can’t just be one big adventure. It’s obligations and responsibility. He’s got his whole life ahead of him, and I’ve got children to raise and a marriage to end. And a life to plan.
“Maybe...But before I make promises to anyone else, I want to try and finally keep the ones I made to myself.”
He deflates in the face of my plea. He presses his lips together and puts his hands on his hips. His eyes glitter with frustration.
“You deserve that. And I want it for you,” His smile is so sad.
I hate myself for putting that there.
I hate him for making me feel the same.
Then he pulls me into a hug so tight, it’s hard to breathe. But I hold on and press my cheek to his and savor the feel and smell of the man who has given me more joy in three days than I’ve felt in fifteen years.
My eyes burn from the sting of unshed tears.
This is over. Probably, for good. But I won’t cast it as tragic. That this happened at all is amazing. After years of feeling the exact opposite, I now know that I am indeed, made to be loved. Even though he didn’t say the words; from taking me on that road trip, to bungee jumping, to showing me the wonders of the universe, to the way he’s letting me go now, I feel loved.
The doors slide open and the sound of jet engines, the smell of fuel and a wave of hot air roll in and bring reality with them. I look over my shoulder to find a member of the crew waving awkwardly at me.
He hugs me one more time and then picks my carry-on bag and walks with me to the door.
“Take care,” I say. A lump made of equal parts grief and gratitude lodges in my throat.
He takes my hand and draws it up to his mouth for a kiss.
“We didn’t find each other again for no reason. This may be the wrong time. But we are the right people. And you’ve always been my favorite what if.”
“I hope now that will stop being true.” I say with a flippancy I don’t feel.
“Why would it?” he looks genuinely puzzled.
“Because now you know that what if is sweet, but messy.”
He chuckles and it rumbles hollow and sad against my ribcage. That fierce determination back in his. “Well, you told me once that I was good at cleaning up your messes…when I get back to Houston, we’re going to find out if that’s still true.” He presses a hard, possessive kiss to my mouth. And for one glorious, final minute, I don’t give a damn who sees.
Three Months Later
Rivers Wilde
HOUSTON, TX
Chapter 33
The Prodigal Returns
Regan
“This is what you get for cheating on me Regan.”
“It was just one blow out.” I shake my head at my hairdresser Tanaka’s dramatics and sit patiently while she inspects my hair.
When we moved to Paris. All the stylists my mother in law worked with had no clue what to do with my hair. I started doing it myself, and it showed.
I was at the American embassy in Paris one day soon after we arrived and saw a woman who looked like she could have been my sister. Her hair was glorious, and she gave me her stylist’s number. She was working from a rented chair in a shop nestled in the shadow of Sacré-Cœur at the foot of the eastern slopes of Montmartre. My mother in law had nearly had a coronary and told Marcel I was frequenting the slums when she found out I spurned her Left Bank stylist.
I ignored her. Tanaka worked miracles with my hair.
The night we hosted our first of what would become regular First Friday socials at our apartment in Rue De Bac, everyone complimented my hair. And I was thrilled to send them her way.
She opened her own salon on the Left Bank a year later. She had a six-month waiting list and was well on her way to becoming a real celebrity when I decided to move back to Houston.
And when I told her I was going, she said “Me, too.”
It was at Blush, the salon she opened here in Rivers Wilde, is where she truly skyrocketed to fame. Her clientele list is so rarified that she’s become synonymous with the likes of Vidal Sassoon.
She could be anywhere in the world, but she’s loyal to the bone and for giving her work a platform that changed her life completely, she