Page 121 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

“I’m flattered.”

“Not to be confused with easy,” I warned.

“I would never.” He leaned across the table. “Oyster?”

After dinner, we went to a bar with antiqued mirrors and soft lighting.

I don’t know if Jack tugged me off my bar stool or if I slid off the bar stool of my own accord, but I found myself standing between his legs, kissing him. His hands were in my hair and his tongue was in my mouth and he was such an expert kisser that it was no wonder I kept going back for more.

Mmm, he smelled so good. Like warm spice and bergamot. Sexy and seductive. I would happily do the backstroke in a vat of his scent.

I pulled back but kept my arms around his neck. “We’re making out in a bar.”

“Like two high school kids. How shameful,” he said, gripping my hips and tugging me closer.

We started kissing again.

It was so much easier to forget all your problems when you were slightly tipsy and getting high on someone’s kisses.

Jack tasted good, like aged whiskey. He was so pretty I could cry. And in some alternate universe, he would be the guy of my dreams.

But in this universe, the ethereal, haunting, shivers-down-your-spine voice of my estranged husband cut straight throughmy little fantasy world and brought me back down to earth, unceremoniously dumping a bucket of ice water over my head.

Suddenly, Jack’s kisses left me cold.

I pulled away so abruptly that the backs of my thighs collided with the bar stool. I tripped over my heels and would have fallen on my ass if Jack hadn’t caught me and set me back on my feet.

I gritted my teeth and smacked my palm on the bar as I slumped on my stool, defeated.

Not even the chatter around us or the glasses clinking drowned out the sound of Gabriel’s voice. The longest song in the world just kept on playing.

It was the song Gabriel wrote for me. The one I’d listened to in my bedroom before destroying the cassette tape. The first song on his first album. The song that used to make women scream and cry whenever he performed it.

They used to wait for him backstage and outside his hotel. Screaming his name. Trying to touch him and get as close to him as humanly possible. But he’d never once succumbed to temptation.

I always thought that proved how strong and unbreakable our love was. To withstand the pressures of being on the road, the distance, and the time apart, the lure of drugs and women, was a testament to our devotion to each other.

I truly believed we would be together forever.

When someone leaves you, you’re not mourning the past. You’re mourning the future that you could have had.

“What are the chances?” Jack said, laughing then sighing as he shot a look of accusation at the speakers.

Gabriel. The ultimate cockblock. “Unfortunately, better than average.”

“Remember the model?” I nodded. “She used to play this song on repeat. One time I caught her crying and asked what waswrong. And she said, ‘No one has ever loved me like that.’ The next day we broke up.”

I downed the rest of my drink and set the glass on the oak bar. “If it’s any consolation, that kind of love doesn’t last.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Gabriel

I’d gonefrom feeling absolutely nothing in the months following my surgery to feeling too much of everything.

Now I was constantly overwhelmed with an onslaught of emotions. I was fucking marinating in them.

I strummed my guitar.