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worked on the buttons,
giving the waitress a skeptical look. "That's not true, is it?"
    She shrugged with a friendly smile. "That's
what we tell people."
    Neil moved to pull my chair out. I arched a
brow at him, and he held up his hands apologetically and took his
own chair.
    "Mandy will be right with you," the hostess
said as she handed us our menus, one page of crisp tan paper tied
into a leather cover with neat black ribbon. Whenever I ate in a
New York restaurant, I guiltily remembered the laminated card stock
at all the restaurants in my hometown, and I could almost hear my
relatives telling me I was getting too big for my britches.
    "Do you care for duck?" Neil asked, glancing
up from his menu. "They have a very good cold duck confit
salad."
    I could have told him exactly what to do with
his duck. "Are we here because you're firing me?"
    He didn’t look up this time. "No. I wouldn't
fire you just because we slept together in the past. I'm the
interloper here, you've been with Porteras much longer."
    The tension in my work brain eased, and I
looked down at the prix fixe menu and weighed my options in
silence.
    "Do you think you'd stay on?" he asked
casually as the waitress returned for our drink orders. I'm never
sure what I'm supposed to order for a business lunch, so I stuck to
coffee and water. To my surprise, he followed my lead. I'd thought
he would order some fancy expensive wine or something.
    I considered his question. It would be insane
for anyone to want to work for someone they had a hot one-night
stand with. "As your assistant? I don't think that's something I
can manage."
    "I completely understand." He set his menu
aside and sat back in his chair, one hand toying with the stem of
his water glass. "To be quite honest, I don't think I would feel
comfortable ordering around someone with whom I had a sexual
relationship. Had a past sexual relationship, that is." His quick
amendment brought a hot flush to my cheeks, and he cleared his
throat while we looked firmly away from each other. The waitress
came to our rescue, taking my order for a grilled calamari salad,
and his for moules marinières, which he pronounced perfectly.
    He could have just said 'I'll have the
mussels,' I sniped silently. What was the point of sitting
here, having lunch with him, if it wasn't going to save my job?
    I realize I wasn't being entirely fair to
him. He'd apologized for stealing my plane tickets. He seemed
genuinely sorry that he hadn't remembered me. And it wasn't like he
could control the fact that our work paths had crossed. We were
both in a weird situation, here.
    After the waitress left us, Neil began again.
"As I was saying, I wouldn't be comfortable keeping you on as my
assistant, but I see no reason for you to leave the magazine
completely. Your coworkers speak very highly of you and your
experience in the company. Would you consider accepting an
assistant beauty editor position?"
    I was glad he asked me now, because if we'd
been eating, I would have been choking on squid for sure. "Excuse
me?"
    "It's a bit of a leap, but Gabriella did put
your name down on the list of suggestions." He took a sip of his
coffee. "I won't pressure you into making a decision right away.
That's not what this lunch is for."
    Gabriella put my name on a list? With other
candidates? Meaning, she didn't even see to my job security before
she left? I tried hard to disguise my annoyance. After all, she had
put me down as a candidate for assistant beauty editor. That was a
huge promotion for me, and a chance to actually use my degree.
"Well, I appreciate the time to think... but what is this lunch
for, if not to discuss work?"
    There was that half-smile again, like a ghost
of my most private fantasies passing silently between us. "To catch
up. It's been six years, after all."
    "Ah." Well, after I couldn't get on my
plane to Tokyo because you stole my plane tickets...
    I would have to let that go, or make my life
really difficult. Six years ago, I'd