“Well then, what are you doing here?”
Andrew saved her from answering. “She came here on business.”
Will looked at Andrew then. “I’m sorry, man,” Will said, reasonably assuming that Alex would only be here on business if Andrew was getting divorced.
“No, this was an information-seeking mission.” Alex didn’t want to have any rumors starting about Andrew, given that he’d been pretty gracious in not kicking her out once he’d realized why she was here. “For another client.”
Will looked puzzled by that explanation, but he just grunted in response. He was the master of the manly grunt, which could mean any number of things coming from him. Back when she’d been a smitten teen, she’d learn to decipher most of his grunts. And even after she’d forced herself not to think about Will as The One, all the various grunts were ingrained too deeply to root out. The one he’d just given her was the “I don’t believe you, but I’m letting this go—for now” grunt.
She’d take it.
“What are you doing here?”
And he looked annoyed that he was going to have to come up with a response that was more than a grunt. “I’m supposed to be meeting Andrew about a possible project. And I just saw that your assistant canceled, and she wasn’t outside. Sorry for barging in.” Will’s reason for being there surprised Alex. He seemed ill at ease about his newfound social media fame, and a reality show would bring even more of the same.
Will was so not LA that Alex had often wondered why he stayed here. If she had to picture it, she pictured him in New York. Someplace dirty and loud, where he could disappear. Someplace where the energy would match his shitty personality. He stuck out in Los Angeles like a misanthropic sore thumb.
She patted his arm in a pantomime of the long-standing friendship they allegedly had. “Try to look happier about making money, Will.”
He grunted again, and Alex turned to Andrew. “Thanks.”
Andrew winked at her. “Anytime.”
SIX
Will didn’t like the way this fucker looked at Alex. He remembered that they’d dated for about a minute a few years ago, but he’d been willing to put it out of his mind to take this meeting. And he knew he was projecting, but he thought that wink before Alex left crossed a line. It said, “I’ve seen you naked, and it was pretty fucking great.” Will would never be able to look at this guy and not see him looking at Alex like she was his afternoon snack. Even though everyone had told him that Andrew was maybe the only good guy in reality television, Will wasn’t sure he could work with him.
But Will got a handle on his irritation when the door finally closed behind Alex. He couldn’t manage it when she was sashaying toward the door on the high heels that put her at almost his eye level. He didn’t watch her leave, but he knew the cadence and curve of her hips as surely as he knew the timing on poaching the perfect egg. It was in his head as much as anything that he’d gotten screamed at about in his job just out of culinary school.
There was nothing about Alex that he’d ever known that he’d forgotten. And when he’d walked in and seen her talking to that slick—admittedly good-looking—guy, Will hadn’t been able to keep himself from seeing red. Andrew had been smiling at her in a way that was too familiar, and Will couldn’t help but hate him for that.
After talking to him, Will had confirmed for himself that the guy wouldn’t have been good enough for Alex, even if he weren’t married. And Will didn’t believe Alex’s excuse for being there for a second. She was too familiar with this guy for this to have been a simple information-gathering exercise.
Will sat there and tried to hear Andrew out, because he’d promised his publicist that he would. And the money and recognition from going on reality TV could sustain interest in his new restaurant after the hype within the industry died down. Sure, Will hated the idea of becoming a franchise or a personality more than a working chef, but he needed to make a living. And after all this publicity was over, hopefully he could disappear back into the kitchen on the strength of his food. He needed to be thinking about the future, not how he’d started thinking of Alex as his.
Will intended to make it through the whole meeting without asking. But he couldn’t even get through a few minutes. He didn’t even sit down before he asked, “What was Alex really doing here?”
Will knew that he’d caught the other man off guard, because Andrew actually rocked back on his heels. “How do you know her?”
“She’s family.” It wasn’t technically true, but it was what Will told himself when the overwhelming need to know and protect Alex got the better of him. It was a more acceptable explanation than the real answer—that he couldn’t not think about Alex since his divorce. He’d tried for years and years before meeting April, acutely aware of how messy it would be if they finally gave in to the roiling thing that had been between them nearly from the start. He told himself that it was easier for both of them if Alex believed he was totally indifferent to her—if she thought that he saw her as an annoying sort-of relative that he only tolerated so that he could maintain his relationship with Lexi.
Alex could never know that Will cared about her independent of how he cared for Lexi. That would lead them down a one-way street toward disaster. Neither of them could make a relationship with other people work, and neither of their sets of parents had set a good example. According to his ex-wife, they had “matching avoidant attachment styles,” whatever that meant. April said it made sense because both of them had essentially raised themselves. Maybe April was right, and the way they were raised was how they’d both ended up alone.
Alex was a threat to everything Will held dear because he didn’t feel like himself around her. And he didn’t like how she knew how to knock him off-center with just a look or a flick of her hair. He hated how he got indigestion when she rolled her eyes at him. And he was jealous of her relationship with Lexi. Not because he thought Lexi loved her more, but he hated how jealous he was of the way Alex laughed at Lexi’s jokes. Will didn’t joke. But if he did, he’d want Alex to laugh with him the way she did with other people.
“You like Alex, don’t you?” Andrew asked, with his head cocked to the side, like a raptor assessing his prey.
Will had forgotten where he was. He’d let his mind slip over his long history with Alex Turner and had taken his eye off the ball. He’d been so preoccupied with what Alex might be doing hanging out with a random reality television producer on an ordinary Wednesday that he’d forgotten himself.
Will couldn’t tell this man about what he truly felt about Lexi. She was a like a piece of him that he’d never been able to hold on to. Every time he finally felt as though he had a handle on her, she slipped away from him. He cared about her, but she always managed to infuriate him. He couldn’t have her, but it bothered him that a part of him would always want her. She was sort of like family, but she always boxed him out of really knowing her.