know that.”
“I do. Look, Evan, you left once without saying a word. I wasn’t enough for you then, and there’s no reason to think things would be different now.”
He straightened his back and looked out the window in front of him. “I didn’t leave because you weren’t enough for me. It was nothing like that.”
“Then what was it?”
He looked at her, his face shadowed by the twilight. “It was complicated.”
“Too complicated to explain?”
“What’s the point?”
“I don’t know.” She couldn’t admit that she wanted the peace of mind of knowing. It sounded too pathetic. “Maybe there isn’t one.”
There passed a moment of eye contact between the two of them that sent shivers rushing up and down Meredith’s spine. He looked as if he was going to kiss her again.
More to the point, she wanted him to kiss her again; she wanted to feel herself in his arms again; she wanted to feel that rough beard against her cheek. Heat pulsed between the two of them. He moved toward her and she leaned in ever so slightly until he was just the merest breath away.
Then her phone rang.
She started in surprise. Who would be calling her at this hour?
Her first thought was that it might be an emergency, something to do with her mother.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Evan, fumbling through her purse. “I have to get this. It could be my mom.”
She answered the phone.
“I’m sorry to call so late,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “But I’m getting ready to leave for Japan and I need to know if you finished assembling the data you were working on about Hanson Media Group.”
Chapter Thirteen
Meredith moved the phone to her other ear and subtly turned the volume on the earpiece down. “I don’t have that information with me right now. I can go home and get it, though, if you need me to.”
“You’re not alone?”
“Um … no.”
“I need to talk to you about this. Can you call me back soon, in private?”
She didn’t want to, but Meredith knew she really had no choice. “All of those records are at home, Mother.” She hated having to stoop so low as to pretend it was her mother. “Can it wait until morning?”
“Sorry, you have to do this now.”
“Okay, let me just call you back in—” she glanced at her watch “—about forty-five minutes. Is that okay?”
“That’s fine. But sooner is better. Try and hurry, Meredith, okay?”
“You got it.” She gave Evan an exasperated look as she flipped the phone shut and put it back into her purse. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to get back home and get some documentation together for my mother. Something to do with her new housing situation and needing to prove she sold her assets out here.”
Evan nodded. “I’ll take you home right away.”
That just seemed wrong. With everything she was doing she couldn’t bear to make him feel like he had to accommodate her. “No, no, I know you were looking forward to eating here. It’s not a big deal for me to take a cab back to the office and drive home. Heck, I’d walk if I had the time.”
“Meredith, I’m not letting you take a cab back to the office so I can go get myself some souvlaki. I’ll drive you.”
“You don’t—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he interrupted. He started the car and put it in gear. “This isn’t a big deal.”
“Well, thanks.”
He pulled out of the parking lot. “Is everything okay with your mom?”
“What? Oh. Yes. Fine. It’s just—” She had to tell herself this really was about her mother, that it was routine personal business and not something that could affect Evan or his family. “She’s constantly needing one document or another from the house. She left a ton of stuff behind.” That much, at least, was true.
“Your mom is lucky to have you,” Evan said as he drove. “After she lost your dad, she must have been really lost.”
“She was,” Meredith agreed.
“I remember how close they were,” Evan continued, smiling more to himself than Meredith. “They’d be worse than teenagers at the dinner table, laughing and finishing each other’s sentences.”
Meredith smiled, remembering. “I always thought that was the definition—”
“—of true love, yeah,” Evan agreed, apparently unaware that he had just finished Meredith’s sentence himself.
But she was aware of it.
“When you know each other so well, and agree with each other so completely, that you can finish each other’s sentences,” he went on, “that really shows a certain comfort level. It’s enviable, really.”
“Yes,” she agreed, looking at him through the darkness, illuminated only occasionally by the streetlights they passed. “I think you’re right.”
“It probably had a lot to do with how you turned out.”
“Meaning.?”
“You have always been secure in yourself, Meredith. Some might even say a little bull-headed—” he gave a quick smile “—but definitely secure with who you are and what you think. I think that comes from growing up in a house where everyone was loved and accepted for who they were.”
“As opposed to how you grew up?” she asked, before she could think better of it.
He didn’t even hesitate to answer. “Definitely. I knew before I could talk that I had to watch what I said around my father. The strain of keeping us all quiet and agreeable for him probably had a lot to do with my mother’s eventual illness.”
And death, Meredith thought, but she didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. She knew they were both thinking it. “You must have had some good times with your family,” she ventured. “It’s not like you were a miserable kid.”
“Not when I was with you.” He kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. “Maybe whatever you had in your upbringing spilled over to me when we were together. The only time I really felt comfortable back then was when I was with you.”
The thought warmed her heart, even while it rang every warning bell within her. “It obviously didn’t mean that much to you,” she said. “You didn’t have too hard a time leaving it.”
He
