The Reunion
Abie Lane hated meetings that started late.
She hated people who talked too much.
And she especially hated being kept waiting.
At nine seventeen in the morning, she looked at the closed conference-room doors and checked her watch.
Once.
Then again.
“Seven minutes,” she said.
Her assistant glanced at her. “They’re still preparing.”
“They’ve had three weeks to prepare.”
“I know.”
Abie sighed.
She adjusted the cuff of her white shirt, the sleeves already rolled neatly to her elbows. Her black trousers were perfectly pressed, her hair falling naturally over one shoulder. There was almost nothing on her face besides the faintest touch of makeup.
Her left wrist carried an old-fashioned watch.
Her right carried a tiny bracelet made of matte-black beads.
Nothing else.
She didn’t need anything else.
“Should I tell them you’re leaving?”
Abie looked at the doors.
“No.”
A pause.
“Give them another three minutes.”
Her assistant smiled.
“That’s generous.”
“I know.”
The doors opened.
“Ms. Lane?”
Abie looked up.
A man in a charcoal suit stood there.
“Mr. Laurent is ready for you.”
“He wasn’t ready seven minutes ago?”
The man looked slightly uncomfortable.
“No, ma’am.”
Abie smiled politely.
“Wonderful.”
She walked inside.
The room was larger than she’d expected.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Paris, pale morning sunlight spilling across the polished table. Several men were already seated.
Lawyers.
Executives.
Investors.
People who had spent years building reputations that could disappear with one bad decision.
Abie took the chair at the far end.
She opened the folder in front of her.
“Let’s begin.”
The meeting lasted twenty-six minutes.
Twenty-six minutes was all Abie needed.
By the end of it, the contract was hers.
She closed the folder.
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
Mr. Laurent smiled.
“The pleasure is ours.”
Abie stood.
Then one of the men at the table spoke.
“There is one more matter.”
She stopped.
“What matter?”
“A partner we’d like you to meet.”
Abie’s expression remained neutral.
“I wasn’t informed of another partner.”
“He wasn’t originally part of the negotiations.”
“Then why is he here?”
The room went quiet.
Before anyone answered, the door behind her opened.
Abie turned.
A man walked in.
Tall.
Very tall.
Six feet, perhaps a little more.
Blond hair.
Black suit.
No unnecessary accessories.
No smile.
He walked with the kind of calm that didn’t come from confidence.
It came from certainty.
The room changed around him.
Not dramatically.
Nobody gasped.
Nobody stood.
But the atmosphere shifted.
People straightened.
Voices disappeared.
Abie noticed.
Interesting.
The man stopped at the other end of the table.
His eyes moved across the room.
Then landed on her.
Green.
Natural green.
For one strange second, Abie forgot what she was about to say.
Not because he was handsome.
Although he was.
It was something else.
Something about those eyes.
Something about the way he looked at her.
As if he’d walked into the room expecting to find someone.
And had found her.
His gaze didn’t leave hers.
“Mr. Black,” Mr. Laurent said.
Matteo gave a slight nod.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Abie glanced at her watch.
“You’re nineteen minutes late.”
Several people looked down at the table.
Matteo’s eyes remained on her.
“I know.”
“And?”
“And I’m here now.”
Abie stared at him.
Then smiled.
It wasn’t a particularly warm smile.
“That’s not usually how appointments work.”
Something almost amused flickered in his eyes.
“No.”
He pulled out the chair opposite her.
“Usually, people wait.”
Abie leaned back.
“Not me.”
“I noticed.”
There was something about the way he said it.
Not flirtatious.
Not teasing.
Observing.
She didn’t like it.
Or perhaps she liked it slightly too much.
Mr. Laurent cleared his throat.
“Perhaps we should continue.”
Abie looked down at the documents.
“Of course.”
The meeting resumed.
But Abie couldn’t quite concentrate.
Not because Matteo spoke much.
He barely spoke at all.
When he did, everyone listened.
He asked short questions.
Received short answers.
Made decisions without discussing them twice.
There was no arrogance in his manner.
That somehow made him worse.
Arrogant men needed people to know they were powerful.
Matteo didn’t seem to care whether anyone knew.
Abie turned a page.
Her bracelet slipped slightly down her wrist.
She pushed it back into place.
Across the table, Matteo stopped moving.
Only for a second.
His eyes had dropped to her hand.
Abie noticed.
She looked at her bracelet.
Then at him.
“Something wrong?”
Matteo’s gaze lifted.
“No.”
“You were staring.”
“I was thinking.”
“About my bracelet?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Abie raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
Matteo didn’t answer immediately.
He looked at the bracelet again.
Tiny black beads.
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
Something about it bothered him.
Not because it was unusual.
Because it wasn’t.
He had seen it before.
Four years ago.
A different room.
A different night.
A woman sitting across from him, laughing too easily and speaking without thinking.
A woman who had walked into his private room believing he was someone she could buy for the evening.
A woman whose name he had remembered long after he’d forgotten the rest of the night.
Abie.
His eyes returned to her face.
Sky-blue eyes.
The same eyes.
Impossible.
He had never seen her clearly that night.
She had been drunk.
The lighting had been low.
And she had disappeared before he woke.
But the bracelet—
He remembered the bracelet.
Matteo leaned back slowly.
“It’s familiar.”
Abie looked at him for another second.
Then shrugged.
“It’s just a bracelet.”
“Yes.”
She turned back toward the contract.
“Then I suppose we’ve solved the mystery.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Perhaps.”
The meeting continued.
But Matteo wasn’t listening anymore.
He was remembering.
And for the first time in four years, a woman he’d believed he’d never see again was sitting directly across from him.
She had no idea.
Not yet.
Matteo looked at the black beads around her wrist.
Then at her face.
And one thought settled quietly into his mind.
It was her.
