“This used to be a mob hideout,” Neil said cheerfully as he gave his coat to the hostess.
I unbelted my coat and worked on the buttons, giving the waitress a skeptical look. “That’s not true, is it?”
She shrugged with a friendly smile. “That’s what we tell people.”
Neil moved to pull my chair out. I arched a brow at him, and he held up his hands apologetically and took his own chair.
“Mandy will be right with you,” the hostess said as she handed us our menus, one page of crisp tan paper tied into a leather cover with neat black ribbon. Whenever I ate in a New York restaurant, I guiltily remembered the laminated card stock at all the restaurants in my hometown, and I could almost hear my relatives telling me I was getting too big for my britches.
“Do you care for duck?” Neil asked, glancing up from his menu. “They have a very good cold duck confit salad.”
I could have told him exactly what to do with his duck. “Are we here because you’re firing me?”
He didn’t look up this time. “No. I wouldn’t fire you just because we slept together in the past. I’m the interloper here, you’ve been with Porteras much longer.”
The tension in my work brain eased, and I looked down at the prix fixe menu and weighed my options in silence.
“Do you think you’d stay on?” he asked casually as the waitress returned for our drink orders. I’m never sure what I’m supposed to order for a business lunch, so I stuck to coffee and water. To my surprise, he followed my lead. I’d thought he would order some fancy expensive wine or something.
I considered his question. It would be insane for anyone to want to work for someone they had a hot one-night stand with. “As your assistant? I don’t think that’s something I can manage.”
“I completely understand.” He set his menu aside and sat back in his chair, one hand toying with the stem of his water glass. “To be quite honest, I don’t think I would feel comfortable ordering around someone with whom I had a sexual relationship. Had a past sexual relationship, that is.” His quick amendment brought a hot flush to my cheeks, and he cleared his throat while we looked firmly away from each other. The waitress came to our rescue, taking my order for a grilled calamari salad, and his for moules marinières, which he pronounced perfectly.
He could have just said ‘I’ll have the mussels,’ I sniped silently. What was the point of sitting here, having lunch with him, if it wasn’t going to save my job?
I realize I wasn’t being entirely fair to him. He’d apologized for stealing my plane tickets. He seemed genuinely sorry that he hadn’t remembered me. And it wasn’t like he could control the fact that our work paths had crossed. We were both in a weird situation, here.
After the waitress left us, Neil began again. “As I was saying, I wouldn’t be comfortable keeping you on as my assistant, but I see no reason for you to leave the magazine completely. Your coworkers speak very highly of you and your experience in the company. Would you consider accepting an assistant beauty editor position?”
I was glad he asked me now, because if we’d been eating, I would have been choking on squid for sure. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a bit of a leap, but Gabriella did put your name down on the list of suggestions.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I won’t pressure you into making a decision right away. That’s not what this lunch is for.”
Gabriella put my name on a list? With other candidates? Meaning, she didn’t even see to my job security before she left? I tried hard to disguise my annoyance. After all, she had put me down as a candidate for assistant beauty editor. That was a huge promotion for me, and a chance to actually use my degree. “Well, I appreciate the time to think... but what is this lunch for, if not to discuss work?”
There was that half-smile again, like a ghost of my most private fantasies passing silently between us. “To catch up. It’s been six years, after all.”
“Ah.” Well, after I couldn’t get on my plane to Tokyo because you stole my plane tickets...
I would have to let that go, or make my life really difficult. Six years ago, I’d done lots of stupid things I’d had no business doing. Six years from now, I’d probably be saying the exact same thing. Clearly, Neil thought of taking my plane ticket as one of those stupid things he’d had no business doing. I could afford to be a little more forgiving.
“You know, we didn’t really know each other before,” I began, not unkindly. It was just a fact we couldn’t ignore and still work together. “There’s no reason we should feel weird about this.”