Page 9 of Old Flame

Her body stiffened, and she nodded. Then, without saying a word, she hurried inside. Either to get away from me, to cry because I was an asshole, or to change. I hoped like fuck it was the latter.

4

Salem

Present Day

A biker.

He was a biker.

The anniversary of my husband’s death, and I sawhimfor the first time in eighteen years.

And he was a biker.

With a girlfriend who had ginormous boobs, fake lashes, and too much makeup. Okay, fine, she was hot. If you liked the blatantly obvious sex-appeal thing. Why did I care?

Eighteen years, Salem. You are an adult. You’ve lived another life since you saw him last.

Dropping my gaze to my drink, I broke eye contact because he clearly wasn’t going to. I should leave. Pay my tab and go. The evening had just taken a turn I’d have never seen coming, and I wasn’t in need of a venture down memory lane.

The crowd applauded as the band finished a set and said they’d be back in twenty minutes. I looked up, purposefully not letting my eyes go anywhere near Rome Bower, and searched for a waitress instead. Any waitress, a busboy, someone. Maybe I could leave two hundred-dollar bills on the table and escape.

No. There was no way it would be that much, and I couldn’t throw money around like that. This trip had cost me more than I had budgeted for. The life insurance and small savings thatEamon had left behind, I’d put it into mutual funds, not wanting to touch it. The idea that I had been given money because my husband was dead bothered me. I just…I just felt guilty.

Like his mother had pointed out more than once in our marriage, we didn’t have any children. He’d had life insurance in case he left me behind with kids to raise. But there was none. Her biggest gripe she harped on about was that there was no son to pass on the family name. Not for a lack of trying though. I’d wanted a baby. I’d lost three, two with Eamon and one with…

I glanced over at him again, unable to stop myself. The brunette was perched on one of his thighs, and her arm was draped around his shoulders while she talked to the attractive woman tucked close to Mr. Drop-Dead Gorgeous. Rome lifted a bottle of beer to his lips and took a long pull. I could see his throat muscles working from here. His attention didn’t seem to be on anything as he stared straight ahead.

Was he thinking about the past? Or had he recognized me? I wasn’t nineteen anymore. I thought he’d recognized me, but maybe not. I mean, after eighteen years, shouldn’t we be able to greet each other? Acknowledge that we had once been…connected, two parts that made a whole, a family. God, I didn’t even know what to call what we had been.

Back then, I had thought he was my forever. Then he shattered me in a way that it took years for me to recover. Even after my marriage, I was still damaged. Holding myself back. Not able to give Eamon my heart completely. Rome had broken it beyond repair and walked away with my soul.

But I had been young and foolish. I was way beyond that romanticism and belief in fairy tales. I knew what a real relationship consisted of, and the volcanic emotions that Rome had stirred in me were not made for sturdy foundations.

The brunette was smiling wide as she looked down at Rome like he was her sun. God, did I know that feeling.

Shaking my head, I swung my attention away from that scene and back to finding a waitress. Pepper Abe was headed in this direction with another cocktail, but she’d have to give that to someone else if it was for me.

I envied Pepper’s confident stride. I wished I had a sway to my hips like that when I walked. Instead of always feeling self-conscious. She looked at the half-finished glass in front of me, then at my credit card in my hand, and she cocked an eyebrow, as if to ask where I thought I was going.

Sorry, Pepper, I am getting the hell away from my past. That’s where I’m going.

What were the freaking odds? Florida was a big state. How had Rome ended up down here in Miami? The biker thing did make sense. He’d been obsessed with motorcycles back then, spending hours working on that old Harley he’d bought. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure I’d heard his boss—the owner of the Harley repair shop he’d worked at in Ocala back then—mention being in an MC club. That was a four-and-a-half-hour drive north. That would probably be another club. Maybe Rome had moved down here for this club or a bigger bike shop to work at. I didn’t know. I knew nothing about Rome now when, once, I’d known everything about him.

“You trying to leave already? We just got started,” Pepper said, placing the new cocktail in front of me. “This one is a favorite, but only Regina can make it right. She just got here, or I’d have brought you one earlier.”

The pink cocktail looked like it had silver sugar around the rim. I was sure it was delicious, but I couldn’t enjoy it. Not with Rome and the woman he’d stolen from a stripper pole wrapped around his body.

Ugh. I was being snarky again.

Stop it, Salem. Stop. It.

I managed the best attempt at a smile that I could. “I need togo. Maybe next time,” I told her as I glanced at Rome without meaning to. I wasn’t sure what to blame it on. Saying it was curiosity seemed lame when my heart hadn’t stopped racing since spotting him.

Snapping my attention back to Pepper, I held out my credit card and pulled the strap of my purse onto my shoulder, ready to stand up. I needed to use the restroom before leaving, and it would get Rome out of my line of sight.

“I’m just going to head to the restroom while you take that,” I explained.

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