Adaku raised a brow.
“Not just because of the sex.”
Adaku assessed Sewanee. Then a slow, Cheshire smile filled her face. One word fell from her lips. “Damn.”
Sewanee sprang up. “I need a snack.” She dipped back inside and tried to get her nerves under control. Reliving the night had made it real, concretized it. It was now a story, one that had been shared with another person, open to scrutiny, available for opinion. Outside of her head it became . . . a lot. Maybe it was something to regret.
She grabbed the box of gluten-free quinoa cracker things she kept here for Adaku and went back outside.
Adaku took the folded side table leaning against the wall and placed it between their chairs as Sewanee resettled herself. “There’s so much to unpack,” Adaku murmured. “This isn’t a suitcase, it’s a steamer trunk.”
Sewanee shook her head. “There’s nothing to unpack.”
Adaku bit her lip. “You really left? You both just walked away without any contact info? None?”
“I’d been lying about who I was.”
“Yeah, but–”
“And, remember, he didn’t offer anything, either, so chances are he wasn’t exactly on the up and up.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Oh my God. Who knows who he actually was? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe–”
“Nope, unh-unh, stop. Don’t ruin it. He was hot. You were safe.” She leaned over, squeezed Sewanee’s leg. “It’s a happy ending.”
“One of many,” Sewanee mumbled.
Adaku laughed and sat back. She looked out at the view and sighed. Then gave Sewanee a side-eye. “The thing he did with the ring, though.”
Sewanee groaned. “Don’t.”
Adaku held up a hand. “Just saying. Like something out of a Romance novel.”
Sewanee sat forward. “Oh! That’s another thing that happened.” She told her about the June French project. How they’d made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Adaku tilted her head. “I thought you were done with Romance.”
“I was, but it’s crazy money.”
“Do you need money? Is something up?”
Sewanee knew if she told Adaku about BlahBlah, she’d want to help. But Sewanee never wanted Adaku’s success to rescue her from her lack of it. This was how friendships changed; hell, this was how families changed. How help became resentment. So she brushed cracker dust off her sweatpants and said, “There’s only so much money I can ever make doing this job–there’s a ceiling, no matter how in-demand I am–and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in. Build a little cushion for myself, you know?”
Adaku looked out at the view again. “Makes sense.”
“I mean, it’ll be, like, eight hours of work. Maybe ten. It’s insane.”
“What’s it about?”
Sewanee set down her glass and pulled out her phone. She’d told Mark to give them the old e-mail address she’d used for Sarah Westholme. The one she hadn’t opened once since logging out of it six years ago. She’d resurrected it on her server and discovered–in addition to pages and pages of spam she was never going to wade through–three recent e-mail inquiries about this project. Which explained why the producer had reached out to Mark. At Mark’s go-ahead, Jason had immediately e-mailed Sarah so they could work out recording details. Sewanee scrolled through the e-mail now, skipping over the “I’m so excited to be working on this together! Thank you so much!” part, then read aloud:
“‘This dual-narration series is about a businesswoman who put her company on the back burner to help her husband while he was dying. After his death, she must now go about rebuilding both her business and her long-dormant sexuality. Five years prior, on the night before her wedding, she met an aspiring artist and, while their attraction had been undeniable, she faithfully refused him. But now she is free to seek him out, only to discover that he has not forgotten her, either. Furthermore, it turns out that bringing women’s sexuality back to life happens to be his thing . . . he’s a famous gigolo descended from Casanova who hosts wealthy women for “rejuvenating” weekends at his ancestral palazzo in Venice. She can’t afford him, but they strike a bargain: he will give her his full VIP package–’” She looked at Adaku, held up her phone, tapped her screen. “It actually says ‘package.’” She looked back down. “‘–if she will use her connections to get his art in front of her very rich friends. It’s a deal! But can these two wandering souls keep their transaction strictly professional?’” Sewanee rolled her eye at this.