“May I help you?”
The even-toned, sweet-sounding voice jarred me because it was so normal. How could anyone feel fine in this moment? I felt the opposite of fine. I felt a mixed-up, jumbled mess of emotions that boiled down to two warring ones—a fervent wish that this meeting would not be a repeat of the one at the airport in Marseilles, and the hope that all my ex-girlfriends were incorrect in their diagnosis of my heart trouble.
I was not hung up on her. No matter what they had said to the contrary.
The hostess in her trim gray suit cocked her head, waiting for an answer.
“I’m looking for . . . someone,” I said, my voice gravelly, as if words were new to me.
“Would you like to have a look around and see if . . .” She trailed off, letting me fill in the blank.
“Yeah. I’ll take a look.”
The pianist in the bar tapped out an old Cole Porter song. I turned the corner, scanning the lounge-style seating for a tall, willowy woman.
Briefly, I wondered if I’d recognize her. I’d first known her when we were teenagers, then I saw her again at age twenty-four in Marseilles. That was ten years ago, and surely I didn’t look the same. I had crinkles at the corners of my blue eyes, and my hair, inexplicably, had darkened. My sister, Shannon, joked that it was turning black, like my heart.
I was also sturdier than I had been before. My shoulders were broader, my arms more defined. At twenty-four, I’d been in the Army, working in intelligence; now, I was a twice-daily fixture at the gym and had the bigger muscles to show for it.
But whether Annalise Delacroix had dyed her hair or shaved it all off, I was pretty confident I’d find her easily without having seen a photo of her recently. I hadn’t stalked her on social media, but I had researched the most important detail before I’d emailed her back.
I’d found the obituary.
The one that gave me permission to have a cup of coffee. I shuddered. I still didn’t like coffee. But coffee was the only path to her. Follow the road map, turn this corner, and see the first woman I’d ever loved. It had taken me forever to fall out of love with her, but I was there. I was absolutely there. That’s what I told myself.
My eyes roamed over the crowd at the upscale establishment until I spotted auburn hair swept high in a twist, long elegant fingers, and the cut of her jawline. Her black top had sloped down one shoulder, revealing soft flesh, and her right collarbone was exposed.
My heart thundered, and my blood roared.
Trying desperately to tamp down the riot inside me, I inhaled, exhaled, then walked the final feet to reach her. Her back was to me. When I arrived at the sofa where she was seated, she turned fully, and her green eyes lit up.
Gorgeous green eyes, like gems.
Carved cheekbones.
Lips so red and lush.
She held a cup of espresso and had just brought it to her lips.
That lucky fucking mug.
She finished the gulp and laughed lightly. “Some habits never change.”
Truer words . . .
2
Annalise
I hadn’t been to Las Vegas since I was a foreign exchange student during my junior year of high school, living with a host family and perfecting my English on American soil.
Odd, in some ways, that my job hadn’t brought me back to this town even once in all these years—but perhaps that wasn’t so strange, considering business was plentiful in Europe. For now, for a few days at least, business was here, and so was the man I’d fallen madly in love with as that young foreign exchange student.
He was more handsome than ever.
Imagine that.
The prettiest boy in America was now the sexiest man I’d laid eyes on in a long, long time. But lusty admiration wasn’t all I felt as I drank in the sight of Michael Sloan. A myriad of emotions I wasn’t prepared for swam through me—regret, loneliness, wistfulness, topped with excitement.
I zeroed in on that one, shoving all the others aside.
Setting down the cup, I stood and dusted a barely-there kiss on his right cheek. His five-o’clock shadow stubble—even though it was only one o’clock on a Sunday—scratched me in a whiskery, sandpaper way. As he then pressed a kiss to my left cheek, the slightest whoosh of air escaped his lips.
Lips I’d known well. Lips I had spent years wanting to touch again.
“Cheek kisses. You haven’t forgotten how the French do it.” I sounded breathless, even to my own ears. And I no longer sounded French since I spoke now without an accent. That had been a purposeful decision long ago.
“How could I forget? And you haven’t forgotten your American accent.” He said it lightly, as if he was talking only about the kisses, but there was so much more I hadn’t forgotten. Was it that way for him too?
“It’s stayed with me. You look . . .” I let my voice trail off as a lump rose in my throat, and that storm of emotions stirred up again, churning inside. It wasn’t his looks that had knocked the wind out of me. Though, seriously, there was nothing whatsoever to complain about in that regard, as I surveyed him in his black pants and crisp gray shirt, taking in his trim waist, strong shoulders, and tall frame. Nor was it his dark black hair, his cool blue eyes, or the cut of his jaw.
The tumult was courtesy of the past, hurtling itself headfirst into my present. I hadn’t expected to be walloped by the mere sight of him. I swallowed harshly, trying to dislodge a hitch, wanting to feel some semblance of cool and calm. My shoulders rose and fell, and I tried desperately to breathe in such a way that didn’t require me to relearn how to take in oxygen. I dug my black stilettos into the plush carpet, seeking purchase as I attempted to reconnect with my ability to form words.
“You look good,” I said, the understatement of the year. Wait. Make that a lifetime.
“And you look . . . lovely.”
Lovely.
That was so him.
He’d never been one for hot, smoking, gorgeous, babe, or any of those sayings of the moment. There was something in him that spiraled deeper and leaned on words that had more heft. Like lovely.
I should have scripted this rendezvous. Wrote out talking points. But now I didn’t know which direction in the conversational path to turn, so I went for the obvious.
“We finally made it to the Bellagio,” I said, gesturing to the crowds clicking by outside the bar. God, this was hard. How do you just have a drink with someone you once thought you’d marry? Someone who was your everything? I’d been his rock; he’d been my hope.
“We finally did,” he echoed.
It had only taken eighteen years, an ocean, countless letters, two broken hearts, and a lengthy online search for him, which had taken time and research, since he’d changed his name and was absent from social media.
But here we were. The Bellagio was the symbol of all our promises. Young, foolish, and wildly in love, we’d always said we’d come here for a drink someday.
A promise to reunite. One of many promises we’d made.
Some kept.
Some impossible to keep.
“Join me. S’il vous plaît.” I patted the back of the sofa as I sat down again.
“Merci.” He took a seat next to me, and at last I felt like I could breathe. My warring emotions settled, and now I was simply in the company of this man. Someone I’d been thinking about more and more lately.