He hadn’t known that Romy’s abduction was my closely guarded secret, one I’d kept from even my besties, Bailey Keller and Toni LaCollier, also a Special Trials prosecutor. But my breakup with Graden had forced me to tell them about it. Bailey and Toni had been sympathetic to my upset-well, actually, fury-at what I called the trampling of my boundaries, but they’d made no secret of the fact that they thought I’d overreacted…wildly. “He surfed the Web, Knight,” Bailey’d said. “Hardly an act of high-level espionage,” Toni’d added. I knew they were right, but knowing something intellectually and dealing with it emotionally are two very different matters. It’d taken me a while to come around.
But I did get there. At least enough to recognize that my reaction was over the top, and that I wanted to give Graden another chance. So we’d been taking baby steps, getting together for coffee breaks and lunches over the past few months. Tonight had been our first real date since the breakup-or, as Toni and Bailey called it, breakdown. I’d been a little apprehensive. Would he try for a sentimental play and take us to the site of our first date, the Pacific Dining Car? Or to the romantic hilltop restaurant that had become a mutual favorite, Yamashiro? I’d hoped not. I wasn’t ready for any trips down memory lane.
“So where’d you go?” Drew asked.
“We went to Craig’s-”
Drew nodded sagely. “My man, Graden. Excellent choice.”
It really was. The leather and white tablecloth steakhouse in West Hollywood had that same Sinatra-Dean Martin feel as the Pacific Dining Car-great food and a comfortable ambience for real dining and conversation-with none of the emotional undertow of having been “our” place. It wasn’t cheap, but money was no concern for Graden, who’d made a fortune on Code Three, the video game he’d designed with his brother.
Bailey studied me for a moment. “You look ridiculously sober. You stuck with water, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“Didn’t trust yourself?” she asked.
“Of course I trusted myself.” I cadged a cube of cheese off Bailey’s plate. “I just want to keep a clear head.”
“Time to put a stop to that,” Drew said. “What’ll you have?”
I ordered a glass of pinot noir, and Drew moved off.
“So…you didn’t trust yourself,” Bailey said.
“Nope, not for one second.”
We laughed, and when Drew set down my glass of wine, we toasted.
“To knowing your limits.” Bailey raised her glass, and I clinked it with mine.
