“I don’t have an answer yet,” he quickly tacks on, “which is why I didn’t want to tell you anything, so don’t get your hopes up. But I did ask if he’d be open to speaking with you when I went to visit.”
“How did you know I—”
“Your wife got Willow to hound me about it.” This time, I get a wry smile. “They’re both very insistent women. And if Dev has taught me anything, it’s to never piss off your social media manager.”
He’s not wrong about any of it. What hits me harder, though, is that Stella managed to pull off exactly what she said she would. She has me here talking with Reid and even got him to reach out to Lorenzo on my behalf, two things I haven’t been able to do myself. Not even my manager, with all his connections, could get me in touch with anyone. But Stella did it.
“You’re lucky to have someone fighting for you like that,” Reid continues when I can’t find my voice. “I honestly thoughtyou’d lost your mind when I heard you’d gotten married in Vegas, but you landed yourself a good one.”
There’s no doubt about that. Even if it was all by mistake, even if it was drunken lust guiding us, I chose the perfect person.
“I really did,” I say, not fighting a smile. “Stella’s…amazing. I need to thank her for setting all of this up.” I would run to her now if I didn’t need to chat more with Reid, to make sure everything’s okay with us too.
But he can see I’m itching to leave, because he nods to the door. “Go get your girl. We can talk again before the break’s over.”
“You’re done following the D’Ambrosi protocol of shunning me then?”
He lets loose a grin that solidifies his golden boy moniker. “I guess I could break the rules.”
I’ll believe it when my phone rings, but for now, we’re on steady enough ground that I don’t feel bad when I slap his shoulder in goodbye and then stride out of the room.
Finding Stella when I return to the ballroom isn’t a challenge, only because there’s a crowd around her. She’s sucked in a group of people and is regaling them with some tale that has her motioning with her champagne glass, and they can’t take their eyes off her. Neither can I as I slip past bodies and make my way toward her. My hand settles on her elbow, drawing her confused gaze away from her audience. When she realizes it’s me, her face lights up so brightly that I have to blink to keep from staring at her in a daze.
“Come with me.”
She wastes no time turning her wide smile on her hangers-on and excusing herself from the conversation.
“So?” she prompts, clinging to my arm as I guide her through the crowd. “How did it go?”
“Reid asked Lorenzo to speak with me,” I rush to answer. “No guarantee that he will, but this is a start.”
Stella makes a sound of excitement and tugs me closer. “He’ll talk to you, I know it. We’re going to clear your name.”
There’s thatweagain. I love the sound of it from her lips, but there’s really nowehere—this has been all her. With her insistence and her inability to take no for an answer when it comes to helping me. My own family is content to leave me to rot, but Stella? She’s been ready to help since practically day dot.
I take her to the room Reid and I were just in, though there’s no sign of him now. Good. I need this moment alone with her.
“Is there anything else I can do to help?” she asks, slipping her arm out of my grasp and staring up at me expectantly.
“Not right now. I just wanted to thank you.”
“For what?” she teases. “Annoying the shit out of Willow, who in turn annoyed the shit out of Reid?”
“For making this happen. For taking a chance on me.”
Stella’s expression softens from wide-eyed joy to tender amusement. “Oh, Thomas. Did you really think I’d let my own husband suffer? You know I like you better when you’re smiling.”
I lift a brow, almost glad she’s not taking me completely seriously. If she did, I fear I might confess something that neither of us is ready to admit—that we like each other more than just on a surface level of attraction or mere friendship. “Oh, you meanthat British thingI do with my face?”
“What can I say? It’s grown on me.”
“Well, your grating American accent has grown on me.”
She gasps and slaps my chest, and even though she’s fakingoffense, there’s no hiding the laugh behind her words. “You never said it was grating!”
Because it isn’t. It never has been. I could listen to her talk about anything and everything for hours on end. She could read me every page in the dictionary and I’d be content to sit and drink it in, as long as it came from her.
I close my fingers around her wrist before she can pull back. “To be fair, it’s a very sexy kind of grating.”
