Not that she would talk intimacies, but Sadie thought the less said, the better this conversation would go.
“Carrick treated Tamlyn badly, Sadie. He was rude and ugly, ridiculously demanding and his behavior was destructive. His lawyers took her to the cleaners. He put down Jazz to spite her.”
Jazz, Tamlyn’s beloved golden Lab. Sadie still found it hard to square the Carrick she knew with a man who’d punish a dog to get revenge on his ex. She simply couldn’t reconcile the two versions of the same man.
But...
But it didn’t matter what Carrick did or didn’t do in the past; they’d shared their bodies and a slice of time. That was all. They now had a formal business relationship, nothing more. That suited her just fine.
“I’m not seeing him again, Beth,” Sadie said. “I’m not getting involved with him. It was one night.”
“And do you regret it?”
She knew Beth wanted her to say she did but she couldn’t. She didn’t regret a damn thing. Being with Carrick had been one of the best experiences of her life.
“Let’s not talk about it anymore, Beth,” Sadie said, feeling drained and a little emotional. Sadie blinked away burning tears, suddenly missing her apartment in Montparnasse. She missed her books, her brightly colored walls, her plants and her pillows. She missed the smell of croissants wafting up from the bakery below, the excitable French, the fresh food market down the road.
“Look, I know you are worried about me, but let’s not get carried away, okay? I have seen and spoken to Carrick since that night and we are both behaving like nothing happened.”
Seeing a new batch of sushi coming down the conveyor belt, Beth reached for an empty bowl and poured soy sauce into it. After stirring the sauce with her chopstick, her eyes met Sadie’s. “So was it good?”
Goodwas such a weak word for how it had been between them. Amazing worked. Unbelievable was better. But Sadie couldn’t share even the smallest detail with Beth. What happened between Sadie and Carrick was theirs and sharing any part of it would dilute the memory of the evening.
She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have that many perfect evenings. She couldn’t mess up the memory of the one completely perfect sexual encounter she did have.
Sadie sent her friend another hard stare, and Beth pursed her lips. “Okay, message received. We’re done talking about Carrick.”
Thank God. “Anything I should know about at work?” Sadie took another small sip of her margarita and wrinkled her nose. It didn’t taste as good as it normally did.
Beth ran through a couple of potential projects, one of which was an appraisal for a Basquiat recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Hey, did you hear about the lost Gauguin discovered in an attic in France?”
A neutral topic, yay. Sadie threw herself into the conversation, conscious that she and Beth were trying a little too hard to have fun.
Beth reached for a plate of nigiri and put it between them and Beth popped a piece into her mouth. She waved her chopstick at her plate. “Eat something.”
Sadie lifted her margarita to her nose and sniffed. “Does this margarita taste right?”
Beth took Sadie’s glass and a long sip of her drink and nodded enthusiastically. “It’s perfect.”
Huh. Weird. Either way, she didn’t think she could drink it anymore. Maybe she was coming down with a tummy bug, or the flu.
Beth reached for a plate of sashimi and Sadie pulled back as the smell hit her nostrils. She was definitely getting sick. She had to be because this was one of the best sushi restaurants in the city and they maintained exceptionally high standards.
“What is wrong with you?” Beth demanded, placing her chopsticks across the rim of her sushi bowl. “You’ve turned this amazing shade of green.”
Sadie looked down at the food and her stomach lurched. “It smells like fish.”
“It is fish, Sadie. That’s what sushi is...raw fish.”
Sadie’s stomach crawled up her throat and she placed her hand over her mouth. “I need to get out of here, Beth. Like now!”
“Oh, crap!” Beth hopped off the chair and scrambled in her bag for her wallet. Pulling out a couple of twenties, she placed them on the counter and took a moment to down the rest of her margarita.
“Not letting that go to waste,” she muttered, handing Sadie her coat.
Sadie pulled her coat on and pulled it across her body. “Ugh, I don’t feel well.”
Beth nodded slowly. “I’ve heard there’s a nasty tummy bug going around.”