Page 112 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

It was so odd to see him with a suntan. When we were together, we were pale city slickers. Now his skin glowed with vitality like he’d spent the past three years living on a beach. Which I guess he had.

His hair was longer and touched the collar of his shirt. I used to brush those stubborn locks off his forehead with my fingertips. Any excuse to touch him. Not that I’d ever needed an excuse. Physical touch was one of our love languages. We used to be fluent in all of them. Now we didn't even speak the same language anymore.

He lifted his glass in a toast. “To us.”

To the end of us, more like it. I clinked my glass against his. “To our divorce.”

I took a fortifying sip of my rum cocktail with honey and lime juice and ignored the scowl on his face.

“Stop talking dirty. How about we don’t mention the D word again?”

This man was unbelievable. What had he expected? Not like he’d spent the past three years blowing up my phone with calls. He hadn’t knocked on my door or flooded my mailbox with letters. No smoke signals or carrier pigeons or any other form of communication.

“Nice shirt,” I said.

He ran his hand down the front, smoothing out the wrinkles.

I used to iron his clothes before he went on stage and he would stand behind me, arms wrapped around my middle and murmur into my ear,How do you make ironing look so sexy?

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s my favorite.”

I searched his face. Nope. No recognition whatsoever. “I made it for you for your twenty-fourth birthday.You were sleeping with my best friend at the time.” I couldn’t help but throw that in because yes, I was still that petty.

His brows knitted and he shook his head. “Nope. Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“How convenient.”

He laughed.

We downed our cocktails and ordered another round, barely touching the food.

“Where’s your ring?” he asked.

I looked down at my bare ring finger. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” He stared at me so intently, so laser focused that I wouldn’t be surprised if he could see straight through to my innermost thoughts.

I’d almost forgotten the intensity of his gaze. The way his deep brown eyes held mine captive and made it nearly impossible to look away.

I took a deep breath and lowered my eyes, running my finger over a crack in the Formica. “I checked just about every pawn shop in the city but never found it.”

“Cleo.” He reached for my hand and held it in his. This felt so familiar. His warm, calloused hand clasping mine. “What happened?” he asked, his tone gentle, brows knitted.

“I got mugged by a knife-wielding panhandler. I was walking home from the subway late one night and I wasn’t paying attention. Which is crazy. I’m a New Yorker. I should know better. He demanded that I give him the ring, and I said, ‘over my dead body.’” I laughed hollowly. “I fought him and spit in his face. I tried to run but he grabbed my hair, yanked me back and held a knife to my throat…”

“Jesus.”

“He said, ‘You either give me the fucking ring or I’ll carve up that pretty face.’” For months after that happened, I could still feel the cool steel of the blade pressed against my skin and smell the stench of his breath.

I used to wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat with panic clawing its way up my throat and my heart pounding like a drum. When I’d reach for Gabriel, needing his reassurance that I was safe and there were no knife-wielding intruders in our apartment waiting to slice my throat, his side of the bed was empty and my fears would morph into sorrow and heartache.

Gabriel’s jaw was clenched, and he kept running his hands through his hair, making it stick up in ten different directions.

He smacked his palm on the table, making the dishes rattle. “That fucking asshole,” he seethed. “No ring is worth that.” He paused, eyes narrowed in thought. “That’s why you stabbed the canvas,” he guessed.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

That had been the longest, cruellest winter of my life. The curse of threes. First, Gabriel left. Then, my bedroom flooded. And for the hat trick, the ring.