Meant to Be by Emily Giffin

Author:Emily Giffin [Giffin, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

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That Friday evening, after agonizing about what to wear to dinner, I walked out of my apartment wearing a little black Yohji Yamamoto dress, black slingbacks, and red lipstick. It had been a full week since I’d seen Joe’s face, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw him smiling at me through the backseat window of a shiny black town car.

I quickly opened the door before he could get out and do it for me, sliding in beside him. “Hey,” I said, feeling oddly shy.

“Hi, there,” he said in a low voice. “You look fantastic.”

“You do, too,” I said, noticing he was wearing the same Wilbur ensemble he’d worn in Paris.

We stared at each other for a few more seconds before Joe turned to tell the driver we were all set.

As we pulled away from the curb, I asked him where we were going, as he’d wanted it to be a surprise.

“Aureole,” he said. “I wanted to take you somewhere a bit more imaginative…but it was tough to get a reservation on such late notice.”

“You had trouble getting a reservation?” I said. “That seems unlikely.”

“I didn’t use my own name, dippy.”

I laughed, then said, “So. What name did you use?”

“Myles Savage.”

I laughed and said, “How’d you come up with that?”

“It’s a guy I prosecuted,” he said. “Who I liked a lot.”

“But you prosecuted him anyway?”

“Had to. But I may or may not have fumbled in my closing argument,” he said with a wink.

I smiled. Joe had previously confided that he sometimes blew a case on purpose when he didn’t think justice was exactly being served.

“So how do you feel?” he asked.

“A little nervous,” I said. “But happy.”

“Good. Me too,” Joe said, grinning, before leaning over and giving me a light kiss on the cheek.

A few minutes later, we turned onto Sixty-first Street. Joe finally let go of my hand as we pulled up to the restaurant. I’d been there once before, back in my Calvin Klein days, and I winced remembering how I’d embarrassed myself by eating the fuzzy-hair layer of the artichoke heart. I’d come a very long way since then, but I still didn’t belong here with Joe. I pushed the thought out of my head as the driver started to get out of the car.

“It’s okay, man,” Joe said. “Stay put. I got this.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Kingsley?” the driver said.

Joe said he was sure, then pointed out my window to a man smoking a cigarette on the sidewalk just a few doors down from the restaurant. “There he is,” Joe said. “My guy. Eduardo.”

I nodded, my stomach churning, then checked my lipstick in my compact. It looked fine, but I touched it up anyway, stalling.

“You ready?” he said.

I nodded.

Joe smiled and gave me a thumbs-up before getting out of the car on the street side, then slowly circling around to my door, giving Eduardo time to get in position. The second he opened my door, the car was bathed in camera flashes.

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