Page 119 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

So much for protecting him. It hadn’t been good luck at all.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the other night,” he said, drawing my gaze back to his face. “I shouldn’t have just crashed your art show like that. And I have no right to question what you’ve been doing or who you’ve been doing it with. I gave up that privilege when I walked away.” He bit the corner of his mouth. Vulnerable, hopeful. “How about a do-over?”

“I’m not sure life works like that.”

“Okay.” He ran his hand through his hair, and I caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his inner bicep before he lowered his arm. “How about a date?”

“I…”A date?“What does your tattoo say?”

He held out his left arm so I could read it:Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.

A Rumi quote. “It’s beautiful.”

It reminded me of how he always used to call me his home. How he’d gone out in the world searching for his true self and his purpose, much like I had.

And now here we were again, right back where we started.

Same place, different people.

“You want to date me?” I asked just as the town car pulled up.

“How about we start with coffee?”

I gnawed on my lip, debating. I guess I owed him that much at least. “Okay. But it’sjustcoffee.”

“Just coffee,” he agreed. “So don’t get any ideas in that dirty mind of yours. I’m not that kind of guy.”

I rolled my eyes. But now he’d put those thoughts in my head again and all I could think about were those pouty lips I’d kissed a thousand times. The muscles and sinews and planes of his body that my hands used to know by heart. And how sex with Gabriel always felt like so much more than just sex. Like a sacred union of heart, mind, body, and soul.

I yanked open the rear passenger door as Gabriel straddled his bike. “Pick you up at ten.”

Without even putting on a helmet, he gunned the engine and rocketed up the street while I stood on the sidewalk, shaking my head.

Was he trying to kill himself?

The idiot was going to get arrested for driving without a helmet.Or maybe rock stars got a free pass, I thought bitterly as I slid into the back seat and took deep breaths, trying to calm my racing pulse.

With Gabriel, coffee was never just coffee.

Pretty sure that’s how I’d ended up in this mess the first time around.

First coffee, and the next thing you know you’re sharing the secrets of your soul.

Not this time though.

All I wanted was closure.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Cleo

Balthazar looked moreParisian than brasseries in Paris, with faded saffron walls, a tin ceiling, and antique lights.

Jack was waiting for me at the zinc bar in a crisp white button-down under a navy sports jacket and dark-wash jeans, looking like his handsome, cavalier self.

I shoved Gabriel out of my head and focused onMission Fun.

“Well, hello there,” I said, giving Jack an appreciative once-over as I sidled up to him, pretending we’d never met. “Come here often?”