a small celebration, marking your return to New York.”
“Carter, I’m very busy and we’ve already met for lunch once. We don’t need to prolong this...” She didn’t know what to call it. It wasn’t friendship.
“You’re not afraid of being across a table from me, are you?” he interrupted.
She laughed. “You’re not going to play the fear card. You know I have no fear where you’re concerned. But I decide who I want to eat with and that has nothing to do with you laying down a challenge.”
“So the answer is...”
Renee weighed the invitation for a long time. She saw Dana in the doorway gesturing for her to accept. Dana could only hear one side of the conversation, but she could tell Carter had asked to see Renee. Renee knew it was best to stay away from him, but if she was going to live in New York and inevitably run into him, she would have to become comfortable in his presence.
“Fine,” she said. “Dinner tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to stand me up, are you?”
“I keep my word,” she said.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
Renee was not about to give him the address. She knew he often showed up early for a date, and then they wouldn’t make it out.
“You discovered I’m renting a house, yet you don’t know where I’m staying.” She paused, then said, “I’ll meet you at the Rainbow Room at seven.”
She heard his sigh through the phone. “Rainbow Room it is.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“Good night, Renee.”
She clicked the end button without saying anything. The tone of his voice with those three words had taken away her power of speech. Did he know he was doing that? Was it on purpose, designed to throw her off guard? She’d heard those words in the dark, after a fervent night of lovemaking. They’d wrapped around her, folded her in a blanket of warmth, the way his arms had. She’d voluntarily gone there, taken his hand and run with him into an unknown place that held the promise of forever.
Renee had never wanted to leave it. She’d wanted to see the next bend, open the next door and find what surprises awaited her. She’d wanted to jump from cloud to cloud and go with the man of her dreams.
In his arms, she had been blinded. She’d forgotten that dreams have the permanence of smoke. And it had blown up in her face. The relationship had hardly begun before the burning between them had been doused, leaving only smoke and cinders. It had taken her a while to get herself under control, to not open her eyes in the morning and find herself thinking of him. But she was at that point now. And there was no way she was allowing him back into her heart.
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