Page 65 of That Reunited Feeling

Her eyes flick again to the bachelorettes, who are still safely facing the other way. Then her lids drift half shut as her tongue re-emerges and runs under the rim. She opens her mouth wide and sucks on the tip, gliding her lips over it, and sighs. “God, this is good.”

“Okay, you dirty chocolate-lover.” I lift the dick from her hand. “Enough.”

I place the creation in the gift box on Hannah’s table, close the lid, and thrust it at her.

If I don’t get every part of me on every part of this woman in the next few seconds, there’ll be an accident that creates bachelorette party memories no one needs.

18

HANNAH

“I

bet you’ve never had an edible phallus in your car before.” I place the chocolate cock—or theCockolateas the box says—at my feet, and lean back in the passenger seat.

My sides and cheeks ache from both laughing and trying not to laugh. “That was the funniest evening since forever.”

“Yeah, but the thing you enjoyed most was me not enjoying it.” Tom rests his left forearm on the steering wheel and twists to face me.

I roll my head against the headrest to look at him. “Yup. Just goes to show the best treats are priceless. I don’t need your billions of music dollars to have a damn good laugh.”

“And that”—he plants a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose—“is one of the things I adore about you.”

It sounds like there’s a whole story behind that sentence. “Was your wife all about the money?”

“Oh, yes. She came from money, so she was used to it. And thank God she had her own cash or there’d never have been aquickie divorce. For her, the marriage was all about the showbiz connections she couldn’t get by herself.”

“You mean she was more after the lifestyle that comes with you?” The thought of someone being with Tom for that shallow bullshit, not because her existence would be meaningless without him, stabs at my heart. He deserves to be with someone who considers him no less than the love of her life.

“I think so.” His tone says he came to terms with it years ago. “I met her when the label was just taking off. She was a trust-fund kid, following her favorite band around and trying to hang out with them. I guess the clues were there.”

“You must have liked something about her, though?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, she was hot.”

I laugh despite myself. “That’s nice and superficial. But she must have made youfeelsomething as well. I can’t imagine you marrying someone without a good reason.”

He looks away and gazes through the windshield at the charming village softly illuminated by streetlamps. “I thought marrying her, and building a home and a life with her, would finally make me feel like I could set down some roots, create my own family.”

Like a blow to the chest, his words knock the wind out of me. It takes an effort not to emit an audible gasp. With all Tom’s success and wealth, and that self-assured charisma he carries everywhere with him, it’s easy to forget he might still be scarred by his disrupted and traumatic childhood.

“After losing Mom and Dad, then being with Maggie and Jim for a while, then going to London and living with Bob and Linda…I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be. Where I belonged. Or if anyone wanted me.”

“I wanted you.” The words are out before I have time to filter them.

He turns back, his face lit up by a tender smile, and reaches across to tuck my hair behind my ear. “I know. Well, I do now. And I couldn’t be more sorry.”

Voices and the dinging of the bell over the door draw our attention to the women pouring out of the chocolate shop carrying their boxes of Cockolates. Mother of the Groom is swinging a half-finished bottle of sparkling wine.

“See, those folks,” Tom says, looking at them over his shoulder. “They all know where they belong.” He returns his gaze to me. “I still don’t know where I fit. I’m neither one thing nor the other. You heard them in there, calling me The Hot Brit. Well, I’m not a born Brit. But I also don’t feel totally like a Boston guy anymore either. So, who the hell am I? Where do I belong?”

His words shine a blinding spotlight on an issue I never dreamed he’d have.

The man I thought had everything—the stupendously successful business, the money, the cars, the global travel with amazing bands, the marriage to the glamorous wife—that man has felt lost and alone this whole time.

It’s simultaneously shocking and heartbreaking.

And I can’t keep my hands off him any longer. All this time I’d thought I was the only one in pain, but he was struggling too. I stroke his cheek with the backs of my fingers. “I can’t answer the bigger question. But I can tell you that right now it feels to me that you belong right here.”

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