Nick was back, our bags in tow. “All set?” I asked, and he gave me an odd look and said we were, then took my hand and walked to the elevator. Ding. Perfect. No waiting.

I tried to blank out any thought and focus on the wall-paper, the buttons, Coco. We got to our floor, walked down the hall. Patterned carpeting. Very pleasant.

Nick opened the door to the room. We went in. Huh. Nice. Nicer than I expected. Coco began sniffing the corners for werewolves, then, satisfied there were none, jumped into the middle of the bed.

Nick turned to me and opened his mouth.

“Stop. Wait,” I said, taking a step back. My face scrunched up, that dark thing surged again, and my hands went up defensively. “I need to say something.”

It was a little hard to breathe, suddenly. My lungs felt empty and tight. My mouth opened, closed, opened again. “Nick,” I said, and my voice was low and harsh. “Everything you said about me…being stunted and heartless…it’s true. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Nick, for everything I did back then. I thought I could be…normal, I guess, but I guess…I mean, when you look at what I come from…I’m just like her.”

My throat was so tight I could hardly breathe. “She didn’t even recognize me, Nick,” I whispered. “I’m her only child, and she didn’t recognize me. Or even worse, she did. My mom…my…I’m so sorry, Nick. I’m so sorry.”

Then Nick’s arms went around me and he held me hard against him. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, and that kindness, it just broke me. Something was wrong with me, I was choking and my eyes were hot and wet and my chest was jerking up and down and these strange noises were coming out of my mouth. I mean, there was crying, and then there was…this, and even as one part of my brain was pretty damn disgusted, the rest of me couldn’t get it under control. Holy testicle Tuesday, I don’t know how he could stand it, these caterwauling, elk-like sounds that ratcheted out of me, my clawlike grip on the back of his shirt, my sloppy face buried against his neck.

Then he bent a little and lifted me, carried me to the bed and put me down. I curled onto my side, fetal position, how ironic. This crying was bloody awful, sobs splintering out of me, they hurt, and there didn’t appear to be a thing I could do about it.

Nick took off my shoes, then lay down next to me and gathered me against him, tucking my head against his shoulder, stroking my hair. He reached over to the night table and handed me a box of tissues, then kissed my head and held me close as I cried, and cried, and kept crying. There was just one word in my heart, one horrible, cruel, cheating, primal word.

Mommy.

For so, so long, I thought my mother would come back for me. I was her best friend, her little doll, her daughter. As the years passed, my hope scabbed over, and I learned that people hurt each other all the time, that even if you scrape your heart on the rough brick of their indifference, the skin grows back, so to speak. Shit happens, you get over it.

That’s what I thought until today, when I remembered how much I had loved her, how I’d yearned for her, how I’d prayed for her to come back. How even today, I had hoped to win back my mother’s love.

It wasn’t going to happen.

She didn’t know me. Or even worse, she did.

I didn’t know there were this many tears in a human body. Nick kept passing me tissues and kissing my hair, and Coco curled up against my back, whining—she’d never heard me bawl like this, God knows—and still I cried.

But apparently, the thing about crying is that you can’t keep it up forever. Dehydration sets in, whatever. Eventually, my gulping sobs became squeaks, and the torrent of tears became a patter, then a trickle. My breathing went from gulping to jerky to shaky…and finally, I was quiet.

Then Nick moved so he could see my face and looked at me with his gypsy eyes, the dark, dark brown framed by those thick lashes. “You’re nothing like her,” he said. “Nothing like that.”

Well, shit. So much for no more tears. More tears slipped out. “But I am, Nick,” I said, my voice frayed from crying. “I broke your heart, I divorced you, I never came back. I’m exactly the same.”

“No. You’re not. You’re not, honey.”

“How am I any different, Nick? Because I think I should probably throw myself under a train if that’s the kind of person I am.”

Nick smoothed his thumbs under my eyes, pushing away the tears. “You loved me, Harper. You did, I know that. And sure, you’re a tangled mess, aren’t we all, and yes, you did divorce me, but Harper, you loved me.” He kissed my forehead. “Whereas that woman saw you only as an extension of herself, and the very first day you out-shone her, she ditched you. After what I just saw, I don’t think she’s capable of loving anyone.”

I swallowed noisily. “I don’t know that I am, either,” I admitted in a whisper.

“Well, I do know, and you are. So don’t argue with me, woman,” he said, his eyes smiling. “You love Willa, right?” I nodded. “And your father, and BeverLee. I bet you have friends and coworkers you love, and I bet they love you, too.”

I swallowed noisily and closed my eyes. “Nick, if I were in your shoes, I’d just drop me off at the nearest convenience store and lay down some rubber.”

“Well, it’s a thought.”

My eyes opened. Nick was smiling. “I know you,” he repeated. “You’re nothing like her.” Then his voice dropped to a whisper. “And look at you now. You’re still here with me. You could be home now, but you’re with me.”

My eyes filled yet again. “Run, Nick.”

“I can’t. Harper, you’re emotionally autistic, it’s true, but I love you.”

My jerky breathing returned. “Don’t pity me, for God’s sake, Nick.”

“I don’t pity you. I have sympathy for you, having had that selfish bitch for a mother, but I don’t pity you. And I do love you.”

“Shush, Nick. I can’t—”

“Harper, I love you.”

“I just think—”

“You’re the love of my life. I’ve loved you since the day we met, I never stopped, I can’t help myself, you’re like crystal meth or something, though that’s probably not the most flattering comparison, but there it is, I love you, Harper. Even if you are a pain in the—”

There was really only one way to shut him up, and so I did. I kissed him, just pressed my mouth against his, then pulled back and looked at him.

His eyes were so gentle, and the smallest smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “I see my evil plan is working,” he whispered, and I kissed him again, for real this time, not just to shut him up, and the second my lips touched his, a swell of feeling seemed to lift me off the bed. He was still so familiar after all these years, his mouth perfect on mine, hungry and gentle at the same time, and I’d missed him, missed this, could not believe that somehow we’d let this get away, this desperate, wonderful feeling that being with Nick was—forgive the melodrama—my destiny. The only man I’d ever really and truly loved. My first love, my one and only. I knew it now, and the truth was, I’d known it always.

He held me harder, his hand sliding through my hair, turning my head for more access to my mouth, kissing me fiercely, practically crushing me against him. His tongue brushed mine, and I clutched him tighter. Mine. He was mine, and I was his, and that’s all there was to it. “I love you,” he said again, and then we were kissing again, and it was just essential, this kissing, this being together, him and me, Nick and Harper, together again, at last. At last.

Nick pulled back with difficulty, kissed me again, then stopped. “I have to…I can’t…” He closed his eyes for a second before looking at me once more. “I can’t do this to you. Not now, not when you’re upset.”

“Do what?” I asked, running my finger along his neck. He was so beautiful, his face flushed, his eyes heavy-lidded.

He was breathing hard. “Make love to you.”

“You can’t?”

“No.”

“I think you should.” I pressed a kiss to his neck, tasted him, earning a shudder.

“Stop. Damn it. Harper, stop. It would be wrong. I’d be, uh, taking advantage of you.”

That made me smile. “I’m thirty-four years old.” I pulled his shirt out of his jeans.

“Well, I still shouldn’t. It’s not fair. You’re, uh, vulnerable.” God, his skin was beautiful. “Harper, honey—”

I rolled off the bed. “I’m taking my clothes off now, Nick Lowery,” I said, pulling my shirt over my head. Oh, goody, pretty bra, light blue with a little lace. Nick swallowed, and his eyes looked very dark. “You can do what you want, but I plan on lying naked here next to you, and I will not keep my hands to myself.”

I unbuttoned my skirt and let it float to the floor.

“Okay, you win,” he blurted, and with that, he leaped off the bed and practically tackled me, and that was the thing. No matter what, no matter when, we could always make each other laugh. Even when we were mad, or sad, or horny. When he undid the clasp of my bra, when his mouth found that spot on my collarbone, when his fingers laced with mine, the laughter faded, though, and something even sweeter took its place.

Nothing had ever felt as right as this. When I felt his hot skin against mine, the delicious weight of him on top of me, his mouth, his hands, I understood once again what making love really meant.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

LATER THAT DAY, WHEN the shadows lengthened and cast our room into shades of gray, I lay awake, looking at Nick’s sleeping face. He lay on his stomach, his arms over his head, lashes dark smudges on his cheeks, which were flushed like a little kid’s. Unlike Nick, I hadn’t slept after Round Two. I’d been watching him instead, memorizing his face once again, the effects of the passage of twelve years, the glints of silver in his thick hair, the lines around his eyes. And yet he was the same, the boy who had approached me so long ago and told me I’d be his wife.

The debacle with my mother was pushed firmly into the cellar of my consciousness, where it belonged, replaced with the feelings I had—and, let’s be honest, had always had—for Nick. I didn’t know what would happen between us now, didn’t know where this was going, and the very thought caused a cold trickle of fear. Maybe this was a mistake, sleeping with my ex. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like…love.

Nick jerked awake, as he always had, looking briefly confused. Then his eyes found mine. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I whispered.

“I thought you might’ve left,” he said, reaching out to push a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Um…nope. Still here.”

For a long minute, we just looked at each other. “Nick…that night. Back then.”

There was no need to explain which one. He knew. My throat was still a bit raw from all the sobbing earlier, so I kept my voice at a whisper. “I didn’t tell anyone I was married because I was punishing you. I was going to say something, I just…well. But I never would’ve cheated on you, Nick.”

He nodded, and I continued. “When I saw you packing…I just…I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t believe we could get back to where we were before. It felt like you were leaving me forever. So I left, too. I left more, you know? That way, I could be the one doing it, not having it done to me.”

“Harper,” he said after a beat, “it was my fault, too.”

This was new. In all our arguments, Nick had never acknowledged any wrongdoing; it had always been me who was supposed to change, accept, understand. He was just working for the future he’d always wanted, and I was the bafflingly miserable wife.