At Your Most Beautiful by Harper Bliss (best free ereader .TXT) 📗

never seen Maya again, Quinn might have taken the memory of that night to her grave. But she had most certainly seen Maya. She had photographed her. She was working on her picture now—she was supposed to be anyway, when daydreaming didn’t keep her from doing any actual work.

She gazed at Maya’s face again and asked, “What do you think, Maya? Should we do this? Should I ask you out?”

If a repeat of that night were ever on the table, Quinn would most certainly not turn down the opportunity. She had nothing but exquisite memories of her time with Maya. From the first dive into her pool, until the last time she’d looked into her eyes. Only their goodbye had been bittersweet although Quinn knew that it was the only realistic way for things to go between them at the time. The rest of her time at home that summer had been spent pining for Maya, trying to catch a glimpse of her, to no avail. If Quinn remembered correctly, Maya had gone away in the days following their time together. It had felt like a punch to the gut. Maya had made it abundantly clear that she had already swiftly moved on from their time together.

Quinn had returned to the city while Maya was still away. She had started the next chapter of her life, a life in which her night with Maya had only been a brief interlude, a precious one, but a mere interlude nonetheless, no matter how amazing.

The sooner she finished her work, the sooner Quinn would have the perfect excuse to contact Maya. Just a little bit of patience was required. And a lot of gazing at Maya’s face and body in that red dress. By the time she was finished with this, Quinn figured she’d be well acquainted with every last inch of Maya.

She took a deep breath and tried to snap herself back into focus. Just as she was getting into the groove again, her phone buzzed with a message. The first thought at hearing the alert was as fleeting as it was ridiculous: Could it be Maya?

She checked her phone. Of course, it wasn’t Maya. It was Morgan—again. For some reason that she was probably too cowardly to admit to herself, Quinn still hadn’t blocked Morgan. Quinn still wanted to hear from her. She didn’t want to delete all lines of communication because she still had so many unresolved feelings for Morgan. She stared at Morgan’s message:

Can we talk please, babe? M. xo

M. She imagined the M stood for Maya, but Quinn had no history with Maya. She had one night ten years ago. With Morgan, Quinn had years to look back on. Still, the thought of Maya calling Quinn ‘babe’ and ending a text message with ‘xo’ wasn’t unappealing. It was also impossible. But taking the time to indulge in her imagination was harmless enough and it was a welcome relief from the post-breakup anguish Quinn had been victim to.

She put her phone to the side and resumed her work. For the sheer hell of it, and as a way to cosmically give Morgan the finger for bailing on them after all those years, while Quinn studied the details of Maya’s face, she continued to pretend it was Maya who had messaged her. It had been her first thought, after all, whereas before, her mind had always automatically landed on Morgan first.

Despite working on Maya’s picture, the power of faking it soon wore off, and Quinn started to consider a reply to Morgan’s message. Morgan had been a bitch, no doubt, but she was also being very persistent. What did she have to say to Quinn that hadn’t already been said? Could Griff be right? Did Morgan want her back? And if so, would Quinn even consider it? She knew she shouldn’t. The only thing that could possibly make her reconsider anything was if Morgan had left her husband.

Quinn’s breath stalled in her throat. Could that be the reason for Morgan’s recent increased attempts at trying to reach her? Had she finally done it? And if she had—if the impossible had finally happened—could it still really make a difference four months after they’d split? Or would even that be too little too late for them?

There was only one way to find out. Quinn walked away from her computer, picked up her phone and, heart slamming against her chest, called Morgan.

Chapter 17

Maya had to leave in the next five minutes if she wanted to be on time for her date.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?” Beth asked. “Mom made enough casserole to feed a few large families.”

“I have dinner plans.” Maya didn’t even know why she was here. She’d only dropped by because she hadn’t known what to do with herself. She looked into Ethan’s crib. He was sleeping in that cute way babies have, his tiny fists balled and his eyes scrunched so tightly shut he looked as though he was still furious about having been born.

“Hot date?” Beth asked.

A flush crept from Maya’s neck to her cheeks so she kept her gaze firmly on her sleeping grandson. “Of course not,” Maya lied. “Just a friend.”

“Someone I know?” Beth was pottering around the kitchen, putting Ethan’s bottles in the sterilizer.

“I wouldn’t think so.” Maya could have lied some more and said she was meeting with someone from Acton, but she didn’t want the lie to become so big she lost herself in it later. If she’d been going on a date with a man, however, she would have just told Beth without giving it any further thought. She surely would have told Beth’s mother, whom she’d met for coffee earlier. Instead, because her date was a woman, she felt she couldn’t tell either of them. How backward was that? Being able to date women more easily was one of the reasons she’d moved to New York City in the first place.

“Are you going to Pino’s?”