“So, Julian talked to you.”
“He said that he’d thought I was like my mom, but he was glad to see that he was wrong and that I had more of him in me than he’d have expected.” Saying it made her stomach sour.
“You didn’t like that,” Jamie inferred.
“I didn’t.” She frowned. “Is this where you ask how it made me feel?”
Jamie chuckled. “I’m not a therapist. If you want that, I can refer you to someone more qualified.”
“So what were you going to say?”
“Fuck him,” he said cheerily.
She rubbed the edge of the sleeve on her suit. “My client called me a shark too.”
“That’s what you wanted, to be the top shark,” he pointed out.
“I know.” She frowned. “Remember how you told me sometimes what you wanted isn’t really what you want?”
“Yes.”
“You were right.”
Jamie hummed. “The question is, do you know what you want?”
She thought of Danny. That was gone and out of her reach, but now she was seeing it was only one part of a larger whole. “I don’t want to be like Julian Holland, working toward becoming a bigger shark.”
“Knowing what you don’t want is a good first step,” he replied.
She rotated in her seat and looked out the window behind her. “Do you think I’ll figure out the rest?”
“I don’t have any doubt that you will,” he said with absolute confidence.
“You know”—she nodded—“I don’t have any doubts either.”
Twenty-Two
“This is the last boarding call for flight 111 to London,” the woman said over the intercom. “Please board at gate M2.”
Holding his bag, Danny stared at the gate in front of him, watching the remaining people filter on board. He looked down at the ticket in his hand for the first-class seat he’d bought.
He couldn’t make himself move.
He kept thinking about what Jules had said, about him picking Kofi over his own happiness. Then he’d hear Lottie ask him,Are you willing to go to jail for them?
As he’d sat in the airport waiting for his weather-delayed plane to board, he’d mulled over that question a lot. He’d pictured it all too easily, and he found he didn’t like it—at all.
He remembered MacNiven asking him what he wanted in the beginning. He thought he’d known what that was, but it turned out that he’d been wrong, because sitting here amid all these strangers, it was very clear what he wanted—to be back with Jules.
How was her mediation going? He checked the time, wanting to text her to check on her but knowing that she wouldn’t appreciate the distraction. He hadn’t exactly been Prince Charming this morning.
He winced, seeing her standing before him, trying not to look stricken when he’d told her he was leaving.
Truth of the matter was, she was right. He had put Kofi and his dad before his own desires, because if it was up to him, he’d be back at the hotel, waiting for her to come home to him.
Thatwas what he wanted. Forever. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he loved her, but he’d known from the moment he’d seen her that she was special.
He pulled out his cell phone and texted Ortiz.