Page 30 of My Ex's Best Friend

She starts to gather her stuff. “You don’t have to do this.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to make up for something that happened years ago.”

“What happened exactly?”

“You know what? I don’t want to get into it right now,” Kiera says. “We’re going to France in five days.”

“Yes, that’s right. This is childish.”

Kiera looks like she’s about to say something but seems to change her mind at the last second.

She scrolls through the laptop, making notes and putting tabs on paintings she likes.

“I think I’ve got what the client needs, and based on all of that, I have shortlisted three paintings.”

She hesitates then, but I urge her. “Go on.”

Kiera points each picture to me and after she’s done, she holds in her breath.

“Wow, those are some very unconventional choices, but I’m going to send the choices to the client.”

“Really? You’re not going to run it through your team?”

“No. I trust your choice. I think you’re onto something.”

I reach for the sheaf of papers at the same time she does.

As our fingers accidentally brush against each other, a jolt of electricity courses through me. It's a fleeting touch, almost imperceptible, yet it sends a wave of warmth through my veins.

The scent of her lingers, mingling with the unspoken tension.

I steal a glance, finding her eyes meeting mine. There's a flicker of something there before she quickly gets up.

“Um, I think we’re done here,” she says.

“Yes, we are.” I stand up. “I think we did good work here.”

“Yeah,” she says, not meeting my gaze. “Real good.”

“Get ready for Paris.”

This time, she finally looks at me.

“How do you…”

“You’ve nailed the choices. We have been discussing this for the past three weeks, going back and forth with the client, and you came in here and solved our problem.”

“But you haven’t even sent anything to the client yet. How can you tell?”

“I have a good feeling about it. Look, just come into my office. I’ll email the client with your choices, and I also have some additional files for the museum project that I wanted to hand over to you.”

“Okay.”

We leave the conference room, her trailing behind me, and I enter my office, moving over to my desk, and pull out the folder even before Kiera walks in.

Deep down, she’s still the girl I’ve known for so long. Th girl I loved.

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