Chapter 2 - THE ENVELOPEDaniel pulled an ivory envelope from inside his jacket.
Not a gun.
Not anything remotely threatening.
An envelope.
The three women behind the column nevertheless looked as if he had placed a live grenade on the table.
Daniel set it beside his untouched water glass.
“What is that?” I asked.
“The reason I came tonight.”
My embarrassment gave way to confusion.
“You knew?”
“I knew it was a blind date.”
“But you knew Olivia?”
“I met her yesterday.”
That landed harder.
I looked toward my friends. Olivia had stopped smiling completely.
Daniel noticed.
“Would you like them to join us?”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly that his eyebrow lifted.
“I mean—absolutely not.”
For the first time, Daniel genuinely smiled.
It changed his face.
The intimidating man Boston whispered about disappeared for half a second, replaced by someone unexpectedly human.
“Good,” he said. “Neither would I.”
A waiter approached.
Daniel ordered sparkling water.
Then he looked at me.
“Anything you want.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You've been staring at the bread for forty seconds.”
I looked down.
Unfortunately, he was right.
“Bread is different.”
“Of course.”
“It doesn’t count as ordering.”
“I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise.”
The waiter escaped before I could embarrass myself further.
Daniel pushed the envelope toward me.
I didn't touch it.
“What’s inside?”
“Nothing dangerous.”
“That is exactly what a dangerous person would say.”
Another almost-smile.
Then it disappeared.
“Your friend Olivia contacted my assistant yesterday.”
I felt heat climb my neck.
“Why?”
“She claimed she knew someone I should meet.”
“That someone being me.”
“Yes.”
“And what exactly did she tell you?”
Daniel's gaze moved briefly toward Olivia.
“That you worked in a bookstore. That you had a terrible taste in men. That you hadn't been on a date in fourteen months.”
My jaw dropped.
“I am going to kill her.”
“That would create paperwork.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Daniel didn't.
He was watching me carefully.
“She also sent a photograph.”
My stomach sank.
“What photograph?”
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a printed picture.
I recognized it instantly.
Last Christmas.
Maple Street Books.
I had been sitting cross-legged on the floor between two shelves during closing, wearing an enormous green sweater and reading a children's book to Nora, my manager's six-year-old daughter.
My hair was tied in a crooked bun.
There was flour on my cheek from the cookies we'd baked upstairs.
It might have been the least glamorous photograph ever taken of me.
“Oh, God.”
Daniel studied the picture.
“I liked it.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“You weren't posing.”
Before I could answer, laughter floated from Olivia's table.
Not loud.
But loud enough.
Daniel's face cooled.
I knew that look now.
“Please don't murder my friends.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good.”
“I was considering sending them the check.”
I stared at him.
Then laughed so suddenly that I had to cover my mouth.
Daniel leaned back.
Something changed between us.
Just slightly.
The waiter brought bread.
I tore off a piece.
“So if Olivia showed you that picture, where's the joke?”
“That,” Daniel said, “is what I'm trying to understand.”
I hesitated.
Daniel waited.
I finally admitted what had been sitting like a stone inside my chest.
“They think you're out of my league.”
His expression didn't change.
“They think you're wealthy and powerful and…”
“And?”
I looked down at my old shoes.
“And you probably date women who look like they belong in magazines.”
Daniel's voice became quiet.
“Emily.”
I looked up.
“I agreed to meet the woman in that photograph.”
My fingers stopped moving.
“Not whatever woman your friends imagined I expected.”
Across the restaurant, Olivia shifted uncomfortably.
Daniel continued.
“So when you said they sent ‘someone like you’ to ‘someone like me,’ I wasn't insulted because they sent you.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was insulted because they convinced you that you were the punch line.”
That sentence hit somewhere I wasn't prepared to defend.
Jason had done that too.
Not directly.
He'd simply spent four years teaching me, one small comment at a time, that I was fortunate he had chosen me.
Too quiet.
Too ordinary.
Too cautious.
Too much time with books.
Not enough ambition.
Not enough excitement.
Then he'd cheated with someone who possessed everything he'd implied I lacked.
Daniel knew none of that.
Yet somehow he'd found the bruise.
I put down the bread.
“Why do you care?”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“Because I know what it's like when people decide what you're worth before speaking to you.”
For the first time that evening, I wondered whether the stories about Daniel Brooks were only stories.
Then Olivia appeared beside our table.
“Emily.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
She gave Daniel a nervous smile.
“Mr. Brooks.”
Daniel didn't stand.
“Olivia.”
Her confidence faltered.
“We were just having some fun.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“Was Emily having fun?”
Olivia looked uncomfortable.
“Oh, come on, Em. You know we love you.”
“That wasn't his question.”
My own voice surprised me.
Olivia stared.
So did Daniel.
I continued.
“You deliberately didn't tell me who he was.”
“Because you wouldn't have come.”
“Exactly.”
“We wanted you to get out there again.”
“By humiliating me?”
“We weren't humiliating you.”
“You're sitting behind a column watching.”
Olivia opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Then Daniel said something I would remember for years.
“A joke is something everyone gets to laugh at.”
Silence.
“If one person has to be humiliated for everyone else to enjoy themselves, it isn't humor.”
Olivia flushed.
“We didn't mean—”
“I know,” I interrupted.
That was the problem.
They hadn't meant anything.
They simply hadn't thought about how I might feel.
I stood.
Daniel stood too.
Olivia's eyes widened.
“I’m leaving.”
“Emily—”
“Not because of him.”
I looked at Daniel.
His expression remained unreadable.
“Because I need air.”
I grabbed my handbag.
Daniel reached for his coat.
“You don't have to come.”
“I know.”
He put it on anyway.
Outside, Boston was cold enough to steal my breath.
I walked half a block before realizing Daniel was beside me.
No bodyguards.
No dramatic black convoy.
Just Daniel.
“You're terrible at blind dates,” I told him.
“I haven't had one before.”
“Neither have I.”
“So statistically, we're equally terrible.”
I smiled.
Then I noticed a black SUV across the street.
A man inside was watching us.
Daniel noticed him too.
His entire demeanor changed.
“Emily.”
Something in his voice erased my smile.
“What?”
“Stand behind me.”
“Daniel—”
“Now.”
The SUV's door opened.
A man stepped onto the sidewalk.
Daniel moved in front of me.
But the stranger didn't reach for a weapon.
He held up a photograph.
My photograph.
The same Christmas picture from the envelope.
Then he looked directly at me.
“Emily Carter?”
Daniel became perfectly still.
The stranger smiled.
“Your father says hello.”
My blood went cold.
“My father is dead.”
The man's smile widened.
May you like
“No,” he said.
“He isn't.”
Related Stories
