About That Night

by Julie James

She had a six-month plan to get over her ex and was pleased to see that she was on schedule. Actually, she was ahead of schedule—she’d slotted in two days for a temporary relapse after her move to Chicago, but so far she appeared to be doing just fine.

  Dark gray suit, light blue shirt, the striped tie she’d bought him “just because” the day after they’d moved in together.

  Damn. She did remember what he’d worn that night.

  Per her six-month plan, she was supposed to be forgetting details like these. The way that same lock of hair stuck out from the back of his head every morning. The gold flecks in his hazel eyes. How he’d squirmed in his seat when he’d said he didn’t know if he wanted to get married.

  Actually, she’d probably remember that particular detail for a long time.

  They were having dinner at Jardiniere, a romantic restaurant in downtown San Francisco. Jon had planned the dinner as a surprise, not giving her any clues. But when they’d been seated and he’d ordered a bottle of Cristal champagne, she’d known. True, they both enjoyed wine, and had bought nice bottles of wine and champagne in the past, but Cristal went beyond their usual splurge. Which could only mean one thing.

  He was going to propose.

  Perfect timing, had been Rylann’s first thought. It was September, which meant she’d have nine months to plan a June wedding. Not that she particularly cared about June, but there were work issues to think about: two of the female assistant U.S. attorneys in her office had just sprung the news that they were pregnant and planned to be off on maternity leave until May. If she and Jon got married in June, after the other AUSAs returned to the office, she’d be able to take two full weeks off for her honeymoon without feeling guilty about sticking someone else with the extra caseload.

  After the waiter had poured their champagne, Jon clinked his glass to hers. “To new beginnings,” he said with a mischievous look.

  Rylann smiled. “To new beginnings.”

  They each took a sip, then Jon reached across the table and took her hand. As always, he looked handsome in his suit and with his dark hair perfectly styled. On his wrist he wore the watch she’d bought him for his last birthday. She’d spent more money on the gift than she’d intended, but he’d seemed oddly down about turning the big three-five, and she’d decided to splurge to cheer him up.

  “So there’s something I want to ask you.” He stroked her fingers with his thumb. “You know that this last birthday got to me. Since then, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the direction my life is headed. And even though I know what I want, I think I freaked out because it’s such a big step.” He paused and took a deep breath.

  Rylann squeezed his hand reassuringly. “You’re ner-

  vous.”

  He chuckled. “A little, maybe.”

  “Just come out with it,” she teased. “We already have the champagne.”

  With that, Jon looked into her eyes.

  “I want to move to Italy.”

  Rylann blinked.

  “Italy?” she repeated.

  Jon nodded, the words coming easier for him now. “A spot opened up in our Rome office, and I put my name in.” He threw out his hands and laughed like a kid who’d just been told he was going to Disney World. “Italy! How great is that?”

  “That is…something.” Rylann did a mental headshake, trying to make sense of things. Jon was a partner at McKinzey Consulting, and he’d worked his butt off to get there. At times, recently, he’d seemed a bit apathetic about his job, but not once had he ever mentioned transferring to Italy.

  “What brought all this on?” she asked, feeling as if she were talking to a casual acquaintance and not the man she’d been dating for the last three years.

  Jon took a hearty sip of champagne. “It’s been on my mind for a while. I don’t know…I’m thirty-five years old, and I’ve never really done anything. I went to school; I got a job. That basically sums up my life.” He gestured offhandedly to her. “Same with you.”

  Rylann felt a flash of defensiveness at that. “I moved to San Francisco after law school, not knowing a single person out here. I’d say that was pretty adventurous.”

  “Adventurous?” Jon scoffed. “You moved here because you’d landed a clerkship with a federal appellate judge. Besides, that was seven years ago. Maybe it’s time for a new adventure.” He grabbed her hand again. “Think about it. We can get an apartment near the Piazza Navona. Remember that trattoria we found there, the one with the yellow awning? You loved that place.”

  “Why, yes, I did. As a nice place to visit on vacation.”

  “And here comes the sarcasm,” Jon said, sitting back in his chair.

  Rylann stopped another quip from rolling off her tongue. Fair enough—sarcasm wasn’t going to help the situation right then. “I’m just trying to catch up here. This Italy plan seems to be coming out of left field.”

  “Well, you had to know something was up, with the champagne and everything,” Jon said.

  Rylann stared at him. Wow. He really had no clue. “I thought you were going to propose.”

  The silence that followed had to be one of the most awkward and embarrassing moments of her life. And suddenly, she knew that Italy was the least of their problems.

  “I didn’t think marriage was something you wanted,” Jon finally said.

  Rylann pulled back in disbelief. “What do you mean? We’ve talked about getting married. We’ve even talked about having kids.”

  “We’ve also talked about getting a dog and buying a new couch for the living room,” Jon said. “We talk about a lot of things.”

  “That’s your answer?” Rylann asked. “We talk about a lot of things?”

  Safe to say the sarcastic tone was back.

  “I thought you were focused on your career,” Jon said.

  Rylann cocked her head. Boy, she was really learning all sorts of interesting things tonight. “I wasn’t aware that having a family and a career were mutually exclusive.”

  Jon shifted awkwardly in his chair. “I just meant that I figured marriage and kids were something we’d get around to later. Maybe.”

  Rylann caught the last word he’d added in there. True, she had focused on her career over the last seven years, and didn’t have any regrets about that. Nor, frankly, did she plan to stop being career oriented. And as much as she typically liked plans, she hadn’t felt the need to rush things with Jon. She didn’t have a specific timeline in mind; she’d simply assumed that they would get married and start a family somewhere in her midthirties.

  But now, seeing the way he toyed uncomfortably with his champagne flute, she realized this had become an “if”—not a “when”—situation. And she wasn’t willing to settle for that.

  “Maybe?” she asked him.

  Jon waved his hand, gesturing to the crowded restaurant. “Do we really need to have this conversation now?”

  “Yes, I think we do.”

  “Fine. What do you want me to say, Ry? I’ve been having second thoughts. Marriage takes a lot of work. Kids take a lot of work. I already kill myself at my job. I make good money, but I never have time to enjoy it. I’m not going to quit or take a leave of absence in this economy, so this transfer seemed like the perfect opportunity to do something for myself.”

  He leaned in, his expression earnest. “Don’t make a bigger deal out of this than it has to be. I love you—at the end of the day, isn’t that all that truly matters? Come with me to Italy.”

  But as Rylann sat there, staring into his dark hazel eyes, she knew it wasn’t that simple. “Jon…you know I can’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I’m an assistant United States attorney. I’m thinking they don’t have a lot of job openings for those in Rome.”

  He shrugged. “I make plenty of money. You don’t need to work.”

  Rylann’s gaze sharpened. “If I’m supposedly so focused on my career, that’s not really going to sell me on this trip, is it?”

 
; Jon sat back in his chair, saying nothing for a moment. “So that’s it?” He gestured angrily. “Going to Italy doesn’t fit into your ten-year plan or whatever, so you’re just going to choose your job over me?”

  Actually, it was a twelve-year plan, and scrapping everything to move to Rome with no job and no prospects definitely wasn’t in it, but Jon was conveniently sidestepping the issue. “Moving to Italy might be your dream, but…it isn’t mine,” she said.

  “I’d been hoping it could be our dream.”

  Had he now? Rylann rested her arms on the table. Somewhere along the way, this had begun to feel like a cross-examination. “You said you asked for this transfer. Did you tell them you needed to discuss it with me before you committed to going?”

  Jon met Rylann’s eyes with a look of guilt she recognized well, one she’d seen numerous times on the faces of the criminal defendants she prosecuted.

  “No,” he said quietly.

  She rested her case.

  NEARLY SIX MONTHS after that night, Rylann was sitting on her living room floor, unpacking a box that contained half of the Villeroy & Boch dinnerware she and Jon had bought for entertaining. Jon had insisted she have the entire set of ten, but as a final “screw you and your pity,” she’d taken only her fair share. Now, however, she was wondering what the heck she was going to do with an incomplete set of china.

  Darn pride.

  Her cell phone rang, so she put the dinnerware conundrum on hold. She rummaged around on the floor and finally located her phone under a pile of packing paper. She checked the display and saw it was Rae. “Hey, you.”

  “How’s the new apartment?” Rae asked.

  Rylann tucked the phone against her shoulder, freeing her hands so she could continue unpacking the box as she talked. “Mostly a disaster right now, since I got a late start. I spent the afternoon walking around, checking out the neighborhood.” And she’d nearly frozen her ass off in her trench coat. Apparently, somebody hadn’t told the city of Chicago that it was spring. “If I remember correctly, somebody had volunteered to come over and help me unpack,” she said teasingly.

  Rae sounded guilty. “I know. I’m the worst friend in the world. I’m still stuck at work. I’ve got a summary judgment motion due next week, and the draft this second-year sent me is a piece of crap. I’ve been rewriting the statement of facts all afternoon. But I think I can be there in about an hour. On the bright side, I’ve got cupcakes.”

  Rylann pulled a dessert plate out of the box. “Ooh—nice. We can eat them on my very fancy and incomplete set of china.” She looked around. “Seriously, what am I going to do with five sets of dinnerware?”

  “You could…throw an elaborate dinner party for my imaginary boyfriend, your imaginary boyfriend, and their imaginary third-wheel friend who seemingly never has anything better to do?”

  Ouch. “Don’t laugh. After Jon and I broke up and he moved to Rome, I was that third-wheel friend,” Rylann said. Their closest friends in San Francisco had been “couple” friends, and after the breakup, she simply hadn’t fit in anymore. One of the many reasons she’d been looking for a fresh start in Chicago. “At least in this city, I’m a first wheel. A unicycle.”

  Rae laughed. “Very tricky business, unicycling. Particularly in your thirties.”

  “It’s not like I never dated before Jon. How different can it be?”

  “Oh, such naivete.” Rae sighed dramatically. “I remember when I, too, was once so hopeful and unjaded.” Her tone turned a touch more serious. “Think you’re ready for all this?”

  As Rylann took in the chaotic state of the apartment—her new apartment—Jon’s words popped into her head.

  Maybe it’s time for a new adventure.

  “I think I have to be,” she told Rae.

  Because there was one final piece of the sixth-month plan she was absolutely determined to follow through on.

  No regrets, and no looking back.

  Five

  MONDAY MORNING, WITH her briefcase swinging by her side, Rylann got off the elevator at the twenty-first floor of the Dirksen Federal Building. She made her way to a set of glass doors bearing the familiar Department of Justice seal: an eagle carrying the United States shield with the motto Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur, “who prosecutes on behalf of justice.”

  Seeing that seal helped put Rylann at ease. Sure, she was a little nervous about her first day at the Chicago office, and it felt odd being the new kid on the block again, but she wasn’t a junior litigator fresh off a clerkship anymore. She’d prosecuted cases as an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco for the last six years; she’d advanced her way up to the special prosecutions division, and she’d had one of the best trial records in the district.

  She belonged behind those glass doors, she reminded herself. And the sooner she proved that to everyone else, the better she’d feel. So she took a deep breath—silently vowing to knock ‘em dead—and stepped into the office.

  The receptionist behind the desk smiled in greeting. “Good to see you again, Rylann. Ms. Lynde said that you’d be starting today. I’ll let her know you’re here.”

  “Thanks, Katie.” Rylann stepped off to the side, standing before a panoramic photograph of the Chicago skyline. She was somewhat familiar with the office, having gone on a tour last month when she’d flown in to interview for the open AUSA position. Spanning across four floors of the Federal Building, the office employed approximately 170 lawyers, two dozen paralegals, and a large administrative and support staff.

  Timing-wise, Rylann had gotten lucky with this transfer. She’d been looking for a fresh start after her breakup with Jon, and thus had been relieved when she’d heard that the Department of Justice had opened up a new AUSA slot for the Northern District of Illinois. Since she’d grown up in the Chicago suburbs and had always considered the possibility of returning one day to be closer to her family and Rae, she’d leapt at the chance.

  Rylann smiled when she saw an attractive woman with long, chestnut-brown hair and a welcoming look in her aquamarine eyes coming down the hallway. As she had been during her interview, she was struck by how relatively young Cameron Lynde was for a U.S. attorney—thirty-three, only a year older than Rylann herself. Formerly the top AUSA in Chicago, Cameron had been appointed to the position after the former U.S. attorney, Silas Briggs, had been arrested and indicted on public corruption charges. The arrest of such a prominent political figure had caused quite a stir—both within the Department of Justice and in the media—and had been the topic of gossip among all the assistant U.S. attorneys for weeks.

  When interviewing, that had been Rylann’s one concern—transferring to an office that had recently experienced such significant upheaval—but she’d walked away from the meeting with only positive impressions of Cameron. From what she surmised, the new U.S. attorney was driven and ambitious and eager to restore a good name to the Chicago office.

  Cameron stuck out her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Rylann,” she said warmly. “We’ve been counting down the days to your arrival.” She gestured to the stack of case files she carried in her other hand. “As you can see, we’re swamped around here. Come with me—I’ll show you to your office.”

  While making small talk, Rylann followed Cameron down an internal staircase to the twentieth floor. The setup of the office was similar to that of the one in San Francisco, with the assistant U.S. attorneys in the exterior offices, and the support staff and paralegals working from desks and cubicles in the interior space. If she recalled correctly, all twenty-seven AUSAs in the special prosecutions division were located on this floor.

  “So when I spoke to Bill after your interview,” Cameron led in, referring to Rylann’s former boss, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, “he said that I’m supposed to ask why the San Francisco FBI agents call you ‘Meth Lab Rylann.’ “

  Rylann groaned. Although, secretly, she didn’t mind the moniker that much. “They gave me that nickname my first yea
r on the job, and I’ve never been able to shake it.”

  Cameron looked curious. “So? Let’s hear the story.”

  “I’ll give you the abridged version. I was the second chair on a multiple-count organized crime and drug case, and was scheduled to meet the two FBI agents who’d handled the investigation at this underground meth lab. What the agents failed to mention before I got there was that the only way to get into the meth lab was to climb through a hatch in the ground and climb down a rusty, rickety fifteen-foot ladder. And since I’d been in court earlier that morning, I happened to be wearing a skirt suit and heels. Most inconveniently.”

  Cameron chuckled. “Come on. The agents had to be messing with you—how could they forget to mention that?”

  Walking side by side with Cameron, Rylann didn’t disagree. “I think they might have been testing the new girl, sure.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The only thing I could do,” Rylann said matter-of-factly. “I climbed through the hatch in my skirt suit and went down that rusty, rickety fifteen-foot ladder.”

  Cameron laughed. “Good for you.” She stopped in front of a midsized office. “Here we are.”

  The bronze nameplate outside the door said it all:

  RYLANN PIERCE

  assistant u.s. attorney

  Rylann stepped inside. It wasn’t a glamorous office, with dark blue carpeting and fairly inexpensive furniture, but as a senior AUSA, she at least had a view of the Hancock building and Lake Michigan.

  “Everything should be virtually the same as your old office,” Cameron said. “Luckily, we don’t have to waste time training you on the phones and computer, since you’re familiar with those already. Oh, one thing I wanted to be sure of: you’re on active status with the Illinois bar, correct?”

  Rylann nodded. “Yes. I’m good to go.” She had taken the Illinois bar exam the summer after graduating from law school and had gone back on active status as soon as she’d learned she’d gotten the job in Chicago.

  “Perfect. With that said…” Cameron handed the stack of files over to Rylann. “Welcome to Chicago.” She cocked her head. “Am I going too fast?”