Page 12 of Love Me Tomorrow

“What do you want me to say?” he growls, his face mere inches away from mine, his minty breath hot on my lips. “Let me hold you till you feel better, Rose.” His tone, though mocking, is underlined with an intensity that scorches a path straight to my heart. “Let my shoulder be the one that you cry on.” His nostrils flare, his lip curling with distaste. “Is that what you want to hear?”

Feeling the familiar pinch of guilt in my chest for hurting him, I strive for nonchalance when I quip, “That could work, except that I’m not really feeling the urge to cry right now.”

He curses under his breath, and not for a single second do I think it’s complimentary.

My chin lifts as I study his rugged features. A nose that’s been broken a time or two in the past. A small, faint scar that’s shaped like a crescent moon on the outer perimeter of his right eye. The heavy brows that act like two bookends to the seemingly permanent furrow that never, ever fades, even when he’s grinning devilishly.

Any chance of him grinning, devilishly or otherwise, is about to go up in flames. No time like the present to acknowledge the massive elephant in the room.

Here goes nothing.

“I’m sorry, Owen. I’m sorry that I sent you home the way I did. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t kind, and for the last two-hundred and ten days, I’ve regretted every moment of that night. I regrethowit happened, but it was necessary. Ithadto be necessary. Nothing between us was ever going to work out—not for the long run.” Unable to stop myself, I graze my hand over his arm. I hate the way my heart hiccups at the brief touch. Hate, even more, how my gaze seeks his out, begging him to understand.Please, please understand. “It would never have worked out,” I repeat, this time more forcefully, maybe to remind him of that fact, maybe to remind myself too. “We both know that.”

Beneath his flannel, his shoulders bunch tightly as he shifts his position. My arm falls, flattening against the wall near my hip. Coarse brick scrapes my palm. The gap between us narrows farther, all but destroyed for good when he ducks his head and rasps by my ear, “You’re absolutely right.”

Wait . . .I am?

Moving slightly to the left so I can turn my head fully, I try to get a read on him. But my Owen—the Owen I thought I knew—stares back at me like I’m nothing but a stranger. The heat, the silent need that used to warm his dark gaze, is long gone, with nothing left to remember him by but that furrow and the crescent-shaped scar and the crooked bend to his nose. “I-I don’t understand. Youagreewith me?”

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Nothing about the look on his face gives me the impression that we’re on the same page here. A beat passes. And then, “While you’ve been off gallivantin’ around the world, I’ve had those same two hundred and ten days to realize that you’re not at all the person I thought you were.”

My mouth is dry. So dry, not even a gallon of water could quench my thirst.

Try as I do to keep my voice level, I’m fully aware of the quiver that I can’t quite hide when I whisper, “And who do you think I am?”

His gaze pierces mine, immobilizing me in place. “A coward.”

Oh.

Oh.

He shoves away from the wall before I can formulate a single thought, a single comeback, a singleanythingthat isn’t my stupid heart letting out a keening, pained whine of despair. After everything that’s happened, I deserve that verbal hit. I deserve it, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’thurt.

My hands rise to clutch the collar of my dress. I feel my heart hammering, loud and frustratingly persistent, and it takes me a second to realize that it’s not just my heart pounding wildly but that I can also hear the distinct sounds of a brass band marching down Bourbon Street.

Life in New Orleans is ongoing, but inside this building, within this narrow hallway, I’m seconds away from coming undone.

I watch, struck mute, as Owen strides for his office door, like he can’t get away from me fast enough. But just before he ducks inside, he glances over his shoulder and meets my gaze. “Think I’ll send that invoice over to you after all.”

And then he shuts the door behind him, closing him inside and locking me out.

The way it should have been between the two of us from the start.

3

Celebrity Tea Presents:

Savannah Rose, America’s Sweetheart, Spotted in New Orleans after Months Living Abroad!

Dear Reader, never let it be said that you aren’t hearing the breaking news here first: Savannah Rose,Put A Ring On It’sfirst-ever bachelorette, has returned to the Big Easy!

America’s sweetheart was spotted looking rather hassled and hurried at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport yesterday morning, where one reliable source witnessed Savannah stop in front of a magazine stall, buy a stack of tabloids with her face on the front cover, and promptly drop them into the nearest trash can before she made her way outside.

“I was stunned,” the source, who also provided the picture below, wrote in to me via email. “Absolutely stunned. I mean, I’ve been watching her on TV every week for a month now and she seems sokind.So levelheaded. Not the sort of person at all who’d do something like that. I’ll be honest, it struck me as a little . . . dramatic.”

The question remains, though: how much do we even know about Savannah Rose? She’s been notoriously tight-lipped when she graces our small screens each week, and, of course, we can’t forget her emotional meltdown from the season’s first episode. Sending that inked god home before he even joined the cocktail party? Savage, Dear Reader, absolutely savage. (And entirely too enjoyable, so I rewound three times just because I couldn’t get enough.)

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