The Space Between by Sarah Ready

Author:Sarah Ready [Ready, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781954007529
Publisher: Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC

35

Andrea

* * *

Reid arrives early. He’s at my office at eleven, just as I’m finishing up a call with legal.

He stands in the doorway, leaning casually against the doorframe, his arms crossed and a small, patient smile on his face.

“Call me when you know,” I say, hanging up the phone.

I take a moment to study Reid.

He has a long-limbed gracefulness, an appearance of self-awareness that most people would find attractive, and a strong, masculine face that makes him look wiser and older than his twenty-six years.

I imagine Reid uses his appearance to his advantage in both business and his personal life. He’s never been one to let any advantage go to waste.

As I stand, pressing my hands to my desk, his eyebrows rise at my red dress and I feel a flare of satisfaction.

See? I’m not dead inside. I’m not ice. Thank you very much.

He recovers quickly and pushes off the doorframe, walking forward with an assured stride.

“I hope I’m not too early.”

Then he holds out something that had been hidden behind his back. It’s a bouquet of bright yellow daffodils wrapped in red paper. The sunny yellow petals are so cheery, so happy, that I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know what I expected today, but it wasn’t this.

Reid holding out daffodils, his longish hair messy, his smile lopsided. He’s in a soft, worn t-shirt and faded jeans—it hits me hard, the sight of him.

I’ve received countless vases of red roses, rare orchids, extravagant bouquets wrapped in gold-shot ribbons. All of those left me cold and unmoved. But a fistful of unassuming daffodils has my throat tightening and my heart thumping.

I think Reid expects me to refuse the bouquet, at least the way he’s watching me tells me he does.

“I wanted you to have something to remind you of me,” he says, when I reach forward and take them.

The paper crinkles in my hands and a light sweet pollen scent puffs up to me.

“Daffodils?”

“They’re in the genus narcissus,” he says with a mocking look.

“Are you telling me you’re self-absorbed? Because I already knew that.”

The small smile lines around his eyes crinkle. “No. I’m telling you, I’m impossibly handsome, and I won’t mind if you stare at me all day long.”

He’s not wrong about the impossibly handsome bit, but I’m not in any danger of staring at him all day long. There’s only one man that I’ve ever wanted to stare at all day long—I used to as well, on long car rides, or lying in bed and looking into his eyes—but Reid isn’t him.

And even if my heart thumped when he held out the daffodils, well, it doesn’t mean anything. When I met Jace, the universe said, he’s the one. When I met Reid, I was a baby and I think I cried.

“Thank you.”

Reid nods, and I get the feeling he’s disappointed that I didn’t smile or laugh.

He’s so out of place in my industrial-modern office, which is strange because he used to fit in everywhere. But the

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