HANNAH

I heard him calling my name as I speed-walked down the street, flanked by Margot and Georgia, each of whom had an arm around me. “Don’t stop. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“But maybe there’s an explanation,” said Georgia.

We turned the corner onto the quiet side street where I’d parked. Rage and regret coursed through me. “No. There might be an excuse, but I don’t want to hear it.”

“Maybe she’s a work friend,” Margot suggested.

“Oh, she’s a work friend all right. The same work friend who fucked my husband while I was home with a newborn baby.”

“What?” Margot screeched. Georgia made a similar noise of disbelief.

“Yes.” The sight of her sitting there with him, so smug, her hand on his knee, her full breasts practically on his lap, had sickened me. Brought back all the horrible, wretched feelings of betrayal and self-doubt I’d suffered back then. I wanted to vomit.

“Hannah!” Wes was getting closer, so I sped up, moving ahead of my friends. But my heel caught on a crack in the pavement and I went down on my hands and knees.

Margot and Georgia reached for me, but I stayed there and burst into tears.

Next thing I knew, Wes was helping me to my feet. “Are you okay, baby?”

I wrangled my arms from his grasp. “Let me go. I’m not your baby.”

“Hannah, please. Let me explain.”

“No.” I tried to start walking again and he grabbed my arm. “Let me go, Wes.”

“I can’t,” he yelled. “I tried for years to let you go, Hannah. Years! I never could!”

Margot gasped and clutched Georgia by the elbow.

“I don’t believe you!” I cried. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have hurt me like this!”

“It was just a drink!”

“With the woman Drew fucked while he was married to me? No, that wasn’t just a drink. It was the final sign that this”—I gestured back and forth between us—“can never be. And I was an idiot to think it could.”

“Oh my God.” His face conveyed his shock. “Hannah, I had no idea. You know I didn’t!”

“I don’t know anything except that I need to stay away from you!”

“Please. Just listen to me.” Now both his hands gripped my upper arms, and I was no match for his strength. “My mother set that up. She tricked me into coming to the bar and then left.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I was just trying to be nice! I didn’t know she was the one! I swear to God I’d have left if I had.” He shook his head. “I should have left anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Too late now.”

“I thought I was doing us a favor,” he went on.

“What?” I shrieked. “How was that doing us a favor?”

“My mother thinks I only fell for you because I never gave myself a chance to fall for anyone else. I thought if I met the damn girl she wanted me to meet, I could go home and say, ‘Guess what, Mom? I met the girl and I’m still in love with Hannah.’ I thought it would help convince her to accept us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, sobbing uncontrollably now. “It doesn’t even matter because she’ll try something else next. She was never going to accept us, Wes. And you were always going to choose her.”

He shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean the birthday dinner! Do you know how much it hurt me to learn she didn’t want me there and you said okay?”

“No! Because you didn’t tell me! I was just trying to do anything to make things easier on us. I thought I was helping! I love you, Hannah, but I can’t read your mind.”

“I didn’t expect you to read my mind. I expected you to fight for us like you said you would!”

“I’m sorry, I should have considered how it would make you feel. I should have fought back. If it matters to you that much, you can come. Or I won’t go. Whatever it takes,” he pleaded. “I’ll make this right, Hannah. I promise.”

“No more promises.” I closed my eyes, tears dripping off my lashes. “It’s too late.”

“But I love you.”

“It’s not enough, Wes. Love isn’t enough to save us. Face it—we were never meant to be.”

His grip relaxed slightly on my arms, but he didn’t let go. “Do you remember,” he said quietly, “what I said to you the night you married my brother?”

My eyes flew open. Of course I did.

He said the words again, his voice strong and sure. “I knew the moment I saw you that you were the one.” But this time he went on. “The one I’d always love. The one I’d always dream about. The one I’d always wish was mine.”

One of my friends gasped. From the corner of my eye I saw them clutching at each other.

Wes stared me down hard. “It was snowing the day we met. February twenty-fifth. A Tuesday. You were wearing a black shirt with a picture of a pineapple on it. You smiled at me, and I thought, ‘My God, the most beautiful girl in the world just smiled at me.’”

“Wes,” I wept. “Stop. We just weren’t meant to be. It’s too hard. It’s too much.”

“I knew the moment I saw you that you were the one, Hannah. I walked away then because I was too scared to tell you how I felt, and I’ll walk away now because it’s what you want, but you listen to me.” He pulled me closer. “I don’t care what anyone says. I’ve loved you since the day I met you, and I’ll love you until the day I die. And I will never, ever believe it was supposed to be any other way.”

And then he kissed me. Like he should have done then. Like he’d never kiss me again.

And he walked away.

“Oh. My. God.” It was either Margot or Georgia who said it, but I was covering my face with my hands so I wouldn’t have to watch the second love of my life leave me.

You made him leave. You chose this.

Maybe I had. But at least I hadn’t been blindsided this time.

“Are you okay?” My friends came to me, stroking my arms, patting my back, hugging me as I cried.

“No,” I sobbed. “I’ll never be okay again.”

“Oh, Hannah.” Georgia looked like she was about to cry too. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too. That was…” Margot paused. “I don’t even know what that was.”

“Intense,” Georgia supplied.

Margot nodded. “And sad. Heartbreaking. He’s loved you all along?”

“He says he did.” But it only made me feel worse.

“That’s some heavy baggage,” said Georgia. “He was in love with his brother’s wife?”

“He met me first,” I explained, trying to get control of my breath. “But was too shy to ask me out.”

“Oh my God.” Margot clutched her heart.

“And then I met Drew, and he swept me off my feet.”

“You’re killing me.” Margot fanned her face with both hands, like she was trying not to cry. “This entire thing is killing me.”

“It killed me too, when he told me. I’d had no idea.” I sniffed, looking around for my purse with Margot’s handkerchief in it. Spying it on the ground about three feet away, where it must have landed when I fell, I scooped it up and dug through it.

“And that woman at the bar…” Georgia faltered.

“Oh, God.” I took out the handkerchief and wiped my nose. “It makes me sick that he was with her.”

“Drew actually cheated on you with her?” Margot asked. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. “He confessed.”

“No wonder you got so upset.” Georgia rubbed my back again. “But maybe it was like Wes said, just a drink set up by his mom.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I steeled myself against any inclination to believe him.

“I so wanted you to give love another chance,” Margot said softly, brushing my hair off my face.

“I almost did.” I shook my head as the tears came again. “God, you guys. I’m a mess.”

“You’re not,” insisted Georgia. Then she paused. “I mean, right now you kind of are, but you’ll get through this, Hannah. I know you will.”

“But I love him,” I sobbed. “What am I going to do about that? I love him. And he walked away.”

“He walked away because he thought it was what you wanted,” Georgia reminded me gently. “Not because he doesn’t love you. He does.”

“Is there any chance you can work this out?” Margot asked. “I can’t stop feeling like this isn’t over.”

“No. It’s over,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “It never should have started.”