Page 24 of Say You Will

I’ll let Leo Kingston’s call go to voicemail. Maybe he’ll text, and I can text back“New phone. Who dis?”My father’s calls, if he even makes them, can go to voicemail too. It’s what he’s done to me all my life.

Hands shaking, I tighten my ponytail under my cap and adjust my glasses. I can’t help but draw an uncomfortable parallel between Jonny’s request for me to date his colleague in exchange for his financial assistance and Henry presenting marriage as a job.

Logically, I understand that no one is perfect, but in my mind, Henrywas. I hero-worshipped him, and maybe he’s right that I hadn’t seen him accurately, but even the fact that he didn’t let me kiss him that night was something to admire and celebrate. Henry wasnoble.

I barely recognized the man who sat across the table from me in my hotel room. When he hugged me at the door, for me, it wasn’t “good night.” It was “goodbye” to the person I lost.

My attention catches on Henry as he pushes through the revolving door. He always walks as though he has somewhereimportant to be. It doesn’t matter if he’s headed to the kitchen or the beach or a meeting. The only time I’ve seen him not do that is when he matches his pace to walk beside me.

Dressed more casually today, he wears black trousers and a tan sweater-vest over a white button-down. Today’s glasses frames are black. He heads directly for me, his long stride ground-eating, his expression intent.

Somehow, Henry and I coordinate with each other today, as if we stood side-by-side in front of our shared closet and said,“Let’s dress like we belong together.”Stuff like that used to happen with us all the time, and neither of us could explain it. We were both “in the mood” for a certain color on that day.

He stops approximately three feet away and dips his head. “Hello, Franki. Hello, Oliver.”

My lips twitch without my consent. He doesn’t talk to Oliver like he’s a dog. Nope. It’s a dip of his head and a “hello.” That hasn’t changed, at least.

“Are you ready?” he asks.

I give him a thumbs up. “Ready Freddy—”

“—Steady,” he finishes with me.

A couple of men, probably in their mid-twenties, stand nearby, dressed casually and checking their phones. One nudges the other, and they both zero in on me, then look back at each other.

Shit. Shit. Shit.No one was supposed to notice me. Why do people do this? I don’t even have the same color eyes she does.

One of them, trailed closely by the other, approaches and says, “Are you . . .?”

I shake my head. The two men continue to move in my direction, and I take a step back. Oliver snarls.

“From a distance, you look just like her,” the blond says.

The other guy laughs. “Dollar Store Guinevere Jones.”

Oliver bares his teeth aggressively, but they ignore him. When they get within five feet, I take another step backward, even asI paste on my smile and prepare to tell them I have somewhere I need to be. Before I get the chance, the men’s faces grow pale and they scramble away.

Henry stalks toward them even more aggressively than they’d moved in on me, and they scurry backward across the lobby. Their eyes widen as they shake their heads and put their hands up in a show of surrender. With his back toward me, I can’t hear a word Henry says or see his face, but the men look terrified. Sure, Henry has an umpteenbillion degree black belt in at least three different martial arts disciplines. The whole McRae family does, but these guys don’t know that.

They look like they’re running away from a sweater-vest-wearing astronomy professor.

“We’re sorry, ma’am. We’re leaving you alone now. We respect your privacy,” the one with the patchy beard calls.

“Sorry!” the blond shouts. “You’re not the dollar store version of someone else. You’re . . . er . . . Gucci . . . of . . . yourself.”

This time I hear Henry’s voice. “Now, run away.”

They virtually run for the lobby doors.

Henry turns toward me, and his familiar disgruntled expression settles something inside me. Last night at dinner, his eyes were cold enough to make me shiver. Anger may not be the most comfortable emotion, but it’s real. Under the circumstances, it’s reasonable. This is the expression of the same kid who once asked if someone hurt me, because if they did, he’d do something about it.

Tension leeches from his shoulders when he returns to me.

“What did you say to them?” I ask curiously.

“I told them to apologize to you or I would . . .” he runs a hand through his hair, then admits, “ . . . surgically remove their tongues without anesthesia.”

I can’t keep the disbelief out of my voice. “They looked like theybelievedyou.”

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