Page 48 of About that Fling (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #2)

Mia rolled her eyes. “I think you missed part of the conversation, phone boy.”’

“What?” Shawn frowned and studied Adam. “Hey, you look familiar. Have we met before?”

Adam gripped the back of a chair, like he couldn’t decide whether to sit in it or fling it across the restaurant before making a run for it. Jenna couldn’t blame him.

“I don’t think so. I’m from Chicago, just here on business.”

Jenna could tell he was standing a few feet away from her on purpose, but she felt the tension radiating from him anyway.

She glanced at Mia, who gave a helpless shrug, then looked down at her own phone vibrating on the table.

She smiled, which Jenna took as a good sign.

Mark must have replied favorably to the cleavage shot.

“Aunt Gertie grabbed you a drink,” Jenna said, nodding toward the edge of the table where all the glasses had been shoved to make room for the pizza.

“Thank you so much.” He reached for Jenna’s wineglass before she had a chance to say anything. “Mmm, Pinot? This is excellent.”

“Um, actually, that’s yours.” Jenna pointed to one of the mugs of beer. “But you’re welcome to finish off my wine. I’m done drinking for now.”

Mia glanced up from her phone, regarding her ex with a curious look. “Since when do you like wine?”

“I’ve been branching out,” he said, pushing the glass back toward Jenna. “Sorry about that. Here—I don’t want to steal your drink.”

“Please, take it. I’m done. I’m sure Gertie or Shawn would love the beer.”

Shawn nodded, distracted, his eyes on Adam again. “Chicago, huh? I don’t know, I never forget a face. Did you go to school out here?”

Adam picked up the wineglass again and shook his head. “Nope, Cornell University Law School. Maybe I have one of those familiar faces?”

“Huh,” Shawn said, clearly still puzzling it out.

“Have the other beer, dear,” Gertie said, nudging a mug toward Shawn. Jenna shot her a grateful look, hoping the amber suds were enough to distract her ex from interrogating Adam. Across the table, Mia glanced down at her phone again and smiled. At least someone was connecting well with a partner.

Adam turned back to Jenna. “I thought the two of you went to some fancy restaurant downtown?”

“We did, but we changed our minds.”

“A woman’s prerogative,” Mia murmured, tapping out a message on her phone.

“So I hear,” he said lightly. “Sorry, I would have gone someplace else if I’d known. Gertie wanted pizza, so I just thought?—”

“Cornell University Law School,” Shawn said, sticking with the basics of macho posturing and career comparisons. “So you’re an attorney?”

Adam turned and gave Shawn a polite nod. “I’m in corporate mediation now. I work on contract with organizations experiencing turmoil.”

“Ah, let me guess—Belmont? That must be how you know Mia and Jenna.”

“That’s how he knows Jenna,” Mia said, looking annoyed. “He knows me because we once shared a last name and a bank account.”

“Actually, you never took my name,” Adam said, shrugging. “Not that it’s a big deal.”

“I was speaking figuratively,” Mia said through gritted teeth. “It seemed better than suggesting we shared bodily fluids.”

“Good point,” Adam said, taking another sip of wine.

“I know!” Shawn snapped his fingers. “The bathroom.”

Everyone turned to look at him. “It’s over there,” Adam said, pointing to the far corner.

“No, I mean that’s where I know you from. You were talking with Jenna last time we were here. I wouldn’t have noticed, but she was gone a long time.” He cocked his head to the side, considering. “Wait, that’s who you had to run off and meet that night?”

Jenna felt all the blood drain from her head. She gripped her root beer glass, swallowing hard. “What? No, we just ran into each other. We’d been working together and stopped to say hello and?—”

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” Shawn said good-naturedly, returning his attention to his phone. “Just trying to figure out why he looked so familiar.”

“Glad we could piece it together for you.” Adam didn’t look very glad. Not that it mattered. With the mystery solved, Shawn’s attention was already back on his phone. Jenna breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wait, how come you never mentioned this?”

Jenna cut her eyes across the table. Mia was frowning, her own phone gripped in her hand.

“What?” Jenna said, palms feeling sweaty all of a sudden. “I told you I came here for pizza that night—August fifteenth—you know?”

She waited for Mia to get sidetracked, to recognize the date and abandon her line of questioning. But Mia shook her head.

“I’m not talking about the whole running-into-your-ex-on-the-anniversary-of-the-miscarriage thing, though I do think?—”

“Miscarriage?” Adam frowned.

Shawn looked up from his phone, apparently sensing he’d missed something major. “What?”

“Nothing.” Jenna said, digging her nails into her palms. “Go back to your game.”

Jenna felt Adam’s eyes drilling into her like lasers. She swallowed hard, her gaze still locked on Mia’s disapproving one. She opened her mouth to explain, but Mia shook her head and held up her phone.

“I’m not talking about that. Mark just texted. He said Ellen wanted me to ask you whether you liked the .32 Kel-Tec you were firing with or the .22 Ruger Mark III Hunter Adam had. She’s planning to buy a new gun.” She looked from Jenna to Adam, then back again. “What’s going on here?”

Jenna swallowed again, wishing like hell she hadn’t emptied her root beer or given her wine to Adam.

The last bite of pizza formed a sticky lump in the back of her throat, or maybe that was a thick wad of guilt.

On the table, Jenna’s phone buzzed. She shoved it away, trying to keep her focus on coming up with an explanation that might appease everyone. Trying to keep from panicking.

“Jenna?” Adam asked. She looked at him, her heart twisting when she saw the stricken look on his face.

“I—”

“Sweetheart?” Gertie put a hand on hers and Jenna swiveled to look at her. Surely her aunt could find some way to fix this. Jenna’s mother would have certainly known what to do.

Everything’s under control.

But nothing about this felt under control. Jenna’s palms felt sticky and her gut felt like someone just kicked her with steel-toed boots. Everyone stared at her—Mia and Adam, even Shawn had looked up from his phone.

Only Gertie wasn’t looking at her. She was frowning down at Jenna’s phone, looking more than a little perplexed. “Why is my agent calling you?”

Jenna’s mouth went dry. “I, uh—I’m not sure.”

“You’ve spoken with her recently?”

“I, um.” Panic welled up in her chest. What the hell had she done? “She called the house sometime last week, but?—”

“You’ve obviously been in contact beyond that.” Gert nudged the phone toward her. “You’ve got her name and number programed into your phone.”

Her expression was more curious than angry, but Jenna’s palms went from sticky to slick with fear and dread and guilt.

She opened her mouth to speak, but realized she didn’t have any words at all.

Not for anyone. She looked from Shawn to Mia to Gert to Adam, all of them staring at her with some mix of confusion and anger and betrayal.

Jenna stood up, legs shaking as she knocked her empty root beer glass over.

She had to get out of here. She had to leave now, before everything came crashing down around her.

If she could just rewind, take back all the lies and half-truths and cover stories that weren’t covering anything at all anymore.

Everyone at the table sat staring, some confused, some angry, some hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said, righting her empty glass, only to knock it over again. “I didn’t know—I just—excuse me.”

She turned and ran from the restaurant.