Cecily dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t plan for Wishful. I never dreamed when I came down here after Chicago that I’d stay at all. Let alone that this place would get under my skin. I’ve done good work here. Work that’s made a difference. It’s incredibly gratifying to know that, when I do go, I’ve left this town a little better than I found it. I did that entirely on my own merits. Here I’m just Cecily Dixon. And it’s allowed me to keep pretending that I can just be this totally normal girl, that where I come from doesn’t matter.”
She sat up. “But it does, even when I don’t want it to.”
“How’s that, when you hide who you are?”
She sounded like Christoff.
“Because it’s stopped me from making choices, exploring options that I might otherwise have jumped at.”
“What choices?”
“You know, when you came back to Chicago and told me what you’d been doing down here, when I saw how incredibly happy you were with Cam, I thought to myself, ‘I want to be Norah when I grow up.’ I mean, I already wanted to be you professionally, but it just seemed like everything was lining up perfectly for you. I wanted that kind of happy. Do you remember what I said?”
Norah laughed. “You asked if Cam had any single cousins.”
“And you told me about Reed. I didn’t actually expect to come down here and have your good luck, but it was a nice fantasy.”
Norah offered a sympathetic smile. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was hoping for that for you too. But that’s not what happened. You and Reed never quite connected.”
“I didn’t let it happen. And believe me, that took some serious work.”
Norah frowned. “Why?”
“Because, at the end of the day, whether I want to be or not, I’m a Davenport.”
“Okay, promised myself I wasn’t going to get involved, but you’re going to have to explain that one. You’re about as far from a snob as you can get, so I know you don’t think he’s beneath you.”
“No. I think he’s smart and funny and gorgeous. My family would love him.”
“Is it because his life is here and you think you have to leave to appease your family?”
“That’s part of it. But the bigger part is I don’t think he can handle who I really am.”
“You don’t think,” Norah repeated. “So you haven’t told him?”
Cecily shook her head.
“He said something to stick his foot in it.” It wasn’t a question.
“That’s one way of putting it. And it was fine. Because I’m supposed to leave. Not having emotional entanglements here makes that easier.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’.”
“But…you threw me to the wolves when you asked me to build his marketing plan.”
“How so?”
“Because we’ve spent all this time together over the past week, and it reminded me of all the things I like about him. I’ve got all these ‘what if’s circling in my brain, wondering if I made a mistake holding back these last few months. And now we’re going on this business date—”
Norah held up a hand. “I’m sorry. You can have a date or you can have a business function. A business date is not really a thing.”
Cecily winced. “It is if you’re going to an event together for business research and the evening has date-like overtones.”
“What exactly are y’all going to do?”
“Attend a reading at Square Books and then dinner at Ajax.”
“Oh you have to try the squash casserole. It’s my favorite. And, for the record, nothing about that sounds businessy.”