He cleared his throat. “There’s all kinds of crazy talk, you know. After what happened to Poppy . . . and that website. Some people are worried that someone’s after all of you.”
Corinne flinched. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she decided.
“You’re safe now.” Will reached out. “I’ll keep you safe.”
He said it so tenderly, and Corinne suddenly thought back to that summer, how she’d looked up at him—he was tall, much taller than Dixon—and felt safe in his arms. And she saw now how that tenderness would make him a good father. Could have made him, she corrected herself. It was like waking from a dream. My God, you haven’t told him, she thought.
She had to get out of here. It was bad enough that it was a betrayal to Dixon, but there was so much more than that. She had betrayed Will too. She wanted more than ever to talk to Poppy, to ask her what to do. Poppy was the only person in the world who knew all of her—the part that loved Dixon, who knew she could be happy with him, their future predictable and pleasant. The part that had fallen for Will, that for a brief moment imagined a life that was completely unknowable. And the part of her that she had left behind in Virginia, the baby she had never gotten the chance to know.
She wanted to tell Will all of that; she wanted him to understand the complicated macramé of her life. But she also wanted to leave, to click her heels together and find herself back uptown in their lovely three-bedroom apartment, where each room was climate-controlled and everything existed in shades of gray and grège. But when she looked up again, Will’s face was moving toward hers.
Just one kiss, Corinne told herself. Just one kiss good-bye.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she murmured—but she let him pull her dress over her head.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Will agreed, guiding her toward his bedroom.
Will’s bed smelled like soap and sugar. He climbed on top of Corinne and began kissing every inch of her body. She shut her eyes and tried to numb herself, but she shuddered as Will’s rough hands moved along her bare skin. He was fast with her, lustful and crazy, hard and desperate and needy. He didn’t touch her C-section scar. More important, he didn’t ask about it, either. She tried not to think of Dixon and that dark locked room of a secret inside of her. But before long, she didn’t have to try not to think. All reason departed; only the physical was left.
Corinne kneaded her feet against the sheets, her legs shaking. It was as if Will understood inherently, without her having to say a word, what made her feel the best. It had set him apart from the other boyfriends she’d had when she was young—all of them had fumbled, asked too many questions, laughed when they shouldn’t have. And Will—well, he just knew.
CORINNE OPENED HER eyes to find it was dark outside. She must have dozed off. Will’s bed was empty, and she heard pots and pans clanging in the kitchen. She lay there for a moment, thinking about what she had done. What she’d done again, she reminded herself. But instead of feeling shame, the guilt that she’d tried to scrub off her last time, she felt relaxed. She felt as if she was glowing. Rising, she pulled on her clothes and padded in the direction of the sound.
Will stood in his boxers and bare feet over a pan on the stove. His hair was mussed, his skin flushed, and there was a look of concentration on his face as he flipped something over in the pan. When he noticed her in the doorway, he smiled. “I made us a snack.” He slid a sandwich onto the plate. “Truffle grilled cheese.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Corinne said softly, accepting the plate. And though she knew truffle oil, brie, and bread were probably the worst thing she could do for her figure, she bit into the sandwich anyway and swooned. “Oh my God. This is way too good.”
“Stick with me, and I’ll make you one of these every day,” Will said as he slid onto a barstool next to her.
“I’d weigh two hundred pounds.”
“Then I’ll make you one every other day.” Will touched her chin, rotating her head so she was looking at him.
“You know it’s not that easy.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighed. Will rose from the stool, walked to a messy desk built into the corner of the kitchen, and plucked a piece of paper from the top of the pile. “This is for you.”
Corinne wiped her messy fingers on a napkin and studied the paper. “Invoice,” it read at the top, next to Coxswain’s logo. “Clients: Dixon Shackelford and Corinne Saybrook. Event description: Rehearsal dinner (175 guests) and wedding (260 guests) at the Saybrook family home in Meriweather, Massachusetts.”
A hard knot formed in her chest. It was almost perverse to see her, Dixon’s, and Will’s names on the same piece of paper. She wanted to shift them around, make Will the groom, Dixon the hired help.
Will bit into his half of the sandwich. “Are you actually going through with this?”
Corinne’s eyes burned with impending tears. “I don’t know.”
“Do you love him?”