Why had she even thought it could be true? She’d known Luke would leave, she’d known this was only a temporary thing for him, she’d known that from the very beginning. He’d told her at the bar that first night that he was only in Napa for three months, max. How had she convinced herself otherwise? How had she let herself think he would change all of his plans for her?
She went back to her desk and stared at her computer. Congratulatory emails were still pouring in, sales numbers were great, and huh, there was an email from Elliot, forwarding her a question from a journalist. This was all that really mattered; this was everything important to her. If three months ago she’d been able to see her inbox today, she would have been over the moon.
So why did it feel so bad?
* * *
THURSDAY MORNING LUKE WALKED through those gleaming glass doors again. It felt like he’d never left, but it also felt like it had been years since he’d been there. So much had happened in his life since then. With all that time in Napa. And with Margot.
He’d been furious when he’d left her house on Sunday morning. Angry and hurt that she’d turned this whole thing around on him, made it a bad thing that he’d gotten this interview. He’d hoped she would be excited for him, impressed, that she’d congratulate him for this achievement.
Margot was probably just pissed about the Avery thing, which, fine, he’d been stupid about that. But he’d apologized, and she’d said they were okay. And then she’d exploded on him five minutes later about his interview? It made no sense.
Why wasn’t she happy for him? This was a big deal. She knew that! He’d told her how bad he’d felt about quitting—she should have been thrilled for him that they’d tacitly acknowledged how wrong they’d been to treat him the way they had. That they knew how good he was.
But he hadn’t heard from her since he left her house on Sunday morning. She hadn’t even texted him this morning to say good luck. He’d checked his phone again, right before he’d walked inside, and nothing.
His former grandboss—a term he’d always found revolting, but that people insisted on using—came out to get him.
“Luke! Glad to have you back, we’ve missed you around here.” He had a bigger smile on his face than Luke had ever seen before. Okay, they were definitely giving him special treatment here.
They went straight into a conference room, where four other people—three of whom he knew—were waiting for him. There was a quick preamble of greetings, but as soon as he sat down, they started peppering him with questions. But he was ready for them.
He was glad he’d spent all week, when he wasn’t at the inn, prepping for this interview. See, it was good he hadn’t had Margot around; he wouldn’t have had time to really throw himself into planning for this.
He spent almost all day on campus, talking to different groups, standing in front of too many whiteboards, having lunch, chatting with former coworkers. It all felt so familiar that when he was finally on his way back home, he almost took the wrong freeway exit, to drive back to his old place, instead of to Napa.
He was sitting in traffic when Avery called.
“Hey! How’d it go today? Do you want to get a drink and fill me in? Or do you have plans with Margot?”
He’d ignore that last question.
“It went well,” he said. “And sure. But I’m still on my way back and there’s a ton of traffic, so give me an hour or so?”
“Okay,” she said. “But if it went well, why does your voice sound like that?”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Like you’ve been kidnapped and this is a hostage phone call and you have to tell me it went well because they have a gun to your head,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Nothing’s wrong. I was great, they were all excited to see me back. Way more excited than I expected, actually. I think I have a pretty good shot at the job.”
He finally got past the accident that was slowing everything down, and sped up.
“Then why did you just sigh like that when you said you have a pretty good shot at the job?” she asked.
Huh. He hadn’t done that on purpose.
“Oh. I didn’t mean to.” He sighed again and caught himself. “It’s just . . . I don’t know, it was weird to be back there.”
“Weird how?” Avery asked.
Weird to drive back into that parking lot; weird to have that complicated interview, which tested him on nothing important; weird to have to say hi to people he’d thought he’d escaped forever.