But when she lifted her hand to reach for her coffee, the breath escaped his chest in a cold rush.
The stone on her left hand was small, but shone brilliantly and horribly, slashing all his hopes.
His throat turned dry and his chest pinched. But he went for humor, needing it as a shield from the reality. He held up his hand, as if the sun had robbed him of sight. “Whoa. I think your ring blinded me.”
Annalise cast her eyes down at it, as if she just realized she was wearing it. She fiddled with it for a second then folded her hands in her lap. Out of sight. “I received your letter. I’m…engaged.”
Two short sentences that punctured his lungs. It was something he should have prepared for. Something he knew was always a possibility. But his heart squeezed too tight, and he gasped for breath as nothing but hurt coursed through him. As quickly as it surged, though, he tried to shut it down. To remind himself that he’d been rolling the dice anyway when he sent the letter, and the dice had come up empty.
He inhaled deeply, let the air fill his lungs, then put on his best face. “Congratulations are in order, then. Who’s the lucky guy?” he asked, taking the knife and digging it around in his chest a little more, carving out some of that beating organ.
“His name is Julien. We work together. He’s…wonderful,” she said, her voice faltering, as if she were embarrassed to admit that.
“I’m glad to hear,” he said, and he was, in a way, because she deserved someone wonderful. He’d just once believed that someone would be him. He’d believed it a week ago, a day ago, a few minutes ago.
He was a foolish romantic.
But really, what had he expected? That after not talking or writing, he would send a letter, and they’d magically run into each other then start back up again like some romantic movie?
Well, the thought had been front and center of his mind for the last five minutes, sure. Because when you see the love of your life out of the blue in an airport, it feels like the stars are lining up for you.
Now, it felt like a cruel twist of fate.
He picked up his tea, took a drink, then set it down. They talked and caught up on each other’s lives. They discussed their jobs, and their families. She told him about Noelle’s life, and he told her that Ryan and he were working for Army Intelligence, that Colin was finishing up college, acing every class, and Shannon was slated to graduate soon, too, and was engaged to be married to her college sweetheart.
The ease with which they had always spoken about everything tugged at his heart, but it reminded him, too, of all that was lost.
Lost with her.
They wouldn’t have this again. This was all there was, and he shouldn’t feel so let down. He hadn’t expected to see her. He didn’t think he’d ever see her again in his whole life.
Tell that to his heart, though. It was beating overtime for her, like it had been reawakened and was wishing desperately that this was a new beginning rather than another end.
* * *
Dear Annalise,
I hope this letter finds its way to you safely, and that you are healthy and happy. It’s been so long, too long, since I heard your voice or read your handwriting. I miss both with a deep ache inside me, one that never subsided. In spite of the time that has passed, I haven’t stopped thinking of you, not once in all the years since we last spoke. I’m not exaggerating when I say a day hasn’t gone by when I don’t think of you with fondness, love, and desire, as much, if not more, than I felt before. It seems utterly small to say I hope you are well, but I do wish that for you and your family.
I’ve finished college now, and am grateful for the scholarship from the army that paid my way through school. Now it is my turn to give back, and I’m doing that, as it happens, in Europe. I’m working in army intelligence and I have just been stationed in Germany, of all places. It’s not France, of course, but it isn’t an ocean away, either. I am so much closer to you than I ever was before. Perhaps we can see each other again? Perhaps we can do more than see each other? Maybe even start over? I have always longed for you with everything in my heart. Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer, ma petite fraise, my Annalise.
With all of my love,
Michael
* * *
She wasn’t supposed to think he was handsome. She shouldn’t be lingering on the memory of how he kissed, how she felt in his arms, or just how damn good they had been together. No, she was in love with her fiancé.
She. Was. In. Love.
But as she sat across from Michael her heart beat furiously, crashing against her skin, fighting valiantly to escape her plans, her future, her pending marriage. She laced her fingers together under the table, and she swore she was on the verge of crushing bones in the effort to keep her hands in her lap, her butt in the seat, her lips to herself.
Some primal part of her was dying to lean across the table, hold his face in her hands, and kiss him like no time had passed.
She resisted with everything she had. She resisted those words he’d written—Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer. I have never stopped loving you.
Receiving that letter last week had been hard enough. Knowing how to respond was even tougher. Seeing him now was the most difficult part of all. Because as they talked, she slipped back into what they’d had in high school and that first year of college, and all that they’d been for each other.
All and everything.
She’d needed him to feel at home in America when she’d been alone, and he’d done more than that. He’d given her so much happiness. He’d needed her to survive the tragedy in his life, and she’d been there for him, even across the miles. She had thought she would marry him. She thought she’d be with him forever. And she hated that it had been too hard to stay together when they were young and so dependent on their families.
Now they were older and could find a way, and that was what he’d been trying to do when he sent that letter.
Except…. She toyed with the ring on her finger.
Her heart climbed into her throat, lodging itself there. She wanted to cry, and she wanted him, and she wanted to not want him.
She was happy, and she would always be happy with Julien. She just wished seeing Michael wasn’t so damn tempting.
And easy.
And good.
Soon enough, the clock ticked closer to boarding time. He walked her to her gate, and each step was a door closing, each second the final turn of the pages in a book. At her gate, they stopped, and unsaid words clung to the air like fog.
There was so much to say, and yet nothing that could be spoken. This was the last good-bye.
She swallowed her tears and choked back her emotions. “It was so good seeing you,” she said, and wished her words didn’t feel so inadequate.
He nodded. “And you.”
I’ll miss you. I’ll think of you. I can’t think of you. I won’t miss you. You have to understand how hard this is.
He moved first, raising his arms, and she practically fell into his embrace then lingered for a few more seconds, breathing in his scent one last time before she pulled away.
Remaining faithful. Staying true. Vowing to march forward and love her husband-to-be with everything she had.
Damn the past. The past was not her future. She wouldn’t look back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The jeans were gone. Mercifully.
In their place she wore a short green dress that hugged her fantastic body, showing off her breasts, her small waist, and those long, endless legs.
At the table in the far corner of restaurant that Brent’s brother had recommended, Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. Ask him a month ago if he’d be having sushi dinner in the Village, listening to Annalise tell stories about her sister, and he’d have said no fucking way. She was nothing but a mirage, a sepia-tinted photograph of days gone by. Now, she was eating a salmon roll, and he was having the best time. They weren’t staying at the same hotel, so he’d picked her u
p at hers, the breath knocked clear out of his lungs when she’d answered the door.
In that dress.
And heels.
And, very likely, no panties.
But as much as he wanted her right then and there, he craved the anticipation, too. He was a patient man, and he wanted to take her out to dinner. To savor every moment from picking her up to walking to the restaurant to enjoying the meal. It was so simple, but this was what he’d dreamed of having with her. A freedom that wasn’t possible when they were kids, and now it was all theirs. No curfews, no rules, no regulations. A real date with this woman, and as the evening unfurled, a new sensation spread through him, a freedom from care he hadn’t felt in years. An ease.
“One time when I was helping out at Noelle’s bakery, an American woman came to the counter, and she tried so hard to speak in French,” Annalise said with a smile, continuing her tale of working with her sister from time to time.
“I bet you hate when they do that.”
She clasped her hand to her chest. “Me? No. Why would you say that?”
“Doesn’t it make the French people crazy when we try to speak French?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Then a guilty little grin appeared on her face. “Only if it’s very bad French.”
He laughed as he picked up a yellowtail slice and swirled it in soy sauce. “Was her French very bad? Tell the truth.”
She held up her thumb and index finger. “Only a little. It wasn’t good, but she tried, so she got credit for that. She said she wanted un yaourt abricot, but she pronounced yaourt like tarte.”
“In her defense, yogurt is one of the hardest French words to say.”
She gave him a curious look. “You know yaourt is yogurt?”
“You taught me some French words,” he said, then popped the sushi in his mouth.
“Did I teach you yaourt?”
He nodded as he finished chewing. “Isn’t yogurt an important word to know?”
She set down her chopsticks, crossed her arms, and fixed him with a stare. “I taught you words like kiss, and come, and fuck. I did not teach you yogurt.”
“Must have picked it up on my own then when I was in France. I spent a few weekends there.”
Something dark passed through her eyes. “I remember,” she said, sadness coloring her tone. She reached for his hand. “I remember seeing you at the airport.”
He straightened. “You do?”
“Of course. How would I ever forget?”
He shrugged, wincing. The memory still hurt. He hadn’t forgotten a single detail.
“I remember everything about it,” she said softly but confidently. Her bright green eyes held his captive, never looking away. “I remember the way your hair was shorter, how you looked at me in the gift shop, then the hurt in your eyes when you saw my ring. You have to know I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know,” he choked out, and the memory of that day slid in front of him, in all its hope and heartbreak.
“I hated feeling like I broke your heart, but I had no idea you were going to send me that letter,” she said, and her voice sounded like she was shattering now, too.
“Of course you didn’t know.”
“I opened it with nervous fingers. Part of me hoped it would say all that it did say, but I also hated myself for wanting that. Michael, I loved my husband.” She inhaled deeply, as if she needed the air to fuel her. “I loved Julien with all my heart. And though I had loved you that desperately too, you were the past. The most beautiful, wonderful part of it, but still the past. Then you sent me that note, and I was already with him, and I felt torn to pieces,” she said, pressing a fist to her heart.
“I didn’t want to make you feel that way.” A fresh wave of guilt crashed into him. He should have tried to research her relationship status, but that was hard to do a decade ago. He’d simply sent the letter to the last address he’d had for her.
“You didn’t make me feel that way. My damn heart did. I thought about you every day in college. I missed you every day. Getting over you was near impossible, but I was finally doing it. Living my life. We tried so hard to be together, but the fates were against us. We were too young. We only moved on because we had no other choice. And then you blasted back into my life with this letter that was a thing of beauty, and I was unprepared for how much your words would stir up my feelings of all that we’d had.”
He shook his head, his throat hitching. He hadn’t thought about how his words might have wounded her. “I didn’t mean to mess with your head.”
She reached for his hand and ran her fingers across his palm. Her touch was comforting and maddening. Because it felt right, and like the only touch he’d ever want.
“You didn’t,” she said, stroking his hand. “Not at all. I just want you to know it wasn’t easy to get over you the first time, and it was gut-wrenching to let you walk away in Marseilles. But I had a fiancé and what kind of wife would I be if I even let myself linger or wonder about what could have been with my first love?”
He swallowed thickly, unsure how to answer, or if it was even necessary. His whole life since then had been spent lingering on his first love. He remained silent.
“If I was like that, if I had entertained anything more than a passing notion of you, I would have been the worst wife. When I boarded my flight that day, I had to shut my heart and mind to you and give it thoroughly to Julien.” Her eyes welled with the threat of tears. A waiter walked by, balancing rectangular plates of sushi.
“And you did,” he said, and he understood deeply why she’d had to do that.
“I did,” she said, then took a drink of her water. “And I regret nothing.”
“Regret is a terrible feeling. But I’ve got to know,” he said, clasping her hand tighter now, needing her answer, “why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to know that I was faithful. Always. That I am a faithful person. And I told you that you’re the first man I’ve been with since he died, but you’re also the only man I’ve even thought about. I let go of you years ago because I had to, and then when I was finally able to think about this again,” she said, gesturing from him to her, “you were the only one who even came to mind. The only one I could even imagine sharing anything with.”
The only one.
A rush of heat flooded him at those three words. He wanted to be the only one for her, even if he was only able to have her for a small moment in time. He would take what he could get, and he would savor it. She was here right now, with him and no one else.
“You have no idea how glad I am that I’m the one you thought of, Annalise,” he whispered.
A smile tugged at her lips.
Then, he went for it. Just fucking let it all out. A hope, a wish, a what if question. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened that day if you weren’t engaged? If you’d never have met him?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think about it. I don’t have to wonder,” she said, her tone steady and certain as she looked straight at him, the rest of the restaurant fading into a blur. “Because I know what would have happened.”
His hands shook and his heart stuttered as he rasped out, “What would have happened?”
She leaned in closer, placing a hand on his cheek. “I’d have stolen you. Taken you away from the army. Brought you home with me to Paris. Kept you all for myself for all the years and made up for lost time,” she said, and his heart beat furiously, slamming against his chest, loving those words.
“Stop saying those things,” he whispered, shaking his head.
“What things?”
“Things that make this harder for me.”
“Why is it hard for you?”
He drew a breath. “Because you say things like that and it makes me want to steal you away. Maybe this is my only chance.”
“What if it is?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? What if this night, this trip, these hours were all they’
d have? He didn’t know if he could risk putting any more of his heart on the line for her. One thing was certain—his original notion that one touch and she’d be out of his system was well and truly gone. “Then we make the most of it.”
She nodded. “We are making the most of it. Right now.”
Before he tumbled into the land of no return with her, before he gave her every part of his heart and soul, he cleared his throat, returning to simpler matters. “Are you ever going to tell me about the yogurt?”
She laughed, her head leaning back, her long elegant neck exposed. “She couldn’t pronounce yaourt, so it came out like tarte, and we gave her an apricot tarte. She seemed quite happy about that.” She picked up her chopsticks and grabbed a piece of sushi as the patrons at a nearby table raised their sake glasses in a toast to a new deal. So odd that a business dinner was transpiring at the same time that they were discussing love, fidelity, and possibilities.
And yogurt.
He laughed softly. “A tarte sounds better than yogurt.”
“My sister’s bakery makes the best apricot tartes. Come to Paris sometime and find out.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Come to Paris for a tarte?”
She jutted up a shoulder. “Or more.”
“Like what? What else should I have with the tarte?”
She set down her chopsticks, the sushi untouched, then tilted her head and murmured, “Me. You should have me.”
His blood heated, and his head swam with dirty thoughts. This meal seemed wholly unnecessary. He had no more interest in fish and rice. He could subsist on her, on this talking, these confessions, and these touches that promised what was to come.
He was ready to call for the check, but the waitress was nowhere to be seen. He glanced around, then tossed his napkin, stood up, and reached for her hand.
She rose, not even asking a single question. He led her past a table, around the corner, down the hallway. He knocked on the door of one of the restrooms. No one answered, so he turned the knob, pulled her inside, and locked the door.
Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4) Page 13