How could he do this? I slept with him because I thought we’d run off and eloped like a couple too excited—actually too drunk—to wait. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Part of me always wondered about Harley…what his arms would feel like around me and how we would fit together. But I would never have acted on those thoughts had he not lied to me about our “marriage.”

The plane leveled off, and Andrew slithered his hand over my leg, my sins apparently not as important as whatever he saw out the window. He didn’t speak more than to tell me that we would talk later when he could wrap his head around everything. Silently, when he said it, I wished him luck. I lived this mess, and I couldn’t put the thoughts in any reasonable order. I kept faltering back to the kisses and the passion, the way Harley whispered my name. It was almost reverent. Andrew never…

I knew it wasn’t fair to compare the two. But knowing it, and knowing how to stop doing it were very different ideas. So onward I went. Harley knew everything about me, accepted all my silly quirks and my moodiness. He even brought me chocolate and chick flicks on PMS week. And his kisses…though my experience with them was somewhat limited, I couldn’t imagine never again feeling the way I did when he kissed me.

Before I got to Andrew’s particular good points for a fair comparison, he turned to me. “I forgive you.”

Because I didn’t know whether to be relieved or whether to hang onto my frustration, I nodded and looked at my hands.

He angled his body so our heads were together. “We’re even now, right?” His voice was low and the ringing in my ears was loud.

“Even?”

“I know he told you about the other women, and I know that’s why you slept with him.” He smiled prettily at me. It was the smile he used to sway Boards of Directors to his way of thinking. I stopped listening even as he rambled about it being out of our systems and some other cliché about coming through stronger. “Maybe I just had to finish sowing my wild oats.”

“Wild oats?” He’s cheating on you. I’d heard the words, but until that moment, they hadn’t registered. “Other women. Wow.”

Andrew looked at me as if surprised I’d spoken. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was hanging open. Maybe it was surprise that he was the one who tattled on himself. I couldn’t be sure. “They don’t mean anything to me.”

“Don’t mean anything? As in they currently don’t mean anything?” If these were past indiscretions rather than present choices, wouldn’t he have said didn’t mean not don’t mean? I laughed because while cold-hearted anger should have been bouncing through me, I was fueled with the warmth of relief. Maybe subconsciously I knew. Hell, maybe consciously I knew.

For the second time that day, I removed a ring from the third finger of my left hand. “Somewhere out there, Andrew, there’s a girl you won’t want to cheat on.” I shrugged because honestly, I wasn’t sure it was true. “Or maybe not, but I’m definitely not that girl, and you are most certainly not the guy for me.” The second part came as a revelation, as if a ray of light had flooded the cabin and illuminated the things I should have known before I ever agreed to marry him. My rose-colored glasses hid his selfishness, his narcissism, his need for speed in the bedroom. But on an airplane flying over the desert, I could see so clearly. Unfortunately, with that came a self-awareness I’d just as soon have not faced. I was quite happy to make an unemotional marriage because I had a connection with Harley so I didn’t need it from anyone else. Did I use that relationship in such a way that it was the reason he dated more for sport than love? Was I standing in the way of his happiness?

Before I could go further with that line of thinking, Andrew narrowed his eyes and breathed loudly from deep in his throat—part growl/part sigh. No one in their right mind would choose Harley Crawford over Preston Danes the third. Harley, a blue-collar-loved-dogs-ate-his-pizza-cold-at-3 a.m. kind of guy over Andrew, a trust-fund-pets-disgusted-him-ate-nothing-after-9p.m. man of discipline? Who would even consider such a fool notion? “You’re going back to him?” His voice said he’d considered and found the idea unbelievable.

Fury turned his face a deep crimson, and I rolled my eyes at his theatrics. It wasn’t like I could just up and run to Harley. He lied to me, and I chose Andrew over him. There was no going back from that for either of us. “No. But I’m not a fool either, and I don’t want to be made one over the course of a marriage neither of us will enjoy.”

“What about our wedding? All the plans we made?”

I thought about it for a minute—the four-tiered wedding cake with the candy pearls and the butter cream layers in soft silver, the ceremony orchestra, the reception band who had a list of all our favorite songs, the dress my mom bought for the rehearsal because it made her look thinner. “I’ll take care of it all.”