I stare up at the ceiling and can’t help grinning like an idiot. I found her … and drove her nuts. Two years of being without her, of longing, of regretting I never left a message at the hotel, is finally over. Two years haven’t changed a thing.

The problem is, when I turn my head to face her, I don’t see the same look of happiness and joy. She even seems distressed and upset. My smile goes sour before dissolving. “What is it?” I ask.

She closes her eyes for a second, then sits up. “I should go. I don’t regret what we did, but it can’t happen again. This ends here.”

“What are you talking about?” I reach for her, brushing my fingertips over her bare back, and she jerks away like I burned her.

“Things are very different now, Tyson.” I’ve never heard such sadness, such total hopelessness in her voice before.

I sit up, speechless, devastated. She really wants to go. Fuck if it makes sense. How could she be so passionate one minute and turn so sad the next? What’s happened to her? I run my fingers through my hair and try to figure out my next move. I mucked things up once, I’m not about to do it again. If she thinks she is going to slip through my fingers so easily she’s got another thing coming. “Help me to understand how it is,” I say slowly.

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I don’t have the time. Just know that it’s better for us both if I get out of here as fast as I can.”

I catch her hand and tug. She falls on her back and looks up at me. “Make the time. For old times sake.”

“I’m late. I’ve got to go. Please.” I stare down at her. How could I want to fuck her again? I just did. She wriggles out of my grasp, scoots to the edge of the bed and starts looking around the room. “My purse,” she mumbles. “I have to check my phone.”

I point to her purse by the door, and her cheeks go pink with the memory of how she dropped it in her hurry to fuck me. Buck naked she hurries over to pick it up. There is nothing on her mind except her phone. I watch her look at the screen and the relief that crosses her face as she drops it back into her bag.

“Everything all right?” I ask casually.

“Hmm? Yeah. Thanks.” She turns away and starts getting dressed. She slips into her panties, then pulls her jeans on over the top.

“Be honest with me. Why are you running away like this?” I bound out of bed. In spite of what is going on, I have a hard-on from watching her dress. She tries to avert her eyes as she looks around for her bra.

“It’s much too long a story, and I don’t have the time. I’m sorry, Tyson, but you’ll just have to accept that.”

I take her by the arm as she tries to hurry past, and I pull her to me. “I don’t have to accept anything. I don’t even have to let you go. I could keep you here for days, naked and with my cock inside you, and you won’t be able to stop me.”

“You’re holding me too tight,” she mutters through clenched teeth, looking at my shoulder.

I know I’m not holding her too tight. “Want me to prove it? Want me to show you how easily I could get your ass back in that bed?”

She flinches.

“Why won’t you look at me, Izzy? Is it too hard to leave when you look me in the eye?”

She raises her eyes to mine. God, they’re so sad. “Don’t we deserve so much better than what we’ve had?”

She doesn’t say a word—but she doesn’t disagree, either, so that’s something.

I capitalize on my argument. “I want us to have another chance. The chance we should’ve had two years ago. I swear I’m telling the truth when I say I’d have given anything for things to have gone differently, but I couldn’t do a thing then. Now, it’s up to us, you and me. We lost two years, but we still have the rest of our lives. We could be so happy together, Izzy. I want you. I want you in my life forever.”

Tears fill her eyes. “Tyson. Don’t do this. Please.”

I sense her resolve waning and push in for the kill. “Don’t pretend you don’t feel it too. I can hear it in your voice, and see it in your eyes that you want it too. Just like you couldn’t resist coming here with me today—you tried, but you couldn’t do it. What’s between us is too strong, Izzy. Tell me I’m wrong. Go on.”

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out except a soft sigh. Resignation. She knows I’m right, of course. The way I know I’m right.

I let go of her arm. “Izzy. Come on. Give us a chance. We could have so much. We could be so happy.” I reach out for her face, stroking the soft skin of her cheek. She doesn’t move. She only looks into my eyes with that same sad, longing expression. I’m offering the woman everything I have and she looks back at me like I just killed her dog.

Then her jaw tightens and she raises her chin. “I wish it were that easy. If you believe nothing else, believe that.” She takes a step back from me. “Please, I need to get dressed.” I watch the only woman I ever gave a damn about run around picking up and pull on the rest of her clothes. Her hands are shaking in her hurry to get out of my life. Maybe this is what I deserve. I’ve played fast and loose for a long time. I’ve broken too many hearts. I’m getting what was coming to me now. But I refuse to accept it.

“I won’t give up on you. You have to know that.”

“Promise me something,” she mutters as she pulls on her boots.

“It depends.”

“No. Promise.” There’s fire in her voice like I’ve never heard from her. The fire reaches her eyes when she looks up at me from where she sits on the edge of the bed.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Promise you will never, ever try to contact me after this. Promise me. Please. I need to know, for your sake and mine.”

“I can’t promise that,” I growl. “I need you. Don’t you hear what I’m saying?”

“I hear you saying a lot of pretty words that don’t mean anything in the real world, where real things happen.” She springs to her feet with an anguished cry that tears at my heart. “Oh, Tyson, when will you understand? There’s a whole world out there, a world full of people who have to make choices. Sometimes they’re the wrong choices, I’ll grant you, but all we can do is the best we can with what we’ve been given. I had to do the best I could in the situation, and I made my choice. The fact that you happened to be in the café today while I was going in for a cup of coffee doesn’t erase everything that’s happened between the night we met and right now. This isn’t a fairytale, even though you live such a charmed life.”

“Charmed life? I’ve told you what I went through.”

“Yes, and I’m sorry for it,” she says, shaking her head sorrowfully. “But that’s nothing compared to what awaited some of us.”

“So why can’t we make it right?” I go to her, but she turns away with her arms wrapped around her waist and her shoulders hunched. Protecting herself? From me? “Izzy, give me the respect of at least being honest right now. You can do that for me—I think I deserve that much. We’re both adults. I can take it.”

“What is it you want?” she whispers in a shaky voice. I want to reach out, hold her, but I’m afraid she would lash out like a scared animal. Tension practically crackles through her.

I’ve always had a bit of a thick skull when it came to her. Actually, my brain becomes jelly and my dick takes over when I’m around her, but what would have been obvious to a fool, suddenly hits home. I don’t want to believe it, and it kills me to even think it might be true, but even though there’s no ring on her finger, she must be involved with somebody.

“I want you to tell me: is there somebody else? Are you already with somebody?” My body is so still it is as if my heart has stopped beating. I stare at her, while my life feels as if it is ended. I watch as her shoulders fall. A heavy sigh slips from her lips. She doesn’t turn toward me. “Yes. There’s already someone else.”