Something in that single word made me stop. Not turn around, but stop. I stood there, keys digging into my palm, trying to remember how to breathe.
How could this man still have this effect on me after four years? Why did the universe think this was what I needed right now?
"What?" I asked without looking back.
I heard him move closer. Felt him there, just behind me. "I owed you better than that."
"Yeah." My voice threatened to break on me as old wounds were scratched. "You did."
"Can I… can we talk? Just for a minute?"
"Why?" Now I did turn, facing him fully. The streetlight caught his features, highlighting the angles I'd once traced with my fingers. The face I'd once cherished and kissed, the eyes I'd stared into many nights. "What's the point, Eric? You made your choice four years ago. I moved on."
He watched me with those dark eyes, and I hated that I couldn't read his expression. Hated that part of me still wanted to.
"Did you?" he asked quietly.
The audacity.
"Go to hell." I turned back toward my car. "We're done here."
This time, he didn't follow. I made it to my car, fumbled with the keys, climbed inside and locked the doors. Through the windshield, I could see him still standing there, hands in his pockets, watching me.
I gripped the steering wheel hard enough for my knuckles to whiten.
Four years. I'd spent four years trying to forget Eric Hale, and in one night, he'd crashed back into my life like he'd never left. And the worst part, the absolute worst part, was the flutter in my chest that had nothing to do with Jordan and everything to do with the way Eric had looked at me.
Like he'd already decided something.
Like leaving again wasn't on the table.
I started the engine, refusing to look at him in my rearview mirror as I pulled away.
Fuck him. I didn't do second chances.
2
ERIC
Istood in the parking lot and watched her taillights disappear into the night.
Ivy.
After all this time, Ivy had stepped back into my life.
The universe had a twisted sense of humor. I'd spent four years convincing myself I'd made the right call, that cutting her loose had been the kindest thing I could do. Clean break, no mess, no dragging her into the nightmare my life had become.
And now here she was, in Ironstone of all places.
My chest felt tight. Wrong. Like something had just slipped through my fingers again, only this time I'd known exactly what I was losing.
I turned back toward the bar, but I didn't go in. Instead, I pulled out my phone and stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over my contacts. No one to call. Nothing to say. Just the residual adrenaline from seeing her face again, hearing her voice. It was still the same, although, when directed at me now, it was sharper, harder around the edges, but stillhers.
I deserved the walled-off version of her now. I'd brought this upon myself.
But seeing her, hearing her, it had resurfaced so many memories. She was still the Ivy I'd discovered alone in a bar, dancing and living life wild and free.
Still the woman who'd made me believe, however briefly, that I could be something other than what I was.
