For that, Alex’s thoughts were dark and furious.
“Emma—”
She held up her hand. “We don’t have to do this, Cassidy. Actually, let’s not do this.”
He told himself not to be hurt at the rejection.
“Still, there is something I’ve been wondering ever since you got to town,” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why New York? Why Oxford?”
He gave her a half smile. “You want to know if I knew you worked at Stiletto when I came to work for its brother magazine?”
“I have wondered.”
“No,” he said, simply. Honestly. “I didn’t know. In fact, I signed the contract months before my actual start date. Before you took the job.”
She helped herself to another glass of wine and shook her head. “I’ll buy that. Hell of a coincidence, though, isn’t it?”
“It is. Although perhaps not so much when you consider our ambitions have always overlapped. You’ve always wanted to write; I’ve always wanted to be in print media.”
“Oh, I remember that well,” she said, lifting her glass to him in derision. “That’s the reason you got in good with my father, right?”
Shit. He’d walked right into that one.
Emma widened her eyes as though just thinking of something. “Oh, wait…wasn’t that also the reason you agreed to go on a date with his daughter in the first place?”
“For someone who doesn’t want to go there, you’re certainly…going there.”
“You’re right,” she said, lifting her hands. “Let’s absolutely not. So tell me something else. I know you hightailed it out of North Carolina before the wedding cake went stale. Where’d you go?”
He smiled. “You didn’t look me up even once?”
“It hurt too much.”
Alex sucked in a breath at the unexpected admission. “Em—”
“Back then,” she corrected. “Back then it hurt too much. After a few months…I just didn’t care.”
Now his chest hurt for a different reason. But he didn’t have the right to be hurt. Not really. He’d held on to his anger for a long time. Couldn’t blame her for doing the same.
“I went to San Francisco,” he said. “Helped launch a couple start-up magazine publications there. Got familiar with the digital space. I didn’t think much about New York until a headhunter tracked me down for the Oxford position. What I lacked in editorial experience I made up for in digital content and vision.”
“Lucky us,” she muttered.
“What about you?” he asked, wanting to keep her talking. “Why New York?”
She glanced up. “Honestly? Because it’s huge. Because I wanted to escape to a place where I could be anonymous. You know…all the classic reasons small-town girls escape to the bright lights and big city.”
He smiled at that. “I think actually the cliché is that they run to the bright lights because they want to be a star. Not anonymous.”
“Whatever,” she said with a shrug, standing and taking her glass to the sink.
“You’re leaving?”
“I am. I haven’t eaten yet, and I’m starving,” she said, moving toward his front door.
It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest that she stay and eat there. To let him cook her some pasta or eggs or…no.
That would be foolish.
He didn’t even want that. Did he?
Alex followed Emma to the foyer and watched as she turned the doorknob.
Then she turned back. “Cassidy?”
“Yeah.” His voice was gruff, and he was shocked by how much he didn’t want her to go.
Her eyes found his, her expression unexpectedly vulnerable. “Do you ever think we broke each other? Because sometimes…it’s like both of us are unable to feel.”
Alex was definitely feeling right now. But he knew what she meant.
“Yeah, Emma. I think that all the damn time.”
Her smile was sad. “Yeah. I think so, too. Probably best that we keep our distance, then, right? It feels…easier.”
Alex nodded in agreement, because it was what he was supposed to do.
She gave him another sad smile and was gone.