One hour to sit.

To think.

To hope.

It’s insane in many ways.

Not to mention completely pathetic.

But I can’t seem to stop.

I don’t want to stop.

I want to see her. And walk up to her and say,Let’s do that over.

But when sixty minutes pass and there is no Marley, of course I resign myself to the cold realization that what happened in Paris was meant to be one perfect afternoon.

Nothing more.

And over the next two years as I travel back and forth to New York and make contacts and network with American designers on shared projects, including a fella named Lucas, I force myself to move on from Marley.

I even date.

It’s horrid, but so it goes.

12

MARLEY

New York

Two years later

I survive.

I survive two years of business school.

I make it through the toughest classes of my life.

And I survive missing the man I spent the most magical afternoon with.

For a while, I didn’t think I would.

I was certain I’d break down, fly to London, and knock on all the doors of all the design firms.

But I didn’t.

We made an agreement.

That we’d rely on fate.

That serendipity would have to bring us back together.

So I didn’t look for him, and while I wasn’t searching, I found something else in two years of classwork.

Myself.

My goals.