Chapter four

Elsa's face was one of sheer awe as she listened to Emma recount the events of the previous evening.

"Are you sure it wasn't Natalie Portman?"

Emma wrinkled her nose. She was leaning against Elsa's desk, her head resting on her hand. "I didn't get a proper look. She was on the other side of the room."

"You didn't try again on your way out?"

"I was distracted on my way out," Emma said. When Elsa looked at her quizzically, Emma clarified, "Trying not to trip over. I'd had a lot of wine." Her friend didn't need to know that she'd been busy staring at Regina instead.

Elsa slumped back in her chair with a disappointed sigh. "Did you see anyone else famous?"

"I don't think so," Emma said. "Sorry. I was a bit of a mess and couldn't really concentrate on what was going on around me."

Emma blinked at her. "Why were you a mess? You didn't get wasted and embarrass yourself, did you?"

The way she asked it like it was all too likely made Emma glare.

"No," she said. "It's just the woman. Regina. She's super intimidating and I felt like such an idiot the whole time she was talking to me. I can't even remember half of what I said."

Elsa snorted, reaching out to pick up a pencil and twirl it between two fingers. Her desk was covered in sketches and cover art mock-ups, and the disorganisation was too much even for Emma. "I wouldn't mind feeling like an idiot for a free dinner at Le Bernardin."

She must have seen the defeated look on Emma's face, because she quickly backtracked. "I'm sure you didn't do anything that stupid, though. You were just nervous."

Emma sighed. "To be honest, I kind of feel like she liked the fact that I was nervous."

"Oh really?" Elsa asked, leaning forwards. "In what way?"

"Like..." Emma grasped for the words, her cheeks burning. "She watched me like she found me funny, rather than stupid. And she kept asking questions that she knew might trip me up. And she laughed a lot, but not at me, more like with me, because I was so delightfully lame."

"You are quite lame," Elsa said thoughtfully, ignoring the slap she received against her thigh. "I know you keep saying that this wasn't a date, but it really sounds like it was."

"It wasn't," Emma said, but her voice wasn't as firm as she'd hoped.

"How did she say hello to you?"

"She didn't, really. She was already there and was busy sending emails so I kind of just sat down."

Disappointment clouded Elsa's face. "Oh. How did you say goodbye, then?"

There was a pause as, for the thousandth time that morning, Emma remembered the way Regina had leaned into her. The feeling of her hand on her elbow, the smell of her perfume, the light brush of her lips against her cheek. She swallowed hard.

Elsa's eyes were already glinting. "Oh my god! It was so a date."

"No, it wasn't," Emma backtracked. "Nothing happened. Nothing like that. She kissed me on the cheek and said she'd see me again soon."

"It was a date," Elsa said, her voice firm.

"She didn't even ask me out herself! She got her assistant to do it for her."

"Wow. I aspire to be that level of important one day, getting my assistant to ask out hot girls for me."

"Shut up," Emma said. "It was not a date. She has an ex-husband and a kid - she's probably not even into women."

"Everybody's into women," Elsa said completely matter-of-factly. "And she wouldn't have asked you out if she didn't like you a little bit, even if she's not out the closet yet."

"Or she just wanted to be friends."

"Friends don't deliberately ask personal questions to trip the other person up."

"You do that all the time!"

"Because I'm a horrible person," Elsa said, smirking. "So. Are you going to call her?"

Emma groaned. "No. I don't have her number."

"Oh," Elsa said, deflating. "That sucks. Maybe you can track it down?"

"She's a superrich art dealer. I don't think she leaves her cell number just lying around."

"What's her full name?" Elsa said, rolling her chair closer to her computer, her hands poised over the keyboard.

Emma reluctantly handed over Regina's surname, and before she could stop her Elsa was deep into a Google Images search. Emma already knew from a late-night stalking session that there wasn't much to find, but there were still a few decent photos. Elsa's eyes locked onto one of them, and she released a low whistle.

"Shit," she said. "And you say she's rich too?"

"Yeah," Emma sighed, her eyes on the one photo of Regina that she'd already decided was her favourite. Regina was at a gallery opening, surrounded on all sides by men who were older and taller than her, and yet she somehow stood out as by far the most powerful person in the picture. "She paid for dinner with a black Amex. She didn't even read the total."

"Shit," Elsa repeated. Her eyes hadn't actually left the web page yet. "It was definitely a date, Em."

"It was not–"

"Delivery for Emma Swan?"

Emma's head shot up at the voice that was wafting over from the elevator doors. Her heart bounced in her chest – half excited, half cursing him – when she saw a man clutching a huge bunch of white tulips.

"That's me," she said, ignoring Elsa's smug gaze on the side of her face. When the man handed over the flowers, Emma cradled them like she'd just been given a newborn baby.

"Wow," Elsa said. "No, you're right. It totally wasn't a date."

Emma was too busy grappling for the card to respond to her. When she prised it open, she found a scratchy note that she already knew hadn't been written by Regina herself. Thank you for a lovely evening.

Elsa peered over her shoulder, holding her breath.

"Don't say anything," Emma said, but Elsa was already crooning.

"Emma, she is so into you."

"She is not. She's just old fashioned."

"And you are just really stupid," Elsa sighed. "I wonder how much these cost?"

"A lot, probably," Emma said, her eyes on the crisp brown paper they'd been wrapped in. It was the kind of detail that was so understated, it screamed money. "I should thank her, right?"

"I thought you didn't have her number?"

"I don't, but I can email her. Is that a terrible idea? Should I leave it?"

Elsa's eyebrows were already lifting at Emma's panic. "Email her. Go."

"Will she find it weird?"

"Probably," Elsa shrugged. "But from what you've told me, she likes the weird shit you do. She'll love this."

Emma was vaguely aware that she was being insulted, but she couldn't summon a comeback. Instead, she scuttled across the office, clutching the tulips to her chest like she was worried someone was about to snatch them away from her.

As she reached her desk, she looked up to find Ingrid watching her from her office. Her eyes were on the flowers, but she didn't say anything.

Emma quickly sat down and placed the flowers to one side. As she waited for her emails to load, her eyes kept getting drawn to white petals.

When her inbox was ready for her, she scanned through them just in case Regina had already contacted her. She hadn't, and it made Emma oddly nervous.

Still, she opened a new message and forced herself to type out a vaguely normal-sounding message. Thank you for the flowers – they're really beautiful. You didn't have to do that.

She was halfway through all of her other emails when Regina's reply swept into her inbox. You're quite welcome. My assistant picked them.

Emma sat back, frowning. The playful banter that she'd been replaying over and over again in her head for the past 12 hours seemed to have vanished, and she automatically worried that the evening hadn't gone anywhere near as well as she thought it had.

She reached out and started typing a reply anyway.

Your assistant has good taste, she wrote, her hands only slightly shaky. Thank you again for dinner, by the way. I know I keep saying that but I had a really good time. I hope you enjoyed it too.

She sent it before she could tell herself that she was being desperate. Relief coursed through her when Regina's reply came through a few minutes later.

You do have lovely manners, Miss Swan. You are very welcome, and you don't need to keep thanking me - believe me, I enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than you did.

It was a worrying indication of just what a sucker Emma was for affection: she read those two lines of text and felt herself go hot all over, sheer joy rising up inside her like she was being filled with warm water.

She glanced around the office, making sure no one could see the delighted smile that was curling around her lips, before placing her hands back over the keyboard. I consider myself a convert to seafood now. Maybe next time I'll even get to try the squid.

She sat back, waiting for the latest response, but nothing came. It barely took 10 minutes for the panic to set back in.

What a stupid fucking thing to say, she snapped at herself. You didn't even like the food that much. She thinks you're a liar. You don't want to try squid. You just tried to push a second date onto her. She thinks you're just talking to her for the free food. She's never going to reply again.

"Emma," a voice suddenly demanded from above her head, and she looked up. She could taste iron in her mouth from where she'd been biting at the inside of her cheek.

Ingrid was peering down at her. "Flowers?"

Emma looked over at them. Their glossy white petals seemed too clean against the rest of her desk.

After a long pause, she said, "They're from a PR firm."

Ingrid's look was deadpan and unimpressed. "Which PR firm is willing to send you a $95 bouquet from Scott's Flowers, exactly?"

"A really nice one?" Emma offered weakly.

Ingrid just rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whoever it is, keep them sweet. Do you have those invoices I asked for?"

"Right here," Emma said, handing over a stack of papers.

"Good. And call my mother to cancel lunch today. I don't have the energy for her right now, but I'd prefer it if you could think up a better excuse than that for me."

"Sure thing," Emma said, her hand already hovering over pre-dial four. Ingrid swept away, her dusky grey sweater clinging to her brittle frame. Emma waited until she was out of earshot before dealing with her mother.

She was just explaining that Ingrid had come down with a hideous cold when her inbox pinged. As soon as Emma saw Regina's name, she bit down on her tongue.

"Ow," she mumbled, pressing it against the roof of her mouth as the woman in her ear continued complaining about yet another cancelled lunch. "I know, Mrs White, I'm sorry. Your daughter sends her apologies too. No, she's not in the office today – she decided to stay at home."

She wanted to open the email, but she forced herself to wait until Ingrid's mother had stopped grumbling. When Emma had finally got her to agree to pencil in another date three weeks from now – one that Emma knew would also end up getting cancelled – she hung up, her tongue throbbing and her cursor already hovering over the message that was waiting for her.

Her breath caught as she read it. What's your cell number?

That was it. Emma scrolled down, hoping for more – maybe some reference to her stupid previous email so she would know Regina didn't hate her for it – but there was nothing else aside from the obnoxious art gallery signature.

She swallowed, typing out a one-word reply: Why?

She hoped it would make her sound just as casual as Regina, when in reality she knew she probably just sounded surly. Regardless, Regina replied once more after a few minutes: Because it would be convenient if I could contact you outside the hours of nine to five.

Emma dutifully replied with her phone number, then sat back and waited for Regina to return the favour with her own. She knew that seeing those 10 digits falling into her inbox like Lego pieces would feel something akin to winning a medal, and she waited for the prize that she was surely about to receive.

It never arrived, and the knot in Emma's chest didn't loosen for the rest of the day.

Emma didn't hear from Regina again all week. Every day when she got home from work, she collected the envelopes that were waiting for her on the hallway table, scrunched them up in her fist, then went straight up to her room so she could avoid Mary Margaret and David. As much as she loved them, their constant chuckling was really killing her emo vibe, and so she started locking herself away in her bedroom until they finally disappeared into theirs.

Sometimes the sight of the tulips cheered her up. Sometimes it did the opposite. Snowy and pristine, they were by far the prettiest thing in her otherwise bland bedroom, and most of the time looking at them brought a wash of calm over her body. She could lie on her bed and, turning her head to one side, just stare at them for hours. Other times, the very sight of them made her feel sick. They reminded her of the fact that Regina hadn't even chosen them, and hadn't bothered to call since she'd got someone else to send them for her.

On Saturday evening, Emma was sat on her bed with a whisky coke clutched in one hand. Her laptop had been open all day, because she'd promised herself that today would be the day she finally balanced her books. She promised herself this most weekends, and it never actually happened. Instead, she'd spent most of the day with a Word document open, slowly typing out the plan for the children's story she'd had rattling around in her head for a while.

Her phone rang, and she jumped three inches in the air. There was one person she hoped was calling, and many, many people she hoped weren't.

She looked at the screen and realised it was none of the above.

"Hey Elsa," she said, slotting the phone between her ear and her shoulder. She took a sip of her drink and kept typing. "Everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Elsa said. The line crackled, and Emma realised Elsa must be out. "Get changed and come meet me at Mulligan's."

Emma sighed. "I don't really feel like coming out tonight."

"You always say that. Then I persuade you to come anyway, and you end up having a great time. Come on – I'm meeting some people there in 30 minutes and I need you to support me."

"I don't have any money," Emma said. She was a bit hurt when Elsa laughed.

"What else is new?" she said. "Come on, Em. You've been in a shitty mood all week. You need to get out and stop stressing about the art lady."

"I'm not stressing," Emma said, squinting against her headache, which was definitely stress-induced. "I'm just busy."

"Emma," Elsa sighed, and the wheedling tone made Emma's resolve soften slightly. "First round's on me. Please?"

Emma groaned. She'd already had a drink, so she supposed going out for a few more wouldn't kill her. Besides, she was powerless to resist Elsa when she started pleading.

"Fine," she said. "But I'm not getting dressed up, and if you abandon me to start flirting with that greasy guitarist again, I'm leaving."

"Sounds fair. See you soon."

Elsa hung up without saying goodbye, and Emma dragged herself off of her bed.

Once Emma was crammed into a couch built for three people but holding five, she felt weirdly better. There was something therapeutic about ceasing to be mad about one thing and becoming mad about something else instead.

"I hate this place," she said as Elsa sat down next to her, shoving some guy Emma didn't know out of the way. "Why did you choose here?"

"Beer pitchers," Elsa said. Her white-blonde hair was piled up on top of her head in messy coil that put Emma's own curls to shame. At least three people were already watching her longingly. "No other reason needed."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Speaking of which, where's my drink?"

"Right here, ma'am," Elsa said, nudging a glass towards her. "Now cheer up a bit."

"I don't need cheering up. I'm fine."

"You're stewing," Elsa corrected her. "Stop worrying about Regina. She's either playing hard to get, or she's not worth the effort in the first place."

"I'm not worrying about her," Emma muttered into her glass. She didn't need to look round to see the look on Elsa's face.

"Come on, Em. You never get caught up with someone this soon," she said, treading lightly. "You didn't care this much about whether Killian called you when you first started dating."

"Regina and I aren't dating," Emma said. She bit out the words more loudly than she'd intended to, and the people sat on the couch next to her turned to stare. Slightly more quietly, she added, "Look, she just got in my head a bit. I'm trying to forget about her but it's hard."

Elsa just looked at her. "Who says you need to forget about her? She asked for your number – she wouldn't do that if she wasn't interested."

It was something Emma had been hopefully telling herself all week long, but past experience had told her not to cling onto stuff like that too hard. Expecting the worst made way more sense at this stage.

She shrugged, sipping her beer. "I guess. I'm just trying not to get my hopes up."

"Okay," Elsa said, leaning back and surveying the room. "In that case, let's find you someone sexy to fill the time. Who takes your fancy?"

Emma looked around at the room of sweaty twenty-somethings who were all desperately trying to appear relaxed in the 100 percent humidity.

"No one jumps out."

"Come on," Elsa sighed, pointing to a tall guy near the door. "What about him?"

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. "I'm pretty sure I already hooked up with him."

"Really? When?"

"Hard to say," Emma admitted. "I just recognise the broken nose."

Elsa laughed and said, "Alright. What about that group over there? Any takers?"

But Emma's eyes were still on the door, and she had gone quiet. Something had gripped her hard between the lungs.

Killian had sauntered in the room surrounded by a collection of similarly dressed wannabe-rockers, all wearing leather jackets in spite of the heat. His entire band was there, as well as their respective girlfriends, and Emma felt a pang of longing as she remembered being part of that group, no matter how much they'd all pissed her off at the time.

"Ignore him," Elsa hissed, following Emma's stricken gaze. "He's a dick, remember?"

"I know," Emma said quietly, slugging back half her beer. "Did you know he was going to be here?"

"Of course not. I thought he had a gig tonight."

"It probably got cancelled when word got out about how shit they are," Emma muttered. Elsa laughed, delighted that Emma was still capable of cracking a joke.

Killian looked around the room and then, spotting Emma, headed in her direction. Emma shrunk back against the cracked leather.

"Alright, Swan?" he asked, grabbing a stool and tugging it towards their low table. "It's rammed in here, mind if we join you?"

Emma blinked up at him. He sat down without waiting for a response and grabbed the jug of beer in front of him.

"Excuse me, asshole," Elsa snapped. "Did you pay for that?"

"No," he said, pouring himself a glass. "Did you?"

"Yes, I did, and it's not for you."

"Calm down, love. I'll buy the next one."

They knew for a fact that he wouldn't. Elsa rolled her eyes and looked over at Emma.

Swallowing down her residual embarrassment, Emma said, "Killian, seriously. You can't just help yourself."

"Jesus Christ, what's got into you two?" Killian demanded. His clique had gathered around him by this point, and all of them were sneering at Emma. She sighed, knowing exactly how his version of last week's events must have sounded.

"The last time I saw you it was my birthday, and you'd just dumped me and then stormed out on me," Emma pointed out coldly. "Excuse me for not rolling out the welcome wagon."

Killian snorted. "Still bitter, I see."

"Can you stop showing off just because you're in front of your minions?" Emma snapped. She heard the crack in her voice and fought through it. "You were a real asshole, and now you're acting like nothing happened."

Everyone within a five metre radius was paying attention now, and Emma found herself wishing she'd had more to drink. She reached out for the glass that Killian had just poured himself and snatched it away from him.

"This is mine," she said flatly. "And you can fuck off."

Elsa cackled. "You heard the girl."

Killian was just staring at her, his face clouding over. It was obvious he was wondering why he'd ever dated her in the first place.

Then one of the girls who had been hovering behind him – one Emma thought she hadn't met before, although it was hard to say because they all looked the same – slid a hand over his shoulders.

"Come on, baby," she said, her eyes glued to Emma. They were too big for her sharp face, and they glittered with a challenge. "She isn't worth it."

Emma glared up at the girl who was easily six years younger than her and felt the final unaffected part of her heart finally chip off.

"You're right," Killian drawled, standing up and deliberately knocking the table. The glasses nearest Emma sloshed over, splattering beer against her knees. "She's not."

He turned and wound his arm around the skinny girl's waist, guiding her across to the other side of the bar with his followers in tow. Emma watched them go with a pain plucking at her chest.

"Was that your ex?" the girl to her right asked. Emma leaned forwards and scooped up one of her two glasses.

"Yep," she replied, gulping down the rest of its contents in one go.

"He was a bit of a douchebag," the girl said, and Emma sighed, ready to agree with her. Then she added, "I like his accent, though."

"Sarah, shut up," Elsa snapped. Emma ignored them both, collecting her second drink and finishing that too.

"I'll go buy another pitcher," she said, getting to her wobbly feet.

"You don't have to do that," Elsa said, grabbing her hand. Emma pulled away.

"It's cool," she replied, unsurprised by how flat her voice sounded. She knew she was being reckless drinking so much already, but she felt hot and sad and she didn't care so much.

During the week, she carefully counted pennies and made her own lunches and ignored the pangs of hunger in her stomach so she could tell herself she was making a difference to the hellish situation she'd managed to get her bank account into. Then the weekend rolled around, and one drink turned into 10, and the soft buzz that she got from alcohol reminded her of how nice it was to feel slightly numb to the world. She forgot about the envelopes. She stopped caring about the phone calls.

She staggered to the bar and pulled out her bank card, reasoning that going another $15 into her overdraft hardly mattered at this stage anyway.

She knew the table of people behind her were all talking about her, and so she took her time in going back.

Staggering into the apartment at 4am, Emma cursed the loose rug that Mary Margaret had put in the hallway. She kicked it to one side and shut the front door behind her, hoping the noises just sounded so loud in her head because she'd drunk her bodyweight in liquor and so her brain wasn't functioning properly anymore.

She tiptoed up the stairs to her bedroom and closed the door. Then she sank to the floor.

Part of her hoped she would finally cry now, but it still didn't happen. She hadn't cried in years, not since she'd been a child saying goodbye to yet another foster family because she'd been too loud or too quiet or too messy or too closed off. Eventually crying got boring, and Emma had developed other coping mechanisms – ones that included falling to the bottom of a bottle and waking up feeling so, so much worse than before.

She stretched out her legs and considered the beer stains on her jeans. She wasn't entirely sure that they were from tonight.

Then she heard a buzzing sound, and she paused. Once she was sure she wasn't imagining it, she rummaged around in her jeans for her phone.

The screen showed a cell number that she didn't recognise, and she automatically hesitated. Debt collectors normally didn't call at this time, but that didn't mean there wasn't some other kind of bad news waiting at the other end of the line.

She swallowed through the taste of stale beer and answered with a rusty, "Hi?"

"Oh," the voice at the other end said. There was a long pause and a crackle before she heard, "Emma?"

"Yeah," she said, leaning her head back against the door. "Who's this?"

"It's Regina," the voice said, and Emma slapped her spare hand against the floor in surprise.

Automatically sitting upright like Regina would be able to see her and scold her for slouching, she stammered out, "Oh! Hi. Hey. You... you called."

There was another long pause, and when Regina spoke, her voice sounded strangely far away. "I did. I wasn't expecting you to pick up – isn't it very late where you are?"

Emma closed her eyes, regretting the last two bourbons more than ever. "It is – I kind of just got home."

Then she registered what Regina had just said, and she asked, "Where are you?"

"I'm in Tokyo," Regina said, because of course she was. Emma couldn't help but roll her eyes. "I've been here since Thursday."

"Is that why I haven't heard from you?" Emma asked, then groaned to herself when she realised how desperate she sounded.

But she could hear Regina's soft chuckle even through the crackly line. "I'm afraid so – it's not been a pleasant trip so far. I just got back to my hotel room after a particularly horrible business dinner."

"When do you come back?"

"Tomorrow, thankfully."

"Cool," Emma said. There was a thick fog in her head that half came from alcohol and half from Regina's voice automatically making Emma's thoughts go muddy, and she fought through it. "I've never been to Tokyo."

It was the stupidest fucking thing she could have said, because of course she hadn't been to Tokyo. But luckily Regina was already responding. "Really? You might like it. It's a wonderful city when you're not being force-fed sashimi by art dealers."

Emma laughed. "Is force-feeding part of the... the art dealer job description?"

"I never actually forced you to eat anything," Regina pointed out. "If I may say so, Miss Swan, you sound a bit drunk."

"Of course I'm a bit drunk," Emma said, glad that she only sounded 'a bit' rather than 'dangerously'. "What else would I have been doing until 4am?"

"Midnight mass?" Regina suggested.

"I don't think so."

"Ah, well then," Regina said. "I suppose drinking is the next best option. Did you have a nice night?"

Emma blinked. It was a weirdly friendly question, and she wasn't sure she'd heard her correctly.

"Did I have a nice night?"

"Yes, Emma – did you have fun?"

"I..." Emma stammered. The truth was no, absolutely not, but she didn't feel like that was the answer Regina was looking for. "It was fine. I didn't really want to go, but I was persuaded."

"Is that how you felt after our dinner date too?"

At once, Emma was spluttering, "No! Of course not. I really enjoyed it."

She could hear Regina laughing. "I was joking, Miss Swan. I was wondering if I could get another 'thank you' out of you."

Emma scowled even though there was no one there to see it. "That was a mean trick. Taking advantage of me in my drunken state."

"Now now," Regina said smoothly. "I would never take advantage of you in your drunken state. No matter how much you asked me to."

Emma paused. That sounded strangely like a sex joke, but she couldn't rely on her brain to be hearing things properly right then. Still, the thought of Regina taking advantage of her in any way at all made her go hot all over, and her head fell back against the door.

"Anyway," Regina suddenly said, her voice suddenly lighter. "I suppose I should let you get some sleep."

"I guess," Emma said slowly. She knew without a doubt that she wouldn't be sleeping any time soon.

"We'll speak again soon," Regina said, and yet again Emma noticed that it wasn't a question – it was a fact.

It was then that Emma realised she didn't know why Regina had called in the first place. She opened her mouth to ask, but there was a click. Without saying goodbye, Regina had gone.