“I wanted to.”
Eleanor nodded once. Wanting to believe was the softest kind of lie people told themselves. “The photograph,” she said.
Sloan’s mouth tightened. “I was angry. You’d said something at brunch the week before—about how young women think a house is a backdrop. I thought you meant me.”
“I did mean you.”
The honesty landed between them like a third person. A cart with a sticky wheel squeaked past. Someone laughed near the seafood counter. Sloan looked down at her own cart: sparkling water, expensive cheese, a small bouquet of grocery roses. “I shouldn’t have touched your table.”
“No.”