They knew each other. There had been a serious, serious connection between them. In that light, it was good that she was gone. No, more than good. It was great. She was the kind of woman who could make even a hedonistic self-centered guy like him put his life under the microscope. Look hard at it. Find it—and himself—lacking.
She was the kind of woman that could make a man long for something more, feel his whole life was a desert of shallowness and meaninglessness, and that she held an answer, she could guide him to the oasis.
Jessica Winton could do that after two days! He was glad she was gone.
But when he entered his apartment after work, it seemed dark and lifeless and empty. He found himself in the bedroom she had used.
Her scent was in the air again—lavender. It made him ache, which made him feel furious with himself. That fury propelled him to the closet. He would do exactly as she instructed. She wanted to be an adult? She wanted to be in charge? Fine, he’d send all that stuff to Goodwill, just as she requested. He’d do it right now—he’d banish her from his space and from his heart.
He opened the door and saw that dress, the cocktail dress, in wisps of blue so insubstantial the dress might have been constructed of fog. It was the dress that she had worn to Phantom of the Opera and memory flooded him.
Memories of every single moment they had shared crowded around him. He went into the closet and buried his nose in the fabric.
He thought about how much she had loved that dress. Most women would have wanted it, would have taken it, especially if they were mad. All the women he’d ever met kept his gifts when it was over. But she wanted to give them away?
Somehow he knew, despite her ability to think of someone else, even when she was in distress, he knew he would not be sending that dress, or anything else of hers, to Goodwill.
He also knew she was the kind of woman who would require him—any man she was with—to be a better man.
“Not up for that,” he said out loud, as if somehow that would make it true, as if it would take away the unexpected longing to be the kind of man worthy of a woman like Jessica.
He told himself, again, he was glad she was gone.
The words rang as hollow as a tree that had had its insides burned clean out by a lightning strike.
CHAPTER NINE
“JESSICA, YOUR FATHER and I have to talk to you. Can we come over?”
Jessica sighed. This was the problem with living in a little cottage in your parents’ backyard. Of course they could come over, they were steps away. She couldn’t even pretend she wasn’t home. Her mother’s kitchen window looked right at her house. They would have known the second she returned from the bookstore today.
Funny how since she’d returned from New York, she was so aware of the “problems” in her life. Town too stifling, parents too close, house too small, bookstore not challenging. Her trip to New York had triggered a deep sense of dissatisfaction in her. Which explained why she had been avoiding her parents. It made her feel guilty that she suddenly yearned for things she had never yearned for before.
Including the taste of a certain man’s lips.
But still, all those “problems” seemed like they might only be distractions from the real issue. And yet, she recoiled from the question that pressed at the edges of her mind every time she lay down to go to sleep: What was the real reason she had run away from Jamie?
If she craved the taste of his lips, if she wanted him in her life, why hadn’t she stayed and talked to him? Heard his side of things? At least given whatever was happening between them an opportunity to grow? Should she call him? Should she apologize?
Before she could go too far down that road, there was a knock on the door. Jessica realized she should have offered to go over to their place. Her small space was something it had never been before—a disaster! Since her return, looking after her own space seemed like too much of an effort.
She opened the door and her mother and father filed in, looking very solemn, casting worried glances at her and the state of her house, on the way to her kitchen table.
“Jessica,” her mother said, without preamble, “you’ve been home a week. Your father and I can’t help but notice you seem depressed.”
Depressed? Did it go that far? She looked around her tiny home: empty ice cream buckets on the counter, dishes piled in the sink, clothes on the floor. Good grief! This was not her.
“We know you told us you were robbed in New York. We were wondering about post-traumatic stress. Maybe some counseling—”
Jessica bit her lip. It was the first time she had felt like laughing since she got home. “Mom, I’m okay. I don’t have PTSD. Honestly, the robbery...” she hesitated. What could she say? Led to the best experience of her entire life? “...just didn’t affect me that much.”
If that was true, if it had led to the best experience of her life, why had she been so quick to run, to slam the door shut behind her?
“But something has!” her mother wailed. “Your father and I have talked about it. Another possibility we thought of was that you fell in love with New York, didn’t you?”
For a heart-stopping moment, Jessica heard you fell in love in New York, didn’t you?
She didn’t say anything, so her mother rushed on.
“If that’s what’s bothering you—if you want to go there—we support you 100 percent. We would miss you dreadfully, of course, but we are still young people, quite capable of looking after ourselves. We’re not doddering old fools, even if we can’t run our phones. Or the
