Chapter 76
Anna
As we pulled up to the restaurant, I looked to Flynn and said, "Really? We're eatinghere?"
From the driver's seat, he nodded. "What, you don't like it?"
"Actually, I love Italian." Still, I gave the restaurant a worried glance. "But it's so crowded. Do you think we'll get a table?" It was, after all, prime time on a Saturday night.
With a rueful laugh, he said, "If we want, we can probably get the whole restaurant."
I knew it was a joke, but it still made me pause. I didn't like the idea of taking up more space than we needed or muscling in just because Flynn had the fame and fortune to make other people jump whenever he wanted.
At something in my expression, he said, "Don't worry. I made reservations."
I smiled. "Really?"
He smiled back. "What, you think I don't know how?"
Something about his smile made me feel warm and tingly in all the right places – or in all thewrongplaces if I took into account that we weren't truly together.
As far as tonight, I was surprised that we were dining out at all. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since that ugly incident at the gate, and today's news coverage had been nonstop and brutal, to me in particular.
It hadn't been much kinder to Flynn, who'd come across as a world-class cad, watching Felicity sob outside his gate.
As for myself, I was officially branded a homewrecker, even though Flynn and Felicity had never been married – and more importantly, they'd been broken up weeks beforeI'dappeared on the scene.
But hey, I had a role to play, right? I glanced toward the car's digital clock. "What time are the reservations for?"
"Seven-thirty."
The current time was 7:15. I bit my lip as I smoothed out the imaginary wrinkles in my little red dress. If we walked into the restaurant now, we'd have fifteen whole minutes in a crowd of people who may or may not loathe me for "stealing" Flynn.
It didn't help that according to the rumor mill, Felicity Saint Cloud had checked herself into a mental health clinic just this morning.
Flynn said, "If you want, we can wait in the car."
I smiled with relief. "Actually, if you don't mind, that would be great."
Crowd or no crowd, the truth was, I could use a little relaxation time. Today had been a flurry of activity, and not all of it good. Oh sure, I'd enjoyed having cake with Randy. And the more I got to know Jack, the more I'd come to actually like him.
Still, it was nice to be alone.
And yet, Iwasn'talone.
I was with Flynn.
In spite of everything, it felt surprisingly right. At the realization, something squeezed at my heart.Could it be right if it wasn't real?
Flynn asked, "What is it?"
Once again, I turned to face him. "What's what?"
"Just now, what were you thinking?"
Today at the house, I'd encountered Flynn only in passing as we dealt separately with the fallout from last night's events. For me, this had mostly involved answering phone calls from nearly everyone I knew.
What Flynn had been doing, I could only speculate. But it wasn't hard to imagine that his day had been even more hectic than mine.