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Meg took a sip of her water as the waitress walked away. “So really, Mom, you’re doing okay?”

  “I’m fine, Meggy, but I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about this thing with Kyle.”

  Meg rolled her eyes, feeling like a petulant tween. “There’s nothing to talk about. Weren’t you the one who stood there in his studio not two weeks ago and said there’s a point where you have to put your foot down? Where forgiveness might be possible, but forgetting never could be?”

  “I did say that,” Patti said. “And there’s no way you should forget. Neither of you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’ve both learned so much from your past mistakes. You’re works in progress, and it would be a shame to have you both come this far, only to throw in the towel and waste all those lessons learned on someone who’s not really your soul mate.”

  “Soul mate,” Meg muttered, picking at the bread basket. “I’m not sure I believe in the idea of soul mates.”

  “Believe or don’t believe,” Jess said, tearing off a thick hunk of sourdough and casting a look at Patti. “It doesn’t really matter. We both watched you for ten years with Matt and for one month with Kyle, and there’s no question which man made you happier.”

  “That’s different,” Meg said, not sure whether to feel intensely loved or intensely picked on. “Infatuation doesn’t last. And I didn’t know the whole story when I got involved with Kyle.”

  “Honey, you knew the things that mattered. You knew he loves his family. You knew he’ll help you out in a pinch. You knew he’s a man with flaws who’s willing to own those flaws and learn from them.”

  “But above all,” Jess said, “you knew he loves you like no one else ever has.”

  Meg shook her head and took a big pull of ice water. “Can we please talk about something else? Please?”

  Jess gave her a pitying look, then turned to Patti. “So you’re moving ahead with the divorce?”

  “That’s the plan.” Patti looked at Meg. “Your father said you two had dinner last night?”

  Meg nodded, wondering if she should feel worse about the breakup of her parents’ marriage. She knew she ought to feel a certain level of sadness or nostalgia, but mostly she felt relief.

  “I’ll always love you, Daddy,” she’d told him last night after dinner as she handed him a Tupperware container with two slices of her homemade blueberry pie. “But liking you hasn’t always been easy.”

  “I know that, sweetheart. Liking myself is no picnic, either. Especially right now. Will you tell your mom—” He’d stopped, then shook his head. “Never mind. I owe her more than sentiments relayed through a third party.”

  “You do. But you can tell me anyway.”

  “Tell her she deserves better. And I hope she finds it.”

  Now, Meg reached across the table and squeezed her mother’s hand. “You deserve the best, Mom.”

  Patti smiled and squeezed back. “So do you, baby. And it’s not too late to get it.”

  Kyle kicked a dirty sock under his couch and wondered if he should have done a better job tidying up before inviting a big-shot Hollywood producer to his home.

  From across the room, Bindi scurried over and flopped on her belly beside the sofa. With a grunt, she stuck her nose underneath and pulled out the sock. She got to her feet and trotted over, depositing the sock in front of Kyle with an intense look of pride.

  He grimaced and turned his attention back to Emmett Ashton. The man hadn’t noticed a damn thing, and probably couldn’t care less about an over-attentive canine or the cleanliness of Kyle’s home.

  Emmett reached out and stroked a hand over the metal sculpture, his expression more reverent than any Kyle had seen from someone admiring his work. It should have made him proud.

  Instead, Kyle just felt empty.

  “It’s incredible,” Emmett said, circling the piece from the other side. “Even better than it was in the photos. The grace, the beauty, the lines—”

  “I know,” Kyle said. He should probably be more humble, but he was long past that point now. He had a billionaire TV mogul standing here next to the thrift-store sofa he’d never gotten around to replacing. Humility was beside the point.

  Spotting a dirty paper napkin on the end table, he leaned sideways and grabbed it. He tried to crumple it into a discreet ball, but Bindi trotted over, ready to fetch. Kyle shoved the ball in his pocket while the dog whined and pawed at his pants.

  “I have to admit, I was surprised to get your message,” Emmett said. “All that talk about how you’d never sell this piece?”

  “I know,” Kyle said. “I still won’t. Not for money anyway.”

  Emmett nodded, looking at Kyle with practiced patience. He turned back to the sculpture, grazing a palm over the bare thigh, and Kyle had to tamp down the inexplicable flare of jealousy in his gut.

  “You know I can’t make any promises,” Emmett said. “If she sucks in the screen test, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “She won’t,” he said. “You saw the clips. The one of her on the Today show, and that interview with the local TV station?”

  “Yes, but what you’re talking about—” Emmett shook his head and dropped his hand from the sculpture. “It’s different.”

  “So is she.”

  Emmett barked out a laugh. “She must really mean something to you.”

  “She does.”

  “You want a word of advice from a guy who’s been married four times?”

  Kyle opened his mouth to reply, not sure whether a guy who’d been married four times was the best or the worst person to dole out relationship tips. Seeming to read his thoughts, Emmett waved a hand in front of him.

  “Look here, this is a nice gesture. What you’re doing with this deal. But you’ve gotta talk to her about it. You can’t go sneaking around behind a woman’s back pulling the puppet strings and trying to make her life turn out the way you think it ought to. Even if you’re well-intentioned, that shit will bite you in the ass.”

  The words hit him like a punch to the gut. Kyle just nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “Manipulating the pieces of someone else’s life?” Emmett shook his head. “No good can come from that.”

  “I know,” Kyle said with a grimace. “Believe me, I know. But just this one last time. To make up for what I did the last time.”

  Emmett nodded and turned back to the sculpture. Kyle looked around his living room again, wishing he’d at least run a dust rag over the horizontal surfaces. A sketchpad lay sprawled on his coffee table, its pages marked with pencil. A totally normal thing to have in an artist’s home, if not for the doodles of cat faces and cubes. This was clearly the work of a man whose inspiration had left the premises.

  “What did you say the name was?”

  “Meg,” he said, then realized Emmett wasn’t asking that at all. “Oh, the sculpture? I didn’t.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Si Seulement.”

  “French?”

  He nodded. “France is where she did her culinary training.”

  “She,” Emmett repeated, not looking surprised. “And what does si seulement mean?”

  “If only.”

  “I see.” He touched the statue again. “Are you sure about this?”

  “About the statue or the girl?”

  “I meant the sculpture. If you’re making this deal, it’s pretty fucking obvious you’re sure about the girl.”

  “I’m positive,” he said. “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

  “Even if it doesn’t work out?”

  Kyle nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. “At least this time I know I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “We’re back in the kitchen with Meg Delaney, author of the international bestseller, The Food You Love: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook. If you’re just now joining us, Meg’s been showing us how to make a chocolate s
oufflé that’s guaranteed to make your toes curl in more ways than one.”

  Meg forced her exhausted jaw muscles into a shape she hoped resembled a smile. It was getting tough to tell. They’d been at this for hours now, though it felt like days. The producer kept trying different strategies, interacting with Meg like a talk-show host or cueing her like an offstage announcer the way she was doing now. None of it seemed to work.

  Meg had never wanted anything as badly as she wanted this TV show, but she had a feeling she was blowing it.

  The thought of wanting something—or maybe it was the notion of blowing something—conjured up images of Kyle, which just made Meg’s gut feel like someone had kicked her with a steel-toed boot. Her smile was feeling more forced, so she ordered herself to do something useful.

  “That’s right, Kelly,” Meg tried to chirp, though it was probably more of a croak. “I can guarantee this soufflé is going to have you licking your lips—or maybe someone else’s.” She gave a practiced wink at the camera—something the producers had suggested she try.

  But she could tell from Kelly Conrad’s face it probably looked more like she had a facial tic.

  “Cut,” the young producer said, giving Meg an encouraging, albeit exhausted smile. “I don’t think the wink is working out.”

  “You mean I look like a rapist?”

  Kelly grimaced. “More like an escaped mental patient.”

  “Sorry.” Meg blew a curl out of her eye and tried to look upbeat, but she knew she probably just looked defeated.

  “It’s okay. How about we focus on some of the aphrodisiac stuff?”

  “I can do that,” Meg said, wishing for a tactful way to wipe her brow. Smearing sweat all over her arm probably wasn’t the best way to demonstrate her poise and camera presence as a professional TV chef. Then again, neither was sweating like a porn star.

  “Ready?” Kelly asked.

  Meg nodded and took a deep breath.

  “Aaaaand—action!”

  Meg cleared her throat and pushed her cheeks into a smile again. “As I was saying earlier, chocolate is a great source of serotonin. That’s a monoamine neurotransmitter that’s biochemically derived from tryptophan and—Good Lord, shoot me now.” Meg gripped her head in her hands and closed her eyes, conceding defeat. “Seriously, shoot me right now, right between the eyes with a marshmallow gun. I think I just put myself to sleep with that.”

  She opened her eyes again to see Kelly giving her a weak smile. The producer adjusted her headphones and patted Meg on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Part of this screen test is about figuring out what works and what doesn’t.”

  “Kinda like love,” Meg muttered. “You’ve got to screw it up a whole bunch of times to get it right.”

  Kelly brightened a bit at that as a makeup artist came out and began to powder Meg’s face with something that smelled like burned vanilla. “That’s good! We need more of that! Inject a little more personality, a little more of your personal experiences into this, and I think we’ll be on the right track.”

  Meg tried to grin back with equal enthusiasm, but she wasn’t feeling it. She wasn’t feeling much of anything these days, except for longing. And regret. And—

  “And, action!”

  Kelly gave Meg an encouraging smile, and Meg forced the corners of her mouth to head north again.

  “So the secret to a perfect soufflé is to use eggs that aren’t too fresh,” Meg announced, not ready to give up quite yet. “I know that sounds counterintuitive, but egg whites thin as they age, which makes them easier to whip. All you ladies out there feeling concerned about your eggs aging if you’re alone and in your thirties without a relationship in sight, you might want to take heart!”

  Meg looked at Kelly. Kelly looked pained. She pulled off her headset and slid it around her neck. “How about we take a break for about fifteen minutes?”

  Meg nodded, her cheeks hot and sweaty. God, she was ruining this. Her one chance at having her own cooking show, and she was totally, completely bombing.

  “Sounds good,” Meg said. “I just need a few minutes to regroup.”

  Kelly looked at her for a moment, probably thinking she needed a helluva lot more than a few minutes to salvage this lame attempt at television stardom. Then she smiled, patted Meg on the shoulder, and walked offstage.

  Meg took a shaky breath and wiped her hands on her apron. The makeup artists and light crew all dispersed in opposite directions, probably to snicker about her behind her back. Even the cameraman vanished, leaving his equipment set up near the front of the stage. Meg couldn’t blame them. If she didn’t feel like crying, she’d probably laugh at herself, too.

  A commotion near the door of the empty auditorium caught Meg’s attention, and she squinted against the bright lights of the studio.

  “I just need to talk to her,” someone was saying. “It will only take a few minutes.”

  Kyle?

  “Sir, you can’t go in there. Sir! They’re in the middle of taping.”

  Meg turned to see him rushing toward the stage. His hair was disheveled and his green plaid shirt looked like he’d used it to dust the dashboard of his truck. His eyes were wild and his jaw was unshaven and he was the best damn thing she’d ever seen in her life.

  “Meg,” he said, and she clutched the edge of the faux granite counter to keep from doing something dumb like reaching for him.

  “Kyle.”

  Good. She’d gotten that syllable out. Now what?

  Kyle ran his hands through his hair as he looked around. “The attendant out front said you were on a break. You’ve been avoiding my calls all week, and obviously I haven’t been able to catch you at home.”

  “I’ve been staying with my mom,” Meg said, wondering when he’d tried to visit. He hadn’t left a note, but then again, she hadn’t been home for days. Sleeping in the same bed she’d shared with Kyle for only one night had left her restless and wretched, so she’d packed up Floyd and went to stay with her mother for a little while.

  “She needed company,” Meg said. “My mom, I mean. My dad’s been moving all his stuff out, so she needed moral support.”

  “Right,” Kyle said. “I just need a minute to talk to you.”

  She glanced around, waiting for someone to argue. But everyone had vanished, even the security crew that had given him chase at first. It was just the two of them, for the first time since that night in her living room.

  Meg swallowed, remembering his words in her ears. I never stopped loving you, Meg.

  Even now?

  “I just got off the phone with my mom,” he said. “She said she got the first check from the publisher and she told me the amount. I can’t even—” he raked his hands through his hair. “Did you have any idea how much money you’d agreed to give up?”

  She nodded and gripped the edge of the soufflé bowl with both hands. “It was never about the money, Kyle.”

  “I know that. It was about respecting your career and you as an artist.”

  She nodded, taken aback by how quickly he understood. “That’s right.”

  “But for me, it was about loyalty to family. To the brother I stabbed in the back. I know the split with Matt hurt you, too, but it was different for him.”

  “Your mother told me,” Meg said softly. “About what Matt went through after the breakup. I landed on my feet, and Matt didn’t.”

  His eyes went wide for an instant, and he didn’t say anything. He nodded once, his face still frozen in a look of shock and dismay.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me about it. I understand, though. About your loyalty to Matt. About why you felt like you owed it to him to have his back.”

  He gave another tight nod. “It was my fault.”

  Meg ran her finger around the edge of the bowl and shook her head. “Matt made his own choices, Kyle. You didn’t force him to cheat. You weren’t some great puppet master dictating his every move.”

  “I know that.” He
cleared his throat. “But I suppose I should tell you I might have pulled a few strings to get you this audition. While we’re talking about manipulating people and situations and—well, I thought you should know that.”

  “I already did.”

  He blinked. “You knew?”

  “Yes. The producer let it slip this morning when we were getting ready to start taping.”

  “And you’re not mad?”

  “Mad? Why would I be mad? You tried to make my dream come true.”

  “But I did it behind your back.”

  “Yes, but you did it with the best intentions.”

  Something that looked like relief passed over his face. He nodded and reached for her hands. “Even when I made the wrong choices, I always had the best intentions.”

  “I know.” Meg bit her lip and glanced toward the edge of the stage. No one had reappeared, so either they were giving her some space, or they really were done with her.

  “Look, Meg—I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you. Even when it was the dumbest thing in the world for me to do. Even when I had no hope of having you love me back.”

  Meg felt tears pooling in her eyes, and she wondered how pissed the makeup crew would be if she melted off all their perfectly good cosmetics. “I love you, too,” she murmured.

  It was the first time she’d spoken the words aloud to him, and it seemed to take them both by surprise.

  She swallowed, seizing the chance to say what she needed to say while he was still too dumbstruck to interrupt. “I don’t have this long, drawn out story about a lifetime of loving you in secret. This is all new to me. Loving you, forgiving Matt, forgiving myself—I’m figuring it out as I go along.”

  “I like your story just the way it is. Knowing you loved Matt—that’s how it should be. I’d feel awful if I thought you hadn’t.”

  She swallowed hard, determined to force the words out before tears clogged her throat completely. “And maybe that’s part of what gives me the capacity to love you now. To love you better than I could have if I’d fallen for you years ago.”

  Kyle smiled. “So where do we go from here?”

  “Forward,” she said. “Lugging all our baggage and our skeletons and all the things that make it possible for us to love each other better than we could have before.”