He kissed her hand before taking it into his own and lacing their fingers together. “Good. I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?” Liz asked, raising her eyebrows. “What is it?”

“Not much of a surprise if I tell you, silly.”

“So.”

“I’m not telling.”

“What are we doing in Charlotte? Is that part of the surprise? We could always go to the coast instead,” Liz suggested. Not that she wanted to think about the time she had flown to Hilton Head to see Brady, but she preferred the ocean to, well . . . everything. Maybe if she went to the beach with Hayden, she could make new memories that didn’t hurt as much as the ones about Brady.

“Well . . . it’s part of the surprise, but I’ll tell you now,” he said, beaming at her. “I have a final interview at Charlotte Times for an entry-level reporting position.”

“Oh my God, that’s great!” Liz said, bouncing up and down with excitement.

Hayden had applied to positions at newspapers all over the country. She knew that he wanted to be at a top paper, but those positions were few and far between. He’d had a phone interview with the Washington Post, but he had heard earlier this week that he hadn’t gotten the job. He had received an offer to work in the press office where he had interned over the summer, but it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do. So he was keeping his options open until then. He would always prefer a reporting job, and as he told her over and over again, he wasn’t moving that far away from her for anything less.

“When is the interview?” Liz asked.

“It’s Friday morning. I thought we could drive down Thursday afternoon and get a hotel in the city. I’ll have my interview and then we can go out after for dinner for your birthday.”

And that was how she ended up in Charlotte that Thursday. Her birthday was technically Saturday, but she liked that they were going to go out in Charlotte, far removed from all of her memories in Chapel Hill. Maybe she would actually jolt herself out of her Brady Maxwell stupor.

Plus this gave Victoria the opportunity to throw her a birthday party Saturday on Franklin Street and get her f**king wasted for her twenty-first. If Liz knew Victoria, she was going to want to steal Liz and take her to every bar for a birthday shot. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

Hayden pulled off of I-85 and into the heart of downtown Charlotte. Liz hadn’t been here since the Jefferson-Jackson gala, when she had left with Brady. She hadn’t known how much her life would change that night. Now she was on her way back to make new memories.

He followed his GPS instructions and veered down the street. Liz was getting more excited; she had never stayed in a hotel with Hayden. It wasn’t that it would be any different from staying at her place or his place, but there was just something to the exclusivity of it that heightened her excitement.

But that was only until they pulled up in front of their hotel.

Liz’s stomach dropped to her feet. Of all the places for him to choose to celebrate her birthday, he had to choose this hotel.

She stared up at the hotel that she had stayed in that first night she had agreed to go home with Brady after the Jefferson-Jackson gala. Her mind just couldn’t grasp the fact that she was here again . . . with Hayden.

How could he choose this place?

“Wow,” she whispered, just to break the silence. “This looks fancy. How did you find out about it?”

Hayden chuckled softly. She wished she found it half as amusing. “I’d heard all of the rooms were named for various political positions. Considering our profession, it seemed fitting. I read that the rooms range from a representative suite all the way up to presidential.”

Liz’s face colored as she remembered what exactly had gone on in the presidential suite. “What kind of room do we have?” she asked, not sure she could handle the answer.

It was Hayden’s turn to look a bit sheepish. “Well, I didn’t get us a suite, but I think it will be nice to have our own room with a king-size bed and everything. Don’t you think?”

Phew! That made sense if Hayden was covering the costs.

“Yes,” she admitted, pushing Brady to the back of her mind as best she could. “I think that sounds really nice.”

Hayden looked so happy to be doing this for her. There was absolutely no way she could ask him to move hotels. She didn’t have a good enough explanation as to why without spilling everything about Brady. Plus, he had clearly put in some time scouting out the right hotel. She couldn’t possibly take that away from him.

They parked the car and then walked into the very familiar hotel. Hayden got a key from the front desk and then took them up to their room. It was nothing fancy in comparison to the presidential suite; actually, it looked like every other hotel. A king-size bed took up the majority of the space, and there was a large armoire with a flat-screen TV inside. The bathroom was small, but had a decent size walk-in shower. It was a nice change of pace from Chapel Hill.

She should be happy that she was here with Hayden, that he had taken the time to be with her on her birthday, to plan something like this. It was clearly very thoughtful. Perfect. Classic Hayden.

No matter what had happened with Brady, that door was closed. It didn’t do anything for her to live in the past and dwell on what could have been when she had something incredible right in front of her.

They spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms and tangled in the hotel sheets. She fell asleep tucked into Hayden’s chest, lost in the steady rhythm of his breathing.

The next morning, Hayden fretted over the suit that he was wearing to the interview. He ironed the already flawless white button-down until it was crisp, and the lines down the front of his black pants were stark. He tied and retied his green tie a dozen times until the topknot was perfect. It made his hazel eyes stand out sharply, and when he smiled at her through the mirror as she was fixing her makeup, she remembered exactly why she had fallen for Hayden in the first place.

He was confident, but not arrogant. He was charming, but not conceited. He was intelligent, but not egotistical. He wanted to be there, to be with her, to take care of her, but he didn’t have to be overbearing to do it. He respected her decision to not be with him immediately, not to have sex with him immediately . . . to communicate and trust her and believe in her. It was almost too much to feel all at once.

Hayden slid into his black suit coat and buttoned the top button. “How do I look?” he asked, turning in a slow circle.