Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) Read Free

a job that can hold my interest.
It's fun. Every day I'm doing something different. I can't get
bored. They throw money at me and treat me like a god."
    "Really." It was her turn to scoff.
    "Well, they put up with me."

    "They must be very tolerant."
    He accepted her ribbing with a good-natured grin. "It's a great
job. All these years, I finally found what I was meant to do."
    "I knew you weren't meant to pump gas," she said, then bit her
lip. She shouldn't have mentioned his old summer job. He might
think she was condescending or contemptuous of the work he'd
done. He might think back to that romantic summer after high
school, and how it had ended, how they had ended.
    If her comment bothered him, he didn't let on. "You're looking great, Erika," he said. He leaned toward her and an odd shiver
of excitement seized her, but then she realized he was only reaching for his beer. His eyes never leaving her, he took a sip and lowered his glass. "It's obvious life is treating you well."
    "I can't complain."
    "Do you still ride?"
    "Horses?" She sighed. "Not often. I just don't have the time to
commit to it."
    He opened his mouth and then shut it without speaking. What
had he been about to say? Something about time, perhaps?
Something about commitment?
    She might have explained that she was a perfectionist, that to
ride the way she'd ridden during her competitive days would
entail more effort than she could devote to the sport. As a child
and a teenager, she'd spent every spare minute she wasn't doing
schoolwork at the stables, training. She'd been good. Better than
good. Her parents still had all her ribbons and trophies stored in
their house-enough ribbons and trophies to fill several shelves.
She'd qualified for Nationals. She'd ridden in the Meadowlands
and at Madison Square Garden. For her, riding hadn't been just a
girlie thing. It had been her life, her one true passion ... until
she'd started dating Ted.

    Now, she was doing other things, pursuing other passions ...
although, for the life of her, she wasn't sure what those passions
might be. The job she'd just landed was a major score, but it
wasn't her passion. How could high-stress paper-pushing at a
financial company be anybody's passion?
    "So," he said with disconcerting nonchalance, "are you seeing
anyone?"
    She imitated his casual tone when she replied, "I'm seeing lots
of people." Which was both true and false. In Fanelli's alone, she
could see several dozen people.
    She knew what Ted was asking, of course. And sure, she was
seeing people. No one for whom the word passion would be relevant. She'd pretty much given up on finding her soul mate; she
no longer believed such a person existed. And she was all right
with that.
    Dating was fun. Sex could be, on occasion, even more fun.
She'd like to have a child someday, and she supposed she'd need
a man for that. Or a sperm bank. She could easily imagine herself
feeling passionate about motherhood.
    "No one serious, huh," Ted said.
    She shook her head. "How about you?"
    He hesitated, and she felt a sudden, painful spasm in the vicinity of her heart. It shouldn't bother her that Ted was involved
with someone-just as she shouldn't have been nervous about
seeing him at all. They were old friends, she reminded herself. Old
friends rejoiced in one another's good fortune when one of them
found true love.
    The tiny pang of regret, or envy, or whatever it was she was
experiencing was just a vestigial thing, a remnant of nostalgic
memory of their long-dead romance.
    "I'm sort of ... well, yeah," he said.

    Curiosity mixed with the regret, envy, and other unidentifiable
emotions spinning through her. Who was he seeing? What was
she like? Gorgeous? Blond? Blessed with big boobs?
    She smothered her curiosity. Honestly, she'd rather not know.
"Good," she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile. An
old friends smile.
    "I don't know where she and I are headed," he went on, then
shrugged. "But