Ray's text had arrived that morning.
Dinner tonight. I'll send the details. — R
Brief. Stripped of any word that would force him to say directly what it was. Not a meeting and not a date — just dinner, the deliberate vagueness of a man who wanted both interpretations available to him simultaneously.
But she'd been in enough rooms with Ray Carver to read what lived underneath his word choices.
It was a date. He just wasn't going to be the one to call it that.
Which was why she spent forty-five minutes getting ready.
That was forty-five minutes more than she usually spent — Aurora's standard was efficient, deliberate, the kind of preparation that produced a result without wasting time on the process. Tonight was different.
She stood in front of her mirror and looked at the black dress.
