Zach was honoring her request.

Aside from the occasional sound of the water turning on or off, there was no other indication that he was sharing the house with her. From her cozy nest on the deck in the sunshine, she could see his SUV still parked in the driveway, so she assumed he was at work in the basement recording room. He hadn’t resurfaced. Not once in two days. The only evidence of his actual presence was a neatly washed glass beside the kitchen sink on Sunday morning, drying in the sunlight on a piece of paper towel. It wouldn’t have been hard to believe she was entirely alone . . . if she wasn’t totally distracted by the fact that she wasn’t.

Honestly, it was killing her. Knowing he was somewhere in that big house with her, but not actually seeing him, was making it impossible to think about anything else but him. All day yesterday and now today, while she was supposed to be working on Us After We, she thought about Zach instead. She remembered details of their friendship at Yale and of their passionate weekend together. She touched her lips with her fingers, sinking into the fire his kisses had ignited in her. She turned his words over and over again in her head:

Where we left off is the biggest regret of my life . . . This is fate . . . We were never just friends . . . And of course, the words that made her whole body quiver which she coupled with the toe-curling sensation of his toned body lying on top of hers…Violet-like-the-flower, I want you so bad.

Even now, that last bit made her breath hitch. Oh, yeah. Even though it should be totally ridiculous to contemplate after an absence of nine years, she wanted him just as badly as she had back at Yale. After two scorching kisses that were unequaled in her life, even with him, she was so turned-on, she’d tossed and turned in bed for the last two nights, waking up hot and bothered and immensely frustrated. Her body throbbed for him, wired and taut, jumping at every noise, hoping he’d suddenly appear before her. Want him? Want seemed like a hopelessly weak word for the way her body was reacting—it had essentially been woken up after almost a decade-long hibernation.

Hearing a noise from inside, she glanced up at the kitchen window, disappointed that it was a branch tapping against the glass, not Zach trying to get her attention. She huffed quietly as her body tried unsuccessfully to relax, the muscles deep inside unclenching as she took a ragged breath. Her laptop sat waiting in her lap, cursor blinking accusingly, but she snapped it shut for a moment and leaned back in the easy chair she’d dragged out from the porch. Closing her eyes, she listened to the light lapping of waves in the harbor, wishing she could get a handle on her thoughts and feelings.

As a child and teenager, Violet had been an impetuous, free-spirited girl. The sort of person who would kiss when she felt love and cry when she felt sorrow, rage when she felt anger and celebrate when she felt joy. Her mother had encouraged and validated all of her emotions, declaring that Violet—that all human beings—couldn’t help the way they felt and shouldn’t be ashamed of their feelings. So she hadn’t been. She had been passionate, brave, and present—until the day Zach Aubrey turned his back on her, disregarding her feelings and rejecting her emotions. The depths of her despair and humiliation had hurtled her headlong into safer territory, into the arms of someone who cared for her but who would never love her passionately nor incite passion in her heart. Shep made her laugh politely but never made her cry with laughter. He never made her cry at all. In fact, he made her feel very little, barely grazing her injured heart, which, ultimately, felt . . . safe. Zach Aubrey, on the other hand, had always made her feel alive, feel vibrant, but she knew full well the dangers he offered her heart.

She opened her eyes and her laptop, shifting in her seat to sit up straighter.

With Zach crowding her head, Violet was getting nothing done. Her book, contracted for 100,000 words, was only 11,000 words long, and none of them were very good. As follow-up novels went, she was pretty sure this one would be critically panned, and she’d be outed as a one-hit wonder. A one-quasi-hit wonder, depending on whether thirty-sixth on the USA Today Bestseller List even counted as a hit.

If she had to return her advance and pay a penalty for defaulting on her contract, she’d have to dip into the savings she’d been living on since Shep died. She’d definitely have to give up the apartment she and Shep had shared in Greenwich and move into something smaller and more affordable, maybe in Stamford, the adjoining town. If she had to move to Stamford, she may as well consider Brooklyn, where so many authors lived, although she wasn’t even sure she wanted to continue writing chick lit. What would she do instead? Write something in a totally new genre? Give up writing entirely and teach? Edit? She gazed out at the harbor, wishing any of the alternatives sounded as good as, or better, than finishing the book before her.

She was relieved by the distraction of her phone buzzing in her pocket. She wiggled forward to pull it out from under the blanket and smiled. It was Sophie.

Sophie was not only Violet’s best friend, but her most treasured writing partner and beta reader, the person who’d been, at least partially, responsible for helping her shape Me and Then You into its final, critically-acclaimed version.

“Soph?”

“Vi! How’s Maine? I didn’t know if you’d have a signal! How’s the house? How was the drive? What’s the weather like up there?”

Violet laughed. Sophie always asked a hundred questions at once. “Okay. I do right now, it comes and goes. Huge and gorgeous. Long but worth it. And sunny.”

“So? You getting a lot done? Is the book chugging along?”

Violet glanced at the screen. “No. It’s not. I have the worst writer’s block of my life. I just . . . Soph, how much do you remember about my inspiration for Me and Then You?”

“Are we talking about Nash in your book? The jerk you went to college with who took your virginity and promptly dumped you? The guy who broke your heart? The asshole musician? Um, a fair amount.”

“He’s here.”

“What the—what?”

“Zach Aubrey. The guy. The jerk. He’s here.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t be understanding you correctly. You cried on my couch for months as you wrote that book, reliving memories, remembering the tiniest details about your time with him. It practically ripped your heart out of your chest to tell that story. For God’s sake, Violet, when did you get back in touch with him? And why the hell would you go away with him?”

“No! Oh, Sophie! No, it wasn’t planned. I mean, this woman I knew in the Junior League said I could use the house, but it turns out it really belongs to her ex-husband, who’s a business associate of Zach’s, and he was told he could use it too.”

“Well, that’s a freakish coincidence.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So which one of you is staying in a hotel?”

Violet cringed, staring out at the harbor, trying to figure out how to respond.

“Violet! Are you at a hotel, or is he?”

“Um. Neither of us?”

“Ahhh,” Sophie sighed until her voice was just breath at the end. “Whoa. So, you’re—”

“No! No, we’re not . . . we’re not doing anything. I haven’t seen him all day. I haven’t seen him since Friday. We’re just . . . I mean, we’re not doing . . .”

“Violet. Open your eyes and smell the lust, sister. There’s only one reason you stayed.”

“That is not true, Sophie. I had nowhere else to stay.”

“Your mom’s only a couple of hours away!”

“Try three.”

“Well, three then. Three isn’t much when you’re trying to get away from the guy who broke your heart and totally humiliated you. Unless getting away isn’t the plan.”

Violet took a deep breath. “I don’t know what the plan is.”

“What?! What? I’m about to have a heart attack. Say that again. You don’t know what the plan is? Am I talking to Violet Smith? Military-style-punctuality, no-hair-out-of-place, life-planned-to-the-minute Violet Smith?”

“Give me a break. I’m winging it.”

“Since when do you wing things?”

Since Zach Aubrey showed up at my house rental making me feel things I haven’t felt in a hundred years.

“I have a reservation at a local inn. For Tuesday.”

“Huh,” Sophie said. “It’s only Sunday.”

“I’m well aware.”

“You could do a lot of damage to each other’s bodies by Tuesday.”

Violet rolled her eyes. Sophie was a romance writer, and she lived for writing the sex scenes. Then again, Violet thought of how it felt when Zach had fallen on top of her and she rubbed her thighs together feeling hot. Damage. Bodies.

Damage. Heart.

“That’s not going to happen,” said Violet.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. This guy was the one, Vi. Your words, not mine. Over a bottle of wine. Most of which you consumed single-handedly. And I quote”—Sophie’s voice took on a low, drunken, wobbly quality, and Violet rolled her eyes—“‘I’d do anything to love Shep like I loved him.’ Ring a bell, Vi?”

“A vague, soused bell,” Violet answered, as a wave of guilt broke over her.

“That was a year and a half ago. You were still in love with him then.”

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Violet said, pulling the blanket over her chest as a cool breeze blew in off the harbor.

“Really.”

“Really! For heaven’s sake. I was with Shep.” She paused, the lie leaving a bad taste in her mouth, even as she soldiered on. “I just . . . I have strong memories of our time together.”

“Strong mem— Okay. Truth, Vi?”

Violet wished she had a shot of that Scotch. “Okay.”

“You’ve got unfinished business with Nash—er, Zach. Lots and lots of delicious, unfinished business. And I think this is fate’s way of giving you closure with him. Tie up those loose ends so they don’t haunt you. Give things a chance or say good-bye to him in a way you can live with.”

Only, saying good-bye to Zach sounded awful to Violet. Not just plain awful. Desperate-and-horrible awful.

“What if I don’t want to say good-bye to him?” Violet cringed as she said the words, covering her eyes with her fingers.

“I knew it!” said Sophie in a passionate hiss, then clearly into the phone, playing devil’s advocate, “But he hurt you.”

“He said he regretted it. He said it’s the biggest regret of his life.”

“Right before he kissed you, right?”

Violet heard the sarcastic edge in Sophie’s voice, but she was so surprised by the words, she didn’t scoff at the suggestion. She just sat there dumbfounded, recent memories of their kisses making her cheeks hot.

“Oh, Violet! You didn’t!”

“I didn’t mean to. And then the second time, I said that he’d have a reaction in his groin, and he took it the wrong way, and suddenly he was kissing me again.”

Silence.

“Soph? You still there? Can you hear me?”

“I heard groin. And you’ve got two more days before you go to the inn.” The way Sophie said inn, Violet knew she’d used air quotes around it. “You’ve got it bad, Vi. You’ve always had it bad for this guy. You know that, right?”

Violet shook her head back and forth at the mess her life had become in record time. Three days into her writer’s retreat and not a word to show for it. A thousand dollars buying Lena Lewis margaritas in Cabo. About to default on her contract. About to lose her home. And, of course, the sudden reappearance of Zach Aubrey.

“I can’t help it,” she whispered. “Sophie, it’s like I’m crashing into him all over again.”

“Listen, you know I liked Shep. He was a good man, but I always teased you that Veronica belonged with Nash, not Shane. If for no other reason, because she loved Nash more. The problem with Nash, however, was that he didn’t love Veronica enough. Nowhere near enough. So, you tell me: has that changed?”

“He read my book,” she said softly.

“That’s sort of sweet, but it’s not enough,” said Sophie. “Where’s he been for nine years?”

“He said that the way we left things was the biggest regret of his life.”

“So he wants absolution?”

Violet thought about the possessive way he’d held her against his body as he kissed her. The way his voice had sounded, drugged and deep, when he told her he wanted her.

“No. I don’t think this is just about forgiveness.”

“Is it just about sex? You’re there. He’s there. You’ve got old feelings.”

Violet swallowed, pondering the question, and hated it that she couldn’t answer.

“Vi, seems to me you have a decision to make. And it involves a big risk. And you don’t really do big risks.”

“I do!”

“I’m not talking about ordering a gin and tonic instead of merlot. This is real, Vi. This could break your heart again.” She paused. “Then again, it could be exactly what you need. I’m not trying to be mean, but you’re stuck. You live with a ghost. You can’t finish your book because you’re trying to write a future that never happened—a happily-ever-after that might not have happened with Shep even if he’d lived.” Another pause as she got worked up. “Vi, I’m not sure marrying him would have been the right choice for you. I kept that opinion to myself at the time, but it’s been over a year now, and that’s the truth. That’s how I felt. But it’s like you were so certain you would end up a suburban housewife—Mrs. Shepherd Smalley—that you adopted the mantle before it ever even happened, and now you’re sort of stuck there. You’re stuck being Mrs. Shepherd Smalley, when that’s never going to happen. You’re like Miss Havisham. You know, in Great Expectations. Only updated. Younger and cuter. And not as mothbally.”

“Sophie!” Violet struggled to take a deep breath, but her diaphragm wouldn’t fill. It was a little too much truth all at once.

“Okay. You’re not Miss Havisham yet. But you’re on your way.”

“Thanks,” said Violet, a sobby giggle escaping as she swiped her hand under her eyes. When had she started crying?

“Aw, don’t cry, Vi. Don’t you want love?”

Don’t you want love?

Good question.

She’d really only known romantic love once in her life. And it wasn’t with Shep. The only time she’d been in love, it had been a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking experience. She couldn’t honestly say she was eager to re-experience it. And yet, she’d had a glimpse of what it could be like with Zach that lost weekend at Yale. How complete she would have felt, how whole. Whenever she rewrote their final farewell in her head and heard him say, “I love you too,” she’d shudder with longing before sternly reminding herself that it wasn’t, in fact, how things had turned out.

“So you’re saying I should go for Zach.”

“No! I’m not saying that. I am not advocating that you jump back into bed with a hot musician who broke your heart and regrets it ten years later.”

“How do you know he’s hot?”

“I can hear it in your voice. He’s hot. Admit it.”

Scorching.

“Fine. Don’t. I know he’s hot.” Sophie laughed when Violet didn’t answer. “I’m not saying to jump into anything. Definitely not into bed. That’s a great way to confuse everything. No, Vi. Here’s what I’m saying: sometimes life offers you something unexpected, and when it does, you have a responsibility to explore it.”

“I am. I . . . I will,” said Violet. If he ever comes out of hiding.

She brushed more tears from her face, feeling grateful beyond measure for her friend.

“If nothing else,” Sophie added, and Violet could hear the easy humor infusing her voice. “Consider it research. It’ll make a hell of a book.”

“An unexpected sequel to Me and Then You,” said Violet in a shaky voice, chased with an uneasy giggle.

“What does he play? Guitar? I have to say it: I bet a hot guitarist screwing your brains out would do a number on your writer’s block too.”

Violet gasped, then burst into giggles. “Sophie!”

“I’m just sayin’! I bet something would get unclogged pretty quick.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sophie said, giggling like a seventh-grade girl watching a cute boy from across the library with her best friend. “But you’ve been pretty lonely since Shep. I mean, you never banged Garreth from the club, did you?”

“N-no! Ew!”

“So, it’s been a mighty long time since you played hide-the-salami. I mean, unless you’ve been holding out on me?”

“Sophie!”

“Think of it this way: if you have to pop your cherry a second time, you could do worse than the guy who did a decent job the first time.”

“Sophie!” Violet exclaimed again, wiping the last remnants of wetness from her cheeks. All her tears were gone in the face of Sophie’s teasing. “Tell me how Hugh and the kids are doing. Less me, more you!”

They spoke for a few more minutes. Sophie, who lived in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband and two small children, was working on a book of steamy short stories and had finally gotten a request for her work from an agent she’d been pursuing. Violet celebrated her good news with a squeal of delight, promising to call later in the week.

“Hey, Vi,” said Sophie, right before they hung up, her voice uncharacteristically soft and serious. “You’ve loved him for a long time. Don’t overthink it.”

Violet swallowed the lump that reappeared in her throat.

“Good luck.”

Violet put the phone back in her pocket and took a deep breath. Sophie, as usual, after all the giggling and heckling, was simple and elegant in her summation.

You’ve loved him for a long time.

Somewhere deep inside, Violet knew Sophie was right, even though common sense insisted that too much time had passed since she had loved Zach Aubrey. She knew so little about the man he’d become. Maybe the flurry of feelings that confused her had little do to with real love and lots to do with remembering the way she’d felt for him so long ago. Coupled with a few steamy kisses, it was enough to make anyone lose her head a little.

But how much more of her head was she willing to lose? The old Violet, the College Violet she’d been long ago, would have leaned into these confusing feelings, would have told her to take a chance on Zach and explore this second chance. But that impetuous Violet had learned about heartache the hard way, had, in fact, been crushed to bits by baring her heart to him, had evolved into the person she was today: careful, cautious, wary.

Is that who she wanted to be? Emotionless and pragmatic, tamping down her natural instincts to embrace messy, chaotic life? She’d only meant to heal and protect herself, not change entirely. And yet she had. She had become someone else, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure that she liked Greenwich Violet very much. It was like wearing a coat that didn’t fit quite right for too long. Maybe it was time to find a better fit.

***

Zach almost threw the guitar across the room in frustration. He’d been at it for five hours, but it was all the most excremental, banal shit. It wasn’t that he didn’t have ideas: the entire outline for Phenomenon was finished—the placement of various solos, duets, and choral numbers. For most of his adult life, he’d been gearing up to orchestrate a big piece of music like this, but now that he’d carved out the time and space, he couldn’t make the music work.

He heard her feet on the floor upstairs when she moved from room to room. He heard the engine of her car when she left yesterday and felt palpable relief when he heard her return an hour later. He was desperate not to alienate her further, but he didn’t trust himself to be around her and keep his hands to himself. So he’d hidden away in John’s masterpiece of a studio.

Kudos to John and his good taste. It was fucking beautiful. There were several guitars to choose from, and he had the choice of working in a proper recording studio or a sensual, white leather writing room. It should have inspired something. Anything. But it didn’t. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the fact that Violet Smith was upstairs, and his body wouldn’t let his mind concentrate on anything but being closer to her.

Since Zach had started writing music for Cornerstone and frequently touring as an alternate guitarist for various bands under contract, he’d had no shortage of women in his life. Groupies aiming to sleep with a band member were just as happy to sleep with him once he stepped offstage, and while he wasn’t as much of a man-whore as the other musicians he knew, Zach certainly got laid regularly.

But the reality was that he hadn’t made love to anyone since Violet, because in his mind there was Violet, and then there was everyone else. It wasn’t like he wanted to be ruined for love, but no one compared to her, and he couldn’t fabricate the sort of intense love and admiration he’d felt for her with anyone else. No one else knew him when he was a scrawnier, more awkward version of himself and loved him all the same. No one else wrote poetry that blew his mind, forcing him to meet her talent with his own. No one else had held his virgin body against hers as she had, with her heart beating in perfect rhythmic time to his. No one else, simply, was Violet. And he’d pretty much decided that if he couldn’t have Violet, he’d have occasional meaningless recreational sex and mutually-beneficial flings that went nowhere. It’s what he’d settled for. It’s what he’d inadvertently agreed to when he’d pushed her away and into Shep Smalley’s arms. It was for the best.

But now here she was, back in his life. Marginally, but back. And his Frankenstein heart, which had been dead for so many years, was suddenly alive, keening with want for her. Unless she recued it, his vulnerable heart would be left to bleed for the rest of his miserable life.

He took a deep breath, looking at the guitar in his hands and got up from the white couch. There was no point in trying to write anymore. He knew she didn’t want to see him, but he needed to see her.

She was the girl. The only girl. Ever. Nothing good could come from a life spent without her—he’d learned that the hard way. He’d do anything not to lose her again.

He set the guitar gently in the corner of the room and took the stairs two at a time. Fuck music. Fuck operas. Fuck her wanting nothing to do with him. Fuck everything else in life because only one thing mattered right now:

If he was going to keep her in his life this time, first he had to convince her to stay.

***

Me and Then You had come easily. The story was about a girl, Veronica, who falls in love with a boy, Nash, in college, only to have him reject her, and the chain reaction that it sets off in her life. Veronica meets a sweet frat boy, Shane, who spills a beer down her blouse at a party and offers her his shirt in an unexpectedly gentlemanly gesture. Because she is lonely and brokenhearted, she and Shane end up making out and somehow discover there’s room in their lives for each other. Neither is filled with passion; neither is looking for true love. But they kiss a lot and fall asleep next to each other a lot, and become used to each other. They’re kind to each other. Somehow years go by, and they stay together. Their lives intertwine; their affection for each other grows into a solid, loving relationship that finally ends in a long-awaited engagement. A mostly happy ending, but with a twist because the reader is left wondering if Veronica’s heart ever truly evolved from the brokenness of her failed college affair with Nash. Had she hidden herself away, settling for second best because first best rejected her? And would her happiness with Shane ever be complete?

After a year and a half of writing, eight months of waiting on submissions, and another five months of edits, her book hit bookstores everywhere. And lo and behold, she wasn’t the only woman in the history of the world who’d had a college heartbreak. Women everywhere added it to their book club lists and she was even profiled in the USA Today “Happily Ever After” column as an up-and-coming new author.

But despite some decent e-book sales, the buzz had quieted down and her publisher wanted a follow-up with a bona fide, no-twist happy ending. Violet accepted a contract and eagerly planned the sequel: Veronica’s wedding to Shane and finding fabulous and complete happiness with him: the bright, beautiful attorney who made her feel loved and safe. She was going to write about their gorgeous wedding and lovely home in Connecticut, about their summer vacations to Maine and perfect children, and the trials and tribulations of newlyweds and young parents. She would leave all mention of Nash in the dust and show her readers the perfect happily-ever-after.

But the story, like the fantasy, had died when Shep did. And despite numerous contract extensions, she was out of time now. She either needed to write the book or break the contract and pay the price.

She took a deep, bracing breath of sea air and looked down at her laptop again. A blank page read “Chapter 4,” about a third of the way down the page, in bold, black letters. Underneath, she typed:

 

Veronica had never told Shane about Nash, choosing to keep the two most important relationships of her life wholly separate. In the quiet moments when she allowed herself to wonder about Nash, the guilt she felt overwhelmed her to such a degree that she needed to employ full-on denial tactics, second-guessing the veracity of the entire failed love affair just to find a way to live with it. She had, over time, managed to convince herself that more than half her memories were dreams, not reality. Or reality embellished to the point of absurd.

 

“Lucky Veronica,” she sighed out loud.

“Who’s Veronica?”

Zach stood atop the three stairs leading from the front lawn to the deck.

Her eyes drank him in as her body literally trembled with elation, instinctually leaning forward to be closer to him. She swallowed, forcing herself to exhale the breath she’d been holding and take a new gulp of air.

“No one! Just my—”
“Veronica from the book? From Me and Then You?”

He looked so much more normal and Zach-like in a long sleeve, gray henley T-shirt that covered his tattooed arms. Less intimidating without his nose and eyebrow rings, he was still wearing black rubber bands and a leather bracelet on one wrist and two rings on his fingers. The shirt pulled across his broad chest, reminding her of how it felt to be in his arms the other night. Her eyes dipped to his waist and then to right below his waist, remembering how it felt to have that pressed against her too. She may have whimpered slightly in the back of her throat, and she cleared it to mask the small sound. She looked away, toward the harbor.

“Yeah. Same Veronica.”

“What happens to Nash in this book? Does he get thrown from an airplane? Eaten by fire ants? Shoved off a cliff?”

She pursed her lips to keep from smiling, but when she glanced at him, he looked so cute, she couldn’t help herself and grinned. He ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair, looking pleased with himself for winning a smile.

She tilted her head and tried to look sassy. “Maybe I’ll drown him in a local harbor.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’ll be that easy to get rid of old Nash.”

“No?”
“Nope. And no offense to Shane, because he was, um, a good man, but he wasn’t right for Veronica.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right. Didn’t you ever watch them discuss this book on Oprah?”

She grinned again, imagining him watching Oprah. Of course she’d seen it. She’d been squealing on the sofa next to Sophie when her book was mentioned with thirty others and discussed for a whole two minutes. “I must have missed it. Enlighten me.”

“Most everyone in the audience agreed that she should have waited around for Nash. You know, given him another chance. Since he was her first love.”

“Really? Because I could have sworn women all over the world breathed a sigh of relief when she made the sensible choice and went for Shane.”

“Nah.” He rubbed his wrist with his thumb, something he’d done more than once since they’d reconnected. In college, he’d had a habit of touching his lower lip with his thumb—it had proved majorly distracting more than once—but touching his wrist was new. “Everyone wanted her to be with Nash. They belonged together.”

“He hurt her.”

“He was young.”

“He knew what he was doing.”

“He was scared shitless.”

“Of what?”

“Of falling in love.”

“Of her falling in love with him?”

He leaned against the railing looking out at the harbor for a moment before looking at Violet again. “No, Violet-like-the-flower. Of him falling in love with her.”

She gasped softly, totally undone by his words and the quiet, careful way he delivered them. She flinched and her eyes flooded with tears as she tried to get her head around what he was saying. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be. He had walked away. He couldn’t have loved her back. He couldn’t have.

“You’re coloring it with a different brush all these years later,” she said. “You’re trying to change history. You’re making things—”

“Okay. Okay. Stop a second and think.” He sat down in the chair across from her where she’d been resting her feet, cradling them gently in his lap. His eyes seized hers. “Why would I do that? Why would I try to change history?”

“I don’t know. To . . . to play games with me.”

“No way. That’s not who I am, and you know it.”

“To make yourself feel better about it all.”

“Okay, but I wouldn’t make a play for you. I’d just apologize.”

“To get in my pants!”

His eyebrows almost hit his hairline. “As great as it was, Vile, I wouldn’t lie just to get back in.”

She yanked her feet away from his lap, wrapping her arms around her legs and curling into a ball in the chair across from him.

“Listen up,” he said.

He leaned forward, putting his hands on the armrests on either side of her and capturing her eyes uncompromisingly. When he spoke, she could feel his breath, hot and minty, on her face. “I was falling for you just as hard as you were falling for me. That’s the truth, Violet Smith. That’s the God’s honest truth, and may I be struck by lightning right now if it isn’t so.”

“Then why?” she asked, her voice breaking.

“I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“With what?”

“With you loving me.”

“All you had to do was love me back.”

“I did.”

“But you pushed me away.”

“I did.”

He searched her eyes, then yanked up the sleeve of his left arm until his wrist was bared—the wrist he was always touching and rubbing—then turned it over. There, on his pulse point, about the size of a quarter, was a violet. A small, four-petaled, purple flower with a tiny yellow center and one elegant green leaf with the word Lost printed underneath in a simple script. She reached out and placed her palm under his hand to steady its trembling, staring at the tattoo as tears streamed from her eyes. Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to it gently, lingering there until she felt his other palm on her cheek, urging her to face him.

“Violet-like-the-flower, it was always you for me.”

Without thinking, she hurled toward him, into his arms, straddling his lap, finding his lips with hers. She wanted so badly to believe that it was true, that the boy she had loved so desperately as a nineteen-year-old girl might have actually loved her back and only pushed her away because he was too confused, or too overwhelmed, to return her feelings. She wove her hands into his hair as his fingers slipped underneath her shirt, his calluses sliding along the soft skin of her belly to her breasts, which he cupped through her bra, making her push against him with urgency.

He leaned away from her, catching her eyes in the afternoon light.

“You want this, Violet? You sure?”

It felt so right to touch him and be touched by him. She nodded, feeling brash and reckless as her blood heated up, flushing her skin. She didn’t want to sensibly think through her decision, didn’t want to be Greenwich Violet or Miss Havisham anymore. She just wanted to melt into him. For too many years, she’d been careful and cautious; it felt unbelievably good to be impetuous—new, yet strangely familiar, and boundlessly exciting. She ignored the warnings in her head and pulled his face back down to hers, slipping her tongue into his mouth with a breathy moan.

Without breaking contact with her mouth, he put his hands under her ass and picked her up, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He fumbled briefly with the sliding door but managed to open it and carried her, without hesitation, through the kitchen to his bedroom, on the opposite side of the house.

Once there, he lowered her to the bed, covering her with his body, planting his elbows on either side of her head and cradling her face with his hands. He drew back from her, tracing her lower lip with his thumb.

“I never thought I’d have another chance with you.”

“Neither did I,” she confessed, her fingers moving to the hem of his shirt and tugging.

He knelt between her legs, reaching behind his neck and pulling off his shirt to reveal a muscular torso partially covered in graffiti. He watched her eyes carefully as she looked at his bare chest for the first time in nine years.

“You hate it, Vile? The way I look?”

“You look different.” She reached out to touch the hard lines of his bulging abs. Two, four, six . . . She felt her lips spread into an unsure smile that was unfamiliar, years out of use. “But I could get used to it, Z.”

“I’m gonna blow your mind,” he murmured, his fingers moving to the buttons on her crisp white button-down shirt. Her hands rested on his waist, slipping into the waistband of his jeans, making him flinch and shiver.

“Promise?” she asked, straightening her back so her breasts strained against the remaining fabric. He undid the final buttons, smiling at her, his lips still the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, familiar and tempting like a bad habit from a long time ago.

“Promise,” he said, as his fingers pushed the shirt over her shoulders and down her arms, tugging it over her wrists.

He lowered his lips to hers, sweeping his tongue into her mouth, and pulled her into his arms.