Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,49

didn’t think he’d ever see her again in his whole life.

Tell that to his heart, though. It was beating overtime for her, like it had been reawakened and was wishing desperately that this was a new beginning rather than another end.

* * *

Dear Annalise,

I hope this letter finds its way to you safely, and that you are healthy and happy. It’s been so long, too long, since I heard your voice or read your handwriting. I miss both with a deep ache inside me, one that never subsided. In spite of the time that has passed, I haven’t stopped thinking of you, not once in all the years since we last spoke. I’m not exaggerating when I say a day hasn’t gone by when I don’t think of you with fondness, love, and desire, as much, if not more, than I felt before. It seems utterly small to say I hope you are well, but I do wish that for you and your family.

I’ve finished college now, and am grateful for the scholarship from the army that paid my way through school. Now it is my turn to give back, and I’m doing that, as it happens, in Europe. I’m working in army intelligence and I have just been stationed in Germany, of all places. It’s not France, of course, but it isn’t an ocean away, either. I am so much closer to you than I ever was before. Perhaps we can see each other again? Perhaps we can do more than see each other? Maybe even start over? I have always longed for you with everything in my heart. Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer, ma petite fraise, my Annalise.

With all of my love,

Michael

* * *

She wasn’t supposed to think he was handsome. She shouldn’t be lingering on the memory of how he kissed, how she felt in his arms, or just how damn good they had been together. No, she was in love with her fiancé.

She. Was. In. Love.

But as she sat across from Michael her heart beat furiously, crashing against her skin, fighting valiantly to escape her plans, her future, her pending marriage. She laced her fingers together under the table, and she swore she was on the verge of crushing bones in the effort to keep her hands in her lap, her butt in the seat, her lips to herself.

Some primal part of her was dying to lean across the table, hold his face in her hands, and kiss him like no time had passed.

She resisted with everything she had. She resisted those words he’d written—Je n’ai jamais cessé de t’aimer. I have never stopped loving you.

Receiving that letter last week had been hard enough. Knowing how to respond was even tougher. Seeing him now was the most difficult part of all. Because as they talked, she slipped back into what they’d had in high school and that first year of college, and all that they’d been for each other.

All and everything.

She’d needed him to feel at home in America when she’d been alone, and he’d done more than that. He’d given her so much happiness. He’d needed her to survive the tragedy in his life, and she’d been there for him, even across the miles. She had thought she would marry him. She thought she’d be with him forever. And she hated that it had been too hard to stay together when they were young and so dependent on their families.

Now they were older and could find a way, and that was what he’d been trying to do when he sent that letter.

Except…. She toyed with the ring on her finger.

Her heart climbed into her throat, lodging itself there. She wanted to cry, and she wanted him, and she wanted to not want him.

She was happy, and she would always be happy with Julien. She just wished seeing Michael wasn’t so damn tempting.

And easy.

And good.

Soon enough, the clock ticked closer to boarding time. He walked her to her gate, and each step was a door closing, each second the final turn of the pages in a book. At her gate, they stopped, and unsaid words clung to the air like fog.

There was so much to say, and yet nothing that could be spoken. This was the last good-bye.

She swallowed her tears and choked back her emotions. “It was so good seeing you,” she said, and wished her words didn’t feel so inadequate.

He nodded. “And you.”

I’ll miss you. I’ll think of you. I can’t think of