“Not me. We knocked over wine. Or beer. I don’t even know. We were kissing and the fridge was open—”
“You’d better come in before you tell me any more or you’ll shock Mrs. Winchester.” Mark hauled her inside the apartment, closed the door and led her into the living room.
“I wasn’t planning on giving you details.”
“If you had sex in a fridge, I want the details. We’ll open some of Gabe’s champagne.”
“I didn’t say I had sex in a fridge! And I don’t need any more champagne. I’ve already drunk more than enough. Where is Gabe?” Distracted, she glanced around and noticed some of Mark’s drawings scattered over the table. “You’re working?”
“Gabe has dinner with a client, so I’m catching up.”
“I’m disturbing you—”
“There’s nothing I’d like more than to hear about your sex life.”
“It’s not the sex I want to talk about, it’s the other stuff! I don’t want him to know all that.” She groaned and covered her eyes with her hands. “His phone will probably self-destruct. I should never have gone to that publishing thing, and I never should have gone to bed with him. He said there was no way he’d get hurt because neither of us has feelings, but I’ve hurt him and now I feel so, so bad.”
“But if neither of you have feelings, how can you have hurt him?”
“Pride, I guess.”
“Pride.” Mark gave her a long look. “You think this is about pride?”
“What else?”
Mark opened his mouth and closed it again. “I don’t know. Never mind.”
“I shouldn’t have slept with him. No matter what I do, it always goes wrong. He’ll look me up and discover what everyone else already knows. That when it comes to relationships, I’m lacking.”
Mark sighed. “Sit down.”
“Do you think he’s going to blow my cover? Tell people who Aggie is? I don’t want to trend on Twitter twice in a lifetime.”
“You don’t have a Twitter account.”
“I’m on Twitter as Aggie. Not as Molly.”
“It’s a wonder you don’t have an identity crisis. Why does it matter? Why does it matter if you use a pseudonym? That’s your choice. And does it really matter that he knows?”
“I can’t afford for this to explode again. There are only so many times I can emigrate. And I love New York! I don’t want to have to move to Brazil.”
“Brazil?”
“It was a random choice.”
“I’m confused. Are you worried about the fact that Daniel might blow your cover or the fact that your relationship might be over?”
“We don’t have a relationship. But whatever it was we had, I liked it.”
“Maybe it isn’t in the past tense. Maybe it isn’t over.”
“Of course it’s over. Once they find out, people treat me like someone with a highly infectious disease. And I understand it. Who needs that in their life?”
Mark nudged her toward the sofa. “Take off those killer heels and relax. You are not moving to Brazil. Who would I cook for? We’ll figure this out.”
His kindness cut the last threads of her self-control. “If this blows up, if it’s everywhere, you need to pretend you don’t know me. Just because you have the misfortune of being a neighbor, doesn’t mean they’ll find out you’re a friend. You can look blank if they ask you things. Just maybe don?
??t mention that this is the first time in three years you’ve known a man to be in my apartment.”