“I want you to know I love you. I always will.”
“Just not unconditionally.”
He hung his head.
She would not allow him to play the victim here. Dana wrestled her diamond engagement ring from her finger and set it on the table. The paler strip of brown skin underneath made her finger look so bare.
“You can keep the ring if you’d like.”
“Take the damn ring. I don’t need any mementos of this moment.”
He slid the ring into his pocket. “Will you forgive me?”
“Are you for real?”
It was official. She would not pine over this man. She’d dodged the bullet instead.
Tommy stood.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Dana stood and pushed away from the table. “You donotget to walk out before I do, do you hear me?”
Channeling her musical idol, the great Ms. Diana Ross, Dana sashayed toward the cafeteria exit.
Don’t look back.
Her eyes stinging, she hurried down the hospital hallway and found the nearest stairway. Trying the door, she found it open. Escaping into the stairwell, she sat on one of the cold, concrete steps.
Women like you.
Dana waited for the tremors and the tears. They were coming. She knew it. Head in hands, she braced herself.
Only the tears didn’t come.
They would, of course. Eventually.
When they did, the deluge might very well sweep her away.
But not today. She wouldn’t allow it.
“Breathe.” She rested her palms on her knees. “I’m not dying. This is not the end.”
It was justanend.
***
This was a night for forgetting.
With that thought alone in mind, Dana opened the door to Joe’s Tiki Bar. She didn’t choose the spot because it was her favorite Vegas hangout. She chose it because it looked like it hadn’t been anyone’s favorite Vegas hangout in about thirty years.
All five people inside turned to look at her, but she didn’t let that stop her. Forgetting was best done in a dark, dingy place that wouldn’t attract scores of tourists like the sleek, popular bars down the Strip.
Ignoring the glowering wooden gods on all the posts and the cheeky hula girls smiling down from every piece of crap artwork, she chose a seat at the far end of the bar. It was darker in that corner because one of the overhead lights had burned out.
It didn’t matter anyway. Darkness suited her mood right now.
One man haunted her end of the bar, but he seemed more focused on his drink than on her, so she positioned herself two chairs down from where he sat.
Although he was hunched over his drink, he appeared tall and had long limbs. She knew he had muscles because the fabric of his clothes strained a bit over his biceps and thighs. As she adjusted herself on her seat, she took a discreet look, but not because she was interested in his muscles.
