she had one foot in the past. She realized that now. She also realized that she’d been doing it by design. That she’d been doing it to keep herself safe.
But Alik, stupid Alik, sexy, wonderful Alik, wouldn’t let her stay safe.
He had pulled her open, exposed her, made her care and laugh and love. Made her hunger for life, for the next chapter instead of the ones at the beginning of the book.
She had been terrified of shedding her old self. That her new skin seemed to fit so much better. Because she hadn’t been sure how to reconcile it all. She had been happy with Sunil. But…but with Alik there was the promise of something true. Something complete. And it had all been too much for her to handle.
And now she’d ruined everything. Alik would never offer his love to her again. His face when he’d said that…it had been so cold. So horribly cold.
“How dare you?”
She turned and saw Alik, walking toward her. He was wearing the remnants of a suit, no tie, his shirt rumpled and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
“How dare I what?”
“How dare you…storm into my life.”
“You were the one who stormed into mine,” she said.
“Then why am I the one left devastated?”
She flinched, the haunted look in his eyes almost too painful for her to witness.
He took her arm and pulled her to him, his expression fierce. “You stripped me of all of my protection. Of everything that was holding me together. And then you took yourself from me too.”
“How dare I?” she asked. “How dare you! I feel like…I don’t even know who I am anymore. No, that’s not it. I feel like I found myself for the first time and I have nothing to hide behind. I have no excuse now, not to be this person, not to…not to grab what I want and I’m afraid of what I want, Alik. Of how badly I want it.”
“And what is it you want?”
“You,” she breathed. “No matter what…I…all I want is you. I’ve made some bad choices lately.”
“You have?” he asked, his expression frozen.
She nodded. “Alik, I was so stupid. I was so focused on protecting things that have already passed that I missed something I could have had now. I was too…I was too afraid of the person I was becoming and it made me want to cling to the past even more.”
“Emotion,” he said slowly, “is a very strange thing. As I am learning. I tried to feel for most of my life, and I failed. I tried to create deep feelings from shallow things but that doesn’t work. You can’t protect yourself and embrace love.”
“Sometimes you can’t stop it, either, even though you want to. I wanted to stop it, Alik, but I couldn’t.”
He laughed. “You wanted to stop what, princess?” The tenderness in his voice made her want to cry. Then she realized she was already crying.
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Alik, I tried so hard to fix you because it was easier than looking at myself and seeing what a mess I still was. I was so afraid that wanting different things now, becoming a different person now, would make my marriage obsolete. That it would dishonor my husband’s memory. More than that even…that I just wouldn’t be able to hide anything of myself. You distracted me, made me start to forget.”
“My sex appeal, I think.”
“You would think that, and I won’t lie, it was that in the beginning.”
“And now?”
“I am the most self-righteous, ridiculous, un-self-aware person on the planet.”
“Are you?”
“I must be. I had myself convinced that my past was perfection.”
“And I know that I’m not perfection.”
Her heart seized. “Alik…no…let me finish. I thought moving on from my past would somehow be disloyal or that it would…that it would erase it. That wanting something different now might mean that what I had then was somehow less. Alik, you made me want again. You made me dream. You took me dancing. You made me happy. You showed me that I wanted things I hadn’t even known I wanted. And with all of that…I don’t need my memories anymore. And those memories meant so much. They’re warm and sweet, calm. They’re what my idea of love was.”
“We are not sweet and calm, are we?”
“No. We aren’t. You challenge me. You arouse me like no other man ever has. I’ve spent my life doing things exactly how I should, and no one has ever made me