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  He encircled my waist with one arm, pulling me close to his body, as he pressed me against the door. My hands were tangled in his hair, drawing him closer, and he deepened the kiss. Our bodies were glued, yearning for the intimacy that used to sparkle and burn between us.

  I stroked his cheeks, then his chest, frustrated by the barrier of clothes between us. When he slid his hands to cup my bottom and pressed me to him, we both moaned. I could feel him hard and rigid, and my hips pushed against him. We were drawn together like the opposite poles of two powerful magnets, unable to fight the torrent of attraction that flooded each of us.

  But we were indeed at opposite poles—or so we used to be, once. The thought brought me to my senses with the jolt of a slap. I turned my head away gasping, then managed to extract myself from Blade’s embrace. I quickly put some distance between us, trying to get my bearings.

  He stood with his back to the room, supporting himself with both hands against the door, breathing hard. After a few tense moments, he said, “So you haven’t changed. You still leave your business unfinished and flee, like you did three years ago.”

  I should have known he would bring up the matter, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon, not at the office. The stitched pieces of my heart started to rip again when he turned around and I saw his shattered expression. But most of all he looked disappointed in me, and that I couldn’t bear.

  “I... I had my reasons to leave, Blade,” I stammered, adjusting my clothes and hair.

  “Which were?”

  He went behind his desk and sat down, watching me.

  “I... wanted to make a career,” I said. “I couldn’t live in Jamestown for the rest of my life. You were already a known journalist, but I’d barely gotten my degree. It was time to act, that’s all.”

  “So that’s why you left one night without a word to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit!”

  His tone was so harsh I flinched. I took a deep breath, then turned to the door. This was going nowhere. I had to get out of there fast, before the threatening tears would start falling. I knew they weren’t going to stop easily.

  “Whatever,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m going home. The workday is over.”

  Just when I reached for the doorknob he spoke again, in the same tone.

  “You’re a coward, Angelina.”

  I whirled around to confront him, my teeth gritted, ready to breathe fire. But when I looked at him, all the fight went out of me. I knew he was right. I opened the door and got out quickly.

  I walked blindly toward my office, entered and locked the door. Then I just let myself slide down against it, burying my face in my hands. I tried to contain the sobs, but after being suppressed for three years, the tears couldn’t be held back any more. I cried and cried, feeling my heart tear with sorrow and helplessness, choked by the pain radiating from inside me.

  My past rushed back and with it the shame, the fury, the insecurity. And most of all, the enormity of what I’d lost because of life’s unfairness.

  Four

  During the past three years I’d been wondering daily if I’d done the right thing by leaving home the way I did. But if I thought hard enough about it, I didn’t believe I’d make any other decision. It was true I’d lost the only man I’d ever loved, but if I had stayed, I most probably would have ruined his life. He was still very young, trying to build a career and a reputation as a journalist, whilst I was barely more than a teenager and I had my mom to take care of.

  How could I have asked or expected him to take us both on in his care? I knew he would have, without a qualm, but I couldn’t have accepted it. To see him work as a slave to support me and my mother, to ruin his brilliant future, to hear his friends snigger behind his back about the poor destitute girl he’d married... My mother and I were close to being considered charity cases in the small town where we lived. The humiliation of it was maddening, but it had become unbearable when I dated Blade.

  His parents were pillars of the community. His father had been mayor back then and probably still was. His mother strongly disapproved of me because I was the daughter of a modest widow with a precarious health, who worked as a housekeeper. I supplemented our income by working at the local library, but the money was never enough.

  When Blade started asking me out, I refused him in the beginning. He worked in Sacramento and came home mostly just for the weekends. But he was tenacious and in the end I couldn’t resist his smile, his attractiveness, his gentleness. When he’d first kissed me, I nearly wept with joy. For the first time in my life I was almost happy. Those few months we’d been together were the most wonderful period of my entire life. The hours spent with him were the only thing that brought joy into my heart and made me forget the ugliness of reality. Blade had been the only reason why I was looking forward to see another sunrise.

  He’d been the first man to kiss me, to touch me, to have me. When we made love for the first time it was the most heart-wrenching and beautiful moment in our relationship until then. After that, I used to lose myself in his arms with passion and frantic abandonment, pretending that his love could make everything better.

  But of course, it hadn’t. I couldn’t afford to go to a regular college, so I followed the intensive courses of a college through correspondence. Finally, at the end of seemingly interminable courses and on-line exams, I managed to get my degree in Journalism, which had been my life’s ambition as long as I could remember.

  Even though it was the middle of the week, Blade came home that night and took me out to celebrate. We even met some of his friends, but that didn’t please me at all. I felt uneasy among all those rich people, even though I didn’t want to tell Blade about it.

  We went to a bar—one of the very few in our small town. Steve, Blade’s best friend, had come with his girlfriend, Maggie. She couldn’t stand the sight of me, and didn’t bother to hide it.

  After a few drinks, Maggie said in her particularly obnoxious tone, “I don’t believe this bullshit college by correspondence should exist. Any idiot can earn a degree, which is unfair for the rest of us, who truly deserve it for studying so hard.”

  I remember even now the dead stillness that had suddenly fell over the table. Then Blade sharply told Maggie that a stupid bimbo snob like her would never be half as smart as me if she lived to be a hundred.

  Of course, Steve had stood up to defend his girlfriend, throwing more than a few uncomplimentary remarks in my direction. After that, things escalated fast as lightning. Before I could fully grasp the situation, Blade’s fist had connected with Steve’s jaw. Each of them had managed to get in a few good shots before the others succeeded in prying them apart.

  That incident opened my eyes for good. I didn’t fit in Blade’s world and never could. It would have been unfair and embarrassing for him to keep seeing me. Even as he drove me home, even as we sat in his parked car and I bandaged the bleeding gash in his temple, my heart was breaking piece by piece, but my decision to leave him was already made.

  When he took me in his arms and kissed me, I kissed him back with all the love stored in my heart, knowing it was the last time I was going to see him. When he told me he loved me, I nearly burst into tears, but managed to steel myself until he left, promising he’d see me the next day.

  I was shattered on the inside. That day, which had been so rewarding earlier, had turned into the day I buried my dead heart. I sat on the steps of our humble house and wept for a long time, not wanting my mother to see me. She had a bad heart, and losing my dad in a work-related mine accident when I was only five made things worse.

  As soon as I got inside, she knew something was wrong. Even though I tried to hide my pain from her, I ended up with my head in her lap, crying my heart out as she stroked my hair gently. She told me then that I deserved a better life, and that it was time to go and make one. I couldn’t bear to leave her, but at the same time I knew I had to, in order to help us both. She told me I’d done the
best thing regarding Blade. I had to make a career and be financially independent before I got seriously involved with a man.

  And so, I packet my little suitcase and scraped enough money to buy a bus ticket to Sacramento, which was a couple of hours away. Reluctantly, I left Mom with tears in my eyes and the promise I would have her join me as soon as she managed to sell the house. She sold it in just a couple of months, for a fairly good price. Meanwhile, I’d found a job as a proofreader at a newspaper in Sacramento. Additionally, I worked part-time in a cosmetics boutique, so we did pretty well when Mom joined me there.

  We didn’t stay long in Sacramento though, because of my constant fear of running into Blade. My mom told me he’d almost gone mad when he’d heard I’d left town, begging her to tell him where I was. Since I’d forbidden her to do so, she had to lie and say she didn’t know, but Blade had come to the house several times to try and persuade her to tell him my location and why I had left without a word.

  My heart was breaking every time I thought about him, especially since my mom said he looked absolutely devastated by my betrayal, as he called it. I only consoled myself with the thought it was for his own good, as well as mine.

  When we moved to Seattle, we decided to buy a small condo with the money Mom got for the house. Her health had improved considerably, so she worked now part-time in an antique shop, which pleased her and provided some extra money. We were doing quite well, and even though my heart had never been exactly healed, I succeeded in numbing it, drowning all the memories in work.

  Until today. This mid-June day had brought back my past to haunt me in a way I never believed was possible. I thought I was over Blade until I saw him sitting at Howie’s desk this morning. And if I had any vestiges of hope that I could work with him, the kiss we’d shared made it too obvious it was impossible.

  I don’t know how long I sat there on the floor, glued to the locked door of my office, until the ringing of my phone jolted me abruptly out of my incursion in the past. I dragged myself up and to the desk, then rummaged through my bag to find it. It was Mom.

  “Yes, Mom,” I said, trying to disguise my voice so she wouldn’t notice I’d cried.

  “Angie, baby, where are you? It’s nearly five.”

  “I got hung up at the office. I’m off to home now, don’t worry.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked gently.

  I was too down even to be annoyed by her perceptiveness. The automatic denial that anything was wrong stopped in my throat. The long sigh seemed to come from the bottom of my heart.

  “Nothing serious, just an... unexpected turn of events. I’ll tell you when I get home,” I said, massaging the bridge of my nose.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, Mom. I’ll see you home.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  I put the phone back in my handbag, then took out my small mirror. I looked like hell, with tears tracking down my cheeks along with smudges of mascara. My eyes and lips were red and swollen, and my nose looked like I had the flu. I cleaned myself up as best as I could, then packed my briefcase and went out.

  The corridors were deserted, thank God. The last thing I wanted was to bump into someone looking and feeling as I did. When I got out of the building, I couldn’t believe the sun was still hot. The air was dense and dusty, almost unbreathable. The asphalt felt very warm under my feet as I walked toward the parking lot.

  The air in my car was stifling. I swore when I sat and the heated leather of the seat burned the back of my bare thighs. I started the engine and sat for a few minutes, waiting for the air conditioning to begin cooling the air. Luckily, the drive home was very short. Often I took the subway to work, but today had been too hot to walk to the station.

  Mom was waiting for me anxiously. I barely had time to unlock the door before I heard her slippers patting down the hall. She appeared immediately from the kitchen, holding a dish cloth. She wore her old red housedress and her short blonde hair was in disarray, as though she’d plowed her fingers through it.

  “Angie, what happened?” she asked frantically, as I kicked off my shoes. Her green eyes were round, clouded with worry.

  “Nothing, Mom. Don’t worry,” I hurried to reassure her. I always tried to protect her from any bad news or shocks that might endanger her fragile health. “Did you take your heart medicine today?”

  She gaped at me, as though I’d spoken out of context. “What? Yes, of course. I take them every day, you know that. But what’s that got to do with anything? Tell me what’s wrong,” she demanded, trailing me to the living room. If I were in a cheerful mood, I would have laughed looking at poor Mom, with her mouth agape and her hair sticking out in all directions. As it was, I couldn’t even stretch a smile.

  “Blade Spencer is my new boss,” I informed her as I took off my suit jacket and top, then dropped onto the couch wearing only my skirt and bra.

  Mom stared at me and the dish cloth slid from her fingers.

  “The Blade Spencer we know?” she asked almost in a whisper. “How is that possible?”

  “Howie’s retired. Blade has taken his place as my editor-in-chief.”

  All of a sudden, I felt overwhelmed by the day’s events. An enormous weight seemed to press on my shoulders. Before I knew it, my eyes flooded with tears again. Mom sat on the couch and drew me to her chest, just as she did when I was a kid. She stroked my hair gently with her callous hands roughened by work.

  “Oh, Mom, I can’t bear it!” I sobbed. “I love him so much, and I just now realize all I’ve lost during these years... It all came back. I’ve never forgotten him, and I’m afraid all I did was so unfair.”

  “Hush, baby. It will all work out,” she murmured, holding me tight, rocking me while I continued to blabber incoherently.

  After a while, my tears subsided. I felt drained, but purified. All the pain I’d carried inside me during all these years was finally out. The scars were still etched in my heart, but some of the suffering and sorrow had been freed.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you with my problems.” I sniffed, looking up at her as I lay on the couch with my head in her lap.

  She smoothed her palm over my forehead, brushing the hair away from my tear-streaked face.

  “Don’t be silly, honey. What you feel is natural. I know how much you loved Blade. He was a good boy and he cared about you enormously.”

  “I know.” I sighed. “He was the best thing in my life, Mom, and I jilted him like an idiot.”

  “You know that’s not true! You had no choice. You did it for his sake, as well as yours and mine. It was the only thing you could have done at the time, and the most altruistic gesture one could do for the person one loves. Have you told him why you left?”

  “No. I couldn’t. What would be the point now?”

  “He needs to know. Since God has given you a second chance and brought him back in your path, he deserves to know the truth.”

  I gazed at her, surprised.

  “A second chance? That’s what Belle said. Do you really think we could mend things after all that’s happened?”

  “Why not? Is he married or seeing someone?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s married. But it’s hard to believe a man like him is single. He kissed me,” I confessed and hid my face in her skirt, inhaling her comforting smell of freshly-baked cookies.

  She laughed softly, caressing my hair.

  “Oh, my! Fast work! So, the boy still loves you?”

  “He’s not a boy anymore, Mom. He’s a man, and what a man,” I said, shaking my head dreamily, thinking back at Blade’s lips on mine and his body pressed against mine.

  Mom chuckled, turning my face to look at her.

  “Now I’m truly sure that God sent him back to you, Angie. You and Blade were made for one another. I’ve always thought so,” she told me, wiping my tears. “And if, before, the circumstances weren’t ideal, now things have changed. Now you’re an independ
ent young woman and he is a successful young man. Neither of you are attached, so why are you crying? What more could you want? Baby, we should be celebrating!”

  “Do you really think so?” I asked, not daring to hope yet. But a warm feeling of joy flooded me when she nodded, smiling down at me.

  “I do. Furthermore, you do too. You should talk to him tomorrow. Tell him everything and see if you two can have another chance.”

  Five

  I woke up with the sun on my face and in my heart. The rays streaming through the windows of my bedroom didn’t annoy me as usual. I actually felt chipper as I looked at the yellow and blue flowery curtains Mom and I had chosen to match the colors of the walls and rugs, when we decorated both bedrooms.

  A state of unprecedented optimism and contentment bloomed inside me, as I stretched languorously. I sighed in bliss, remembering the triple X-ed dreams I had, whose protagonists were Blade and me. Nothing unusual in that, I reassured myself. Three years of celibacy is a long time for a healthy woman of twenty five. And even though I sometimes felt I was going crazy with the simple need to be held and kissed again by a man, somehow I could never bring myself to sleep with anyone. I tried dating a few guys, but eventually they all became frustrated by my standoffishness and moved on to more promising grounds.

  I wondered if Blade had been celibate during these three years. How stupid! What man could stay celibate that long? Of course he’d had other women. An extremely passionate man like him couldn’t stay single long. The thought of him in bed with another woman made my silly smile collapse and my heart jolt in pain. I had no right to be jealous, but that vision was torture!

  I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to wipe it off from my mind. God willing, Blade and I will resurrect our love right this day. I climbed out of bed and headed to the bathroom, sniffing the air. Coffee and pancakes. My mom was an angel and I was delighted to be the sinner in her care.