Much Ado About You

With a juddering sigh, I turned on my heel and promptly stumbled at the sight of Roane and Shadow standing beside the cab.

Roane’s chest was heaving like he’d been running, sweat glistening on his temples. I glanced beyond him to see the Defender parked near the harbor in the only parking space available.

Shadow tore away from Roane’s side and bounded toward me, and renewed grief flooded me as I wrapped my arms around his supple body and made my silent goodbyes.

“Milly called me,” Roane said as I straightened from hugging Shadow.

I’d assumed as much.

“We ready?” the driver asked me, glancing between Roane and me.

“Give us a few minutes.” Roane handed him some money, and the driver took it before getting into the car to give us a little privacy.

I didn’t want privacy.

I didn’t want this goodbye.

I wasn’t sure my heart could take it.

Staring at his face, I thought I saw his youth now. There weren’t any deep laughter lines around his eyes yet, and the beard hid any telltale age lines around his mouth, if there were any. Then there was his energy. Not that a thirtysomething didn’t have energy, but Roane had the stamina of twenty-six-year-old, of that there was no doubt.

I shivered in half grief, half longing.

He would never touch me again.

We’d never lie tangled in each other’s arms again.

Fuck, it hurt.

It hurt so badly, I wanted to scream at him until he told me it was all a joke, that he’d never lied, that he was just Roane.

Just my Roane.

I wished I could get over it.

I wished I could forgive.

But he was the one person in my life I couldn’t handle disappointing me.

And it was time for me to return to reality and stop living in a fucking fantasyland.

“You’re making a mistake,” he said, taking a step toward me.

Shadow trotted to his side, like he knew Roane needed him more than I did.

“You made the mistake,” I whispered.

He flinched. “Evie, I’m not telling you to just get over this. But don’t run off back to Chicago right away without giving this time. We’re worth figuring this out.”

I tried to close my ears, not wanting to hear the pleading tone in his voice. It was killing me.

“I gave the ring to Caro.” When I’d returned home after our confrontation, I’d discovered the ring still sitting on the kitchen counter. So, I’d handed it off to Caro when we said goodbye.

The muscle in Roane’s jaw twitched. “I know. She gave it to me.”

“I have to go.” I stepped toward the cab, unable to face him any longer.

“Evie, please,” he begged. “Please just forgive me. I’ll do anything.”

“I have to go,” I repeated, my voice breaking.

Tears burned in Roane’s eyes. “You get in the taxi, you take everything I am with you. You leave behind a fucking shell of a man. Over two stupid little lies that don’t mean anything, that don’t have any bearing on who I am or what you mean to me. Evie, please . . .”

Just like that, the pieces left of my heart splintered inside me. On a choked sob, I hauled open the back passenger door of the cab and threw myself in.

“Newcastle airport?” the driver confirmed.

“Yes,” I wheezed out.

As he pulled away from the sidewalk, I couldn’t help myself.

I turned and looked out the back window of the car and watched as Roane Robson scrubbed the tears from his face, his desolation so acute, there was a flicker . . . a flicker of doubt.

A flicker.

Now who was lying?

The truth was, as I cried in the back seat of the cab, the driver stiff and uncomfortable with my emotional display, I felt more than a flicker of doubt.

Yet I couldn’t seem to make myself ask the driver to turn the car around.

The impact of the shattered illusion of the life I thought we were beginning together in Alnster was bigger than my doubts.

I wanted Greer. I wanted Chicago.

My life there had never been a lie, a fantasy.

My life there was real.

I’d been lonely in Chicago, but it had never broken my heart.

Twenty-Seven

My friend was not glowing like people said pregnant women glowed. Her cheeks were flushed, yes, but the skin under her eyes was dark from lack of sleep.

Seven months pregnant, Greer sat on the sofa with her feet up on a stool, hands braced on her rounded stomach as she gazed at me. Pitifully.

We sat in her small apartment, while Andre was out picking up some takeout for dinner. I’d been back in Chicago for a week, and the aches and pains through my whole body would not dissipate.

The last time I remembered feeling like that was when my dad died.

Guilt mingled with my heartache because surely I shouldn’t equate breaking up with Roane to losing my father.

“It’s not just about him,” Greer suddenly said. “The way you talked about them during our catch-ups . . . it’s all of them. It’s the village and your friends, not just him. You’re homesick.”