Chapter 55

Though he hadn’t clearly labeled it a date, I was going to assume it was one until he started grilling me for information on my father’s campaign or business holdings. The longer I thought about the invitation, the more my stomach knotted and my fingers itched to text him and cancel.

Out of habit, I reached for my locket. I’d cried for an hour in my car when I realized it was gone, and retracing my steps had led me nowhere but back to my empty office to finish paperwork and emails.

I peered down at my phone screen and opened up one of the three social media apps I scrolled through to dull my senses and pass the next forty-five minutes. New posts from friends in the UK appeared first. Three of them were together on a walkabout in London. Mads’ handle was tagged in one of the corners as the photographer, but several thumb pushes later, I saw his own version of events on the outing. He was sitting on a park bench, holding the largest sausage roll I’d ever seen in his lap that he was gest