

But I did not say that to him. I resumed my movie and put those words away, along with everything else I never said to anyone.





Chapter 11





THE NEXT AFTERNOON I WAS in the office when my phone trilled. Bennett. My pulse accelerated—he rarely called.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Professor. When were you going to tell me you had breakfast with my dad back in Italy?”

Preferably after I’d fully processed everything that had happened over the weekend. In ten years or so.

“Fairly soon,” I answered. “He’s amenable to getting together in the city. Zelda’s birthday is coming up. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet, but when I do, I’ll ask her to invite your parents to her party. That way you’ll see each other again on neutral territory.”

“Sounds good. So, what did he say? Did he give a reason why he wanted to meet with you?”

“He didn’t come out and say it, but he wanted to make sure that I didn’t have any grand romantic delusions about you.”

“Of all the things he could worry about,” Bennett murmured. “And if you did, was he going to set you straight?”

“That’s not how I perceived his intentions. Your estrangement came about because of a woman. It makes sense that now that he and you are crossing paths again, he’d want to know what kind of impact he could expect from me.

“I’d take it as a good sign that he wanted to see me alone, to have a better sense of you via our ‘relationship.’ You do understand it was impossible for him to get a read on you, right?”

He didn’t reply.

“Sorry,” I said. “Is it too early in the day for putting you in your place?”

He laughed softly. “No, it’s all right. Anytime is a good time for that.”

Neither of us said anything for a second. I missed him, I realized. And I wasn’t used to the sensation that part of me was now somewhere across town—or rather, I wasn’t used to feeling like that for anyone who wasn’t Zelda.

“Anyway, if you come to Zelda’s birthday party as my significant other, that means we’re taking our ‘relationship’ public.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Well, there’s a small wrinkle. Zelda’s party is two days after my friends’ Annual Boyfriend Roundup. Everybody who has a boyfriend is supposed to bring him to the roundup—or risk getting expelled from the group.”

That was me being melodramatic. If they found out, my friends would give me grief, but not kick me off the island—especially since in time they’d learn that he was a fake boyfriend. But I wanted a legitimate-sounding excuse to get together with him again—one that could be considered a natural tangent of our mission.

“So I’ll be looked over like a prize hog at a county fair.”

“Pretty much. You up for it, Porky?”

“Sure.”

I had to give the man credit—even a real boyfriend might have shied away from the roundup. “It’s on, then.”

“What about Valentine’s Day? Want to go for dinner somewhere?”

On a date? “Are your parents going to be there?”

“No. But wouldn’t it look a bit odd to Zelda if we didn’t?”

I struggled with it—the idea of the two of us alone for an entire evening was as formidable as it was pleasurable. “Don’t worry about Zelda. I’ll make up a plausible enough excuse.”

“Well, I can’t deny you are really, really good at that.”