feed his hunger to fix the worst mistake of his life, but he knew the hope didn’t belong to him. Sarah had told him to go. He had no right to challenge her decision, to fight to be allowed back in. He’d given up that right the day he’d lied to protect himself.
The day he’d told her he didn’t love her.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 9
ALMOST EXACTLY THREE WEEKS AFTER THE HOT, sweet, passionate hour that had haunted her thoughts no matter how many times she told herself to forget it and move on, Sarah braced herself to see Abe again. There was no way to avoid it, not when, in approximately twenty hours’ time, she’d be attending the wedding of Schoolboy Choir’s lead singer.
She still couldn’t believe she was about to spend the night at Molly and Fox’s house prior to the other woman’s wedding. After her and Abe’s drawn out and bitter divorce battle, a battle fueled by pain and hurt and a love that refused to die, she’d never expected to be invited back into the band’s world.
Then the men had sent her flowers after Aaron was stillborn.
And Sarah had realized for the first time that maybe Fox, Noah, and David did see her as a person, not just as the woman who’d been Abe’s arm candy for a few years. The fact that Abe had sent her flowers too? Sarah still wasn’t sure she’d truly processed that. Her ex-husband would’ve never done such a thing… but her Abe would have.
But this, tonight, it wasn’t about her and Abe. It wasn’t about the boys at all.
It was Molly who’d invited Sarah to a coffee date not long after Sarah left the sanctuary Molly and Fox had provided after Jeremy hit her. Sarah had offered to go to a hotel, or to Lola’s empty apartment, but Molly wouldn’t hear of it given Sarah’s shocked and shaken state and her need for protection from the paparazzi. Sarah had expected it to be a one-off kindness, their paths never crossing again; with Molly engaged to one of Abe’s closest friends, she’d figured the other woman’s loyalties wouldn’t permit her to be friends with Abe’s ex.
Then Molly had reached out.
That first coffee meeting had been followed by others where Sarah got to know Kit and Thea better too. They—as well as Molly’s best friend, Charlotte—had all had the best time at Molly’s “Cake-Testing Fiesta” a couple of weeks earlier.
Of course, both Thea and Kit had been around while Sarah was married to Abe, but back then, jealous and feeling like a fraud, Sarah had rebuffed what, in hindsight, she could see had been attempts to foster a friendship. Thankfully, neither woman was holding the past against her. And tonight all of them would help celebrate Molly’s impending wedding.
Smiling at the idea of the “girls’ night in” that Molly had chosen in lieu of a bachelorette party, she checked she’d gathered everything she needed to take to Molly’s. That didn’t include a wedding gift—as per Fox and Molly’s request, she’d made a donation to a small charitable foundation that helped children deal with the loss of one or both parents. Knowing what she did about Molly’s past, Sarah understood the charity must speak deeply to her, but what the other woman couldn’t know was how deeply it spoke to Sarah as well.
Perhaps if their friendship endured—and she so hoped it would, would work hard for it—she’d talk to Molly about it one day.
As it was, she’d made a far more substantial donation than could be expected of a wedding guest, and she intended to add them to the list of charities to which she donated regularly. All had to do with helping lost children. The safe arms of this charity would’ve been out of her reach even had they been around in her part of the country, but as long as it helped one child, it was worth it.
Shaking aside the memories of the ruins of her childhood, she took another look at the dress she intended to wear for the wedding. Knee length, with the fabric a deep shade of turquoise, it bared her arms but had a high neck. The interest came from the origami-style folding on the upper left, from her shoulder to the curve of her breast.
Elegant and pretty at the same time, the dress spoke to both parts of Sarah—the girl who loved sparkle and shine and prettiness, and the woman who knew the world treated you better if you