With Milly’s arm firmly in my grip, we wind our way through the restaurant and my mind has homed in on one objective. All I can think is don’t let her leave. I expected to find a married Milly. One who is indifferent to me. One who would be ashamed of how she treated me. But nothing is as I expected. All I know is that she can’t leave until I’ve been able to talk to her.

She looked equal parts scared and angry when I asked her about her marriage and then she fled. I didn’t plan to tell her my true motivations or clue her in on the why and how she ended up in my office. But, she knows anyway and now I want to have the conversation I’ve needed for months. And I want more. I want her apology, I want her contrition and I want her submission.

When we were young and I trusted her, that power she had over me never, not once, scared me. But now, the fact that my ability to maintain my composure disappeared almost as soon as I saw her, terrifies me. I pull her through the kitchen where no one blinks as we walk through, my stride is long and quick and she struggles to keep up. I hear a couple of people call out “Hey, Mr. O” as we reach the back door of the kitchen and step into the alley and into my waiting black Cadillac Escalade.

My driver, Greg, steps around from the side of the car and opens the back passenger door as we approach. Without missing a single stride, I step up into the car and reach out and pull her inside with me, placing her on the seat beside me. The door locks engage with a loud click and she pulls the handle, futilely trying to open the door.

“Dean, what are you doing? Are you completely crazy? Let me out of this car.” She looks at me and if looks could kill, I’d be stone cold dead.

“I didn’t exactly drag you kicking and screaming in here.” I shoot back at her, trying to remain calm.

“That’s because I was too shocked to even move. You tell me that you planned this . . . this job.” She spits the word job like it’s dirt in her mouth. “For what, Dean? Why would you do this?” Her voice shakes but her anger is tempered with hurt. And she stops moving, like she's suddenly exhausted.

“What should I have done? Picked up the phone and called you?” I ask her. Hearing myself say it, I realize that it would have been a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I chance a move in her direction and wait to see her reaction before I move again. She doesn’t react so I move closer until I'm touching her side with my own. She stares at me and I see a gamut of expressions battling for supremacy over her face. Sadness and wonder run rampant as she studies me.

I reach out to touch her cheek with my finger and her eyes flutter closed. She exhales in a puff that travels across the inches that separate us to caress my lips. Her cheek feels like silk and like sin and like mine.

“Imagine my shock to find that you moved and got on with your life right away,” I say softly, entranced with how her skin feels.

“You cannot be serious, Dean,” she says, pulling herself away from my touch and opening her eyes. Her voice strong and full of irritation.

“Yes, I got married. Why in the world would you think I would ever reach out to you again?” she says incredulously.

My anger spikes. “Maybe because you fucking loved me? Maybe because we made promises to each other. My father died, Milly and I never heard from you. I waited for months for you to call me. I gave up waiting for that call. Good thing, too, since you were too busy getting on with your life to think about me!”

She looks like I slapped her. But she doesn’t say a word. She just watches me. I watch her, too. Unsure of what else to say. Or if we even have anything left to say to each other at all. I’ve laid it out. Now she knows and just as I use the remote in my pocket to unlock the car, she speaks and her words render me completely still.

“I did call you, Dean. The day after your father died,” she says, her voice husky with pain. When I force my eyes back to hers, the hurt in them almost slices me in half.

“What did you say?” I ask. I'm afraid to hear what she said. Afraid of what it means.

“I called you,” she repeats. Her voice softer now, her expression sorrowful. “Your mother answered and told me that you didn’t want to talk to me. That you hated me and blamed me for your father’s death. That your entire family did.” She stops talking and chokes on the sob she tries to hold in.

I feel like my entire world has tipped on its axis. I have so many questions screaming in my head.

But I know that she’s telling the truth. I know Milly. She's the one person I have never been able to hide anything from and I know that it’s the same for her with me.

I should say something, but right now, all I can think about is that she called me, that she didn’t abandon me. Thoughts of my mother and her interference don’t even register—later they will lay me flat—all I can think now, though, is that I want, no need, to touch her.

I put my hand out and she flinches as it moves toward her face. I stop my movement. She swallows audibly and her tongue darts out to wet her upper lip. Her eyes fill with tears right before they flutter closed. I put my hand up again and this time, I don’t stop. I cup her cheek and she leans into my palm.

My hand works into her hair and I tug the piece of elastic holding it back. Her hair goes from this slicked back controlled ponytail, to riotous and wild. I lean toward her at the same time she leans toward me.

Our lips meet in a mutual middle and it’s like the years we’ve spent apart are gone.

Her mouth tastes like it did the last time I kissed her, clean and sweet. Her lips feel like heaven, tender and welcoming.

At the first touch of our lips, it’s like we are eighteen years old again and our lips are acting on memory. It starts out as tender as all of our kisses ever were, both of us so young and innocent and trying to control ourselves. A gentle touch before we come back together, and her mouth opens almost immediately. It may feel like yesterday, but I know it’s been years and I have been deprived of this woman, this kiss, this feeling for far too long. I don’t hesitate in accepting her invitation, and like a wave held out from shore for too long, my tongue invades her mouth.

We drink each other in. Her hands in my hair, pulling me closer, her nails scratching my scalp. I don’t hold any of myself back. I can’t hold back when I’m with her because she is and always will be, the one. Every kiss before and since her was just getting me ready for this moment. This moment that I’ve waited my whole life for. With this woman who has always meant everything to me.

I pull her flush against me, and push my erection into the soft bed of her abdomen. She gasps into my mouth and I pull her lower lip in between my lips and suck on it. My lips travel down her chin and along her jaw. It takes my need for her from burning to blazing.

My hands travel up and under her jacket and my hands cup her breasts. She's fuller than she was, but still fits perfectly in my hand. My thumbs rub her nipples through her blouse and she moans, a sound that starts out sharp and ends on a husky exhalation.

“Red,” I groan her nickname, that was all I ever called her when we were together.

This is a mistake because Milly breaks our kiss and backs out of my embrace almost immediately.

“What’s wrong, Red?” I ask reaching out for her.

She puts both arms out, hands up, as she says, “No. Don’t call me that and don’t touch me!” She looks wild-eyed around the car and it is only then that I notice her bag is on the ground, contents scattered. She bends down and starts gathering her things. I bend down to help her.

“No, stop. Please just stop. I want to get out of this car. Now. I mean it. I want out.” She slaps my hands away when they accidentally brush hers as we both pick up the spilled contents of her bag.

“Milly, tell me what’s going on. Why did you pull away? I thought—”

“You’re crazy,” she snaps. “Do you think that I would really want to kiss you after what you’ve just told me? You basically got me here so you could exact some revenge on me. But now that you know I’m not married, you don’t want revenge? Does that sum up what you’ve told me?” she asks, speaking angrily, but still not looking at me.

“It’s not as simple as that and I didn’t know you had called me,” I return, feeling like a fool and knowing that I’ve screwed up royally.

“But now you know I called you, so you’re totally okay and we should kiss and make up?” she asks. Her voice is as cold as ice.

“Milly, it’s not that simple . . .” I start feeling a prick of guilt rising as I realize how, when laid out the way she has, what I’ve done and said sounds terrible.

“Really? Seems pretty simple to me,” she says her voice losing all of its ice and instead sounding like an erupting volcano. She shouts at me, “You’re not God, Dean. You don’t get to manipulate people’s lives because you’ve been hurt by something. You didn’t have the right to do this to me.” She sounds equal parts irate and wounded.

My stomach drops and my guilt amplifies.

“Milly, I'm sorry,” I start.

“Oh, I’m sure you are, Dean. But let me tell you something and I want you to hear me. If I had the tiniest clue that your mother wasn’t speaking for you that night, wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away. But when that call ended, I felt like I had lost everything. My father disappearing was terrible, my mother retreating into a shell was painful. But knowing that I didn’t have you anymore, that debilitated me. I felt like I had lost everything when I thought I’d lost you, too. So, yes, I got on with my life and tried to carve out a life that I thought I could live with.”

She pauses and I try to interject “Milly . . .”

“No, Dean. You need to listen because if I have anything to say about it, this is the last time you will hear my voice.”

My scalp prickles with apprehension. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.

“I did love you, but I needed to try and find a way to survive. That night after I spoke with your mother, I lost a part of myself. I meant it when I said I was happy to see you. Seeing you again was like getting a lost part of myself back. Almost instantly. But the way you have acted tonight, your cruel manipulation of my life has stolen it again. I’m done being a pawn in people’s games. I’m done letting people take their pound of flesh and leaving me bleeding. You can’t have that.” She straightens her spine and wipes her face. And then she turns to look at me. “I'm not letting you have any more of me. You have no idea what I’ve lived with the last ten years. Do you think you’re the only one who felt abandoned?” Her voice shakes and she clears her throat and continues.

“Tomorrow, I’ll call Cristal and tell her I can’t accept the commission. I wouldn’t work for you if it was the last job on earth.” Her voice drips with disgust. Without another word, Milly opens the now unlocked door, gets out and walks away. Out of my life. And this time, I let her go.