I nod, a smirk stretching across my face. Perhaps she’ll understand. “Let me tell you the personal details about my life now,” I deadpan. “One for one, I thought?”
She blows out a breath, and I can’t help but focus on her lips and then the rest of her face. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup. In fact, I don’t think she has much on. Maybe a little mascara, but her skin looks flawless but for her black eye and where she tried in vain to cover it up. “If I tell you my fiancé hit me, it doesn’t just speak about him, it also says a lot about me. Sometimes you want to hide from facts, Smith. Is that the case with you and your military career? If so, we can cut the meeting off right now and pretend this never happened.” She makes a grab for her bag sitting next to her in the booth.
I don’t grab her, but leaning over, I gently touch her arm still on the table. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, no one said anything about hiding from facts. You shouldn’t hide from anything. I’m here. I want to do this interview. I want to know who did that to you so I can do it to them. Marring perfection is a felony in all fifty states, Carina.” I smile lightly, although every muscle in my body is coiled and ready to strike out. A man, a man who is supposed to love her for the rest of her life, beats her. She stays with him. The dynamics are confounding and infuriating, yet I don’t know her. Now, it’s almost mandatory I do.
“I’ll answer anything else. Just please don’t go there.”She adjusts her glasses. I grit my teeth when I see the bluish bruise under her eye appear and disappear under the black frames. “Okay?” Finally she looks up. Her long lashes almost brush against the lenses of her glasses. They’re dark and thick, and her brown eyes have swirls of green and gray in this lighting.
I pull my arm back to my side slowly. “What’s your favorite TV show?” I ask.
She smirks. “Sort of an inconsequential question for a writer, don’t you think?” Her face transforms with a tiny grin.
I swallow. “Sorry. I didn’t bring my A game today. What’s your favorite book?”
The smile widens into something more stunning, something I’m not sure is ever shared with anyone else. Perhaps this smile is just for me. It’s the first time since the accident that I’ve had to remind myself I’m taken—that I have no right to own any of her smiles.
Tilting her head to the side, she says, “I don’t have one favorite. At the moment I have one hundred and thirty. Wait, no, one hundred and thirty-one favorites.” She taps one finger on the table to punctuate her sentence. It’s cute. “Crazy Good. I finished that one last night. It’s officially on the favorite list.”
“Quite the list. I’d like to see it sometime.”
She shrugs. “Sure. Your turn.”
My answer is interrupted by the shrill sound of her phone ringing in her bag. Her sweet smile transformsinto a terrified grimace.
“I have to take this,” she says, avoiding my gaze.
I nod, take a bite of my food, and pull out my own cell phone. I open my email and start scrolling aimlessly. That’s what you do when you’re playing at ambivalence.
Carina answers with a clipped “hello” and wanders a few feet from our table, turning her back toward me. “We’re just finishing up. Yes. Jasmine says hello,” she says, her voice hushed. My hearing is still top-notch. “Sales are great. I’m pitching her my newest novel.”
I clear my throat and delete a junk email with a left swipe. Megan tells me I should just unsubscribe, but that seems like too much effort. I left swipe another and another one.
“Uh, no, she’s in the restroom right now. I’m making some notes. I’ll be home soon.”
I wish I couldn’t hear this. As if sensing my wayward thoughts, Megan sends me a text asking when I’ll be home. I hear Carina tell him she’s at a diner several blocks from where we are. Another lie that doesn’t come easily for her—a fact that makes my stomach pang with helplessness. She’s a stranger, a complete and utter foreign body in my world, and I find myself caring about her well-being.
Honestly, I’m not sure, but it sounds as if my interview today will be cut short, so I text back “soon” and a smiley face. Megan sends back a weird emoji, and I’m not sure what it means.
Carina sits back down in front of me. With shaking hands, she places her cell phone face down on the table. “I’ll have to get going shortly.”
“Of course. Me too. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“That’s very kind of you. You’re a stranger, Mr. Eppington. I can walk myself out to my car.” She switches her reading glasses for her oversized sunglasses.
I hold back the urge to point out to her what the man she loves and knows well does to her. “I was going to tell you a little bit about the day everything changed for me. In my career, that is.” I hold my hands up. “It’s not a conversation I’d have in here.” Glancing around, I realize we’re mostly alone in here anyway. “Let me give you something to work with until the next time we meet.”
She smiles. “You’re right. I didn’t get anything yet. I’d appreciate that. Walk me out, please.”
I pay the check against her wishes and hold the door for her. Her posture is nervous as she glances left and right when we exit into the parking lot.
I follow close to her side as she makes her way to her large, dark SUV. She unlocks the door with a fob, puts her bag and laptop case on her seat, then turns to me with a tape recorder in hand.
She looks me up and down unabashedly. Carina isn’t judging. She’s appraising. “Tell me, Mr. Eppington. Tell me about the day everything changed.”
My skin prickles. My chest aches. I begin.
CHAPTER FIVE
Carina
