As If You Never Left Me (Crimson Romance) Read Free

her breasts, and she knew for a fact she looked damned good in a pair of jeans. If that didn’t make Rey sweat, nothing would.
    Wearing the more casual clothes, she went into the bathroom and straightened her pale, short-cropped hair. Then she wondered why she was making such a fuss. It was Rey, after all, who’d seen her at her best and worst for five years before he’d decided his career was more important than their marriage.
    Sudden thickness rose in her throat. She blinked hard as the old emotions rose. The erosion of her marriage had been the most painful thing she’d ever experienced, and the thought of facing that again held her paralyzed for a moment. Could she walk into that restaurant tonight, knowing it could be the first step down a road that led to bereavement?
    In the kitchen, the teakettle began to whistle. Joely jerked back to the present, untangling her thoughts from memories of Rey. There was a great deal of good mixed in with the bad. Memories she still treasured, of secrets shared, love whispered, heated bodies tangling in the darkness, or the muted light of late morning. She looked at the mirror, at her own clear blue eyes and the determined set of her jaw.
    She had to find out what he had to say.

Chapter Two
     
    With her heart in her mouth, Joely stepped through the front door of the Elk Valley Diner. She paused, taking a deep breath. She’d spent many a lunch break here — the nachos were excellent. It was familiar territory, at least, making her feel less nervous about the impending confrontation with Rey. What could he say to her after all this time? Why had he even come?
    Of course, she wouldn’t get the answers to these questions until she actually spoke to him. Fighting the urge to turn around and run, she continued into the restaurant.
    Rey sat at the bar, sipping a beer. In a chambray shirt and jeans, he looked more like he belonged in Colorado, rather than in a posh New York City boutique. A shock of brown hair fell down over his forehead as he made notations on his phone. Joely found her attention captured by the movement of his fingers. Those fingers could work magic when he put his mind to it, and she could remember the exact sensations, how they felt sliding over her skin, cupping a breast, sliding inside her.
    Her attention drifted down lanky, jeans-clad legs to the comfortable-looking hiking boots on his big feet. The jeans were snug but not too tight, displaying each line of his muscled legs and buttocks to perfection. And the feet — although the feet inside the boots were typical knobby man-feet, she had reason to know he lived up to the old wives’ tale about the size of a man’s feet.
    A long, tall drink of water, indeed. She’d forgotten how damn pretty he was. She’d forgotten how much she always wanted him when she saw him. The way he made her breath go shallow and her heart speed up. The way her body opened, ready to take him in.
    Gathering herself yet again, she perched on the stool next to him and he looked up, giving her that smile. The one that rendered useless all efforts to calm herself. “Hi.” He paused. “So what’s the verdict?”
    “I don’t have the papers.”
    His face softened with relief, and only then did she realize it had carried the tension of uncertainty. She laid her hand on his, let herself feel the warmth of his skin.
    “Why am I here? What do you want to talk to me about?”
    “I want a second chance.”
    She could only stare at him. “I gave you a second chance. And a third chance. A fourth, even. You refused to change anything.”
    “I know.”
    His soft admission surprised her. She leaned against the bar. The support helped a little. She felt like her whole world had turned sideways, and if she didn’t hold on tight to something, she might fall off.
    “I screwed up, Joely. I know that now and I knew it then. I was stubborn and stupid, and I threw away the best thing that ever happened to me.” His eyes on hers were soft and