I got on the cross trainer and attempted to put Marco out of my mind. That wasn’t so easy when he followed me and stepped up onto the cross trainer beside me. I did a valiant job of ignoring him… Ignoring him when he followed me like the stalker I’d accused him of being, around the gym so that we looked like we were working out together.

“If you want to do some weights I’ll spot you.” He grinned at me as I finished on the rowing machine.

I gave him a look of derision. “I’d rather have an elephant with a flatulence problem sit on my face.”

Marco choked on a burst of laughter, swallowing what I was sure had been a gust of amusement. Had he changed?

Hmm.

No! Not hmm. You do not give a rat’s arse if he’s changed!

“Descriptive,” he answered, mirth in his light eyes. “You still writing?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, cocking my hip in attitude. “Actually, I am still writing. What do you think of my latest story? It’s about this brooding, issue-riddled American boy who slept with this nice Scottish girl. She told him she loved him and it disgusted him so much he flew across an entire ocean to get away from her, leaving nothing behind but a broken heart and virgin blood on the sheets.”

All amusement fled from Marco’s face. He took an uncertain step toward me, lifting his hand as if he was going to touch me, comfort me.

I flinched, warding him off, all that pain and rage concealed beneath a false calm. I don’t know where I got the strength to find that calmness, but I thanked God for it. “Don’t. I don’t care if you’ve changed. I don’t care who you are now. I don’t need or want your explanations because what you did, you didn’t do it to me, you did it to that girl you left behind. And I’m not her anymore. You made certain of that. She might have needed answers and an apology, but me… I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just someone stalking me in my local gym.”

With that I turned around and walked away from him, hoping he didn’t see my legs trembling.

The first thing I did when I got to the locker room was to send a text to Nish, who was on her honeymoon in the Maldives. It pretty much warned her to stop giving Marco my weekly schedule and permission to the receptionist at school to let him in. Or else.

I used the f-word a lot.

Even though I had time to visit the gym the following Monday, I didn’t. I hadn’t received any more calls or surprise visits from Marco, but I wasn’t chancing the gym again. It didn’t matter, though. He’d won. He was inside my head, just where I knew he wanted to be. I kept expecting him to appear everywhere, and I hated that I was at once relieved and disappointed whenever I got through the day without seeing him. It would seem my mind knew exactly what it wanted, but my body and my heart just wouldn’t agree with it.

I tried relaxing by going to dinner with Michaela and Colin on Saturday, and visiting with my family at Sunday lunch. I must have done an okay job of at least pretending relaxation and calm because I wasn’t peppered with concerned questions. I’d even managed to convince Ellie so she’d stop being annoyed with me.

School was particularly busy because it was only a few days until Halloween and the kids were hyper. This meant I was really looking forward to my book group because it was relaxing and interesting and a total escape from my real life. It was a group of eleven of us, but usually only eight or so ever turned up on the night. We ranged from twenty-two years old (me) to fifty-eight (an outspoken dental receptionist called Ronnie). We were reading The Help and I knew the subject matter would make for some opinionated chat. It would take my mind off things for a while.

I walked into the room we used in the community center that evening feeling like tonight would be the night to put Marco and his strange behavior of the last week behind me for good.

I smiled hello to the only guy in our group, Chris. Chris was forty-five years old and a high school history teacher. He’d joined the book group as well as a chess club and bowling team in an effort to move on from his divorce. I settled down in my usual seat between Chris and Laila, a twenty-five-year-old book blogger who had a photographic memory and had read more books in her short time on the planet than all the rest of us collectively.

“Oh, Hannah, come meet our newest member!” Ronnie called.

I glanced up from pulling my copy of The Help out of my bag to look across the room at Ronnie. Disbelief crashed over me.

Marco towered over her, grinning at me.

“Oh, my God,” Laila murmured, devouring Marco with her eyes. “He’s totally my latest book boyfriend.”

I shot her a dirty look before getting slowly to my feet. I walked toward Ronnie and Marco, wondering how to handle this new situation, and also wondering how the hell to stop the tingling between my legs at the way Marco was looking at me.

I felt his eyes roam over me, lingering on my breasts, following the curve of my hips and skimming my legs, before traveling back up again. When our eyes met, his were filled with the kind of blatant heat I would have done anything for five years ago.

“Marco.” I greeted him flatly, deciding not to hide the fact that I knew him.

Ronnie’s eyes widened. “You know Marco already?”

“Yup.” I raised an eyebrow at him in question and he gave me that grin again. That was a new grin. And it had an immediate effect on my lady parts.

Damn him.

“Well, what a coincidence.” Ronnie smiled, her eyes moving back and forth between us.

“Mmm.” I rounded my eyes in mock agreement. “Coincidence indeed.”

Marco laughed outright.

Ronnie appeared suddenly confused.

“So, Marco… I didn’t know you liked to read.” I puckered my brow in fake confusion.

“Yeah.” He nodded innocently. “I’m a big reader.”

“Or a big liar,” I muttered under my breath.

“Sorry, Hannah?” Ronnie leaned in to hear me better.

I ignored her as politely as I could, my saccharine smile directed at Marco. “It’s nice to welcome you aboard. How did you find out about us?”

He chuckled. “Anisha. Apparently, she doesn’t do well with threats. Know anything about that?”

Nish. Of course. I should have known better – threat tactics would make her do the opposite of what I wanted her to do. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. “And I’m going to kill her.”

Ronnie sighed. “I’m very confused right now.”

I sighed too. “Let’s just start, shall we?”

We took our seats and Marco sat next to Ronnie in the chair directly opposite me in the circle. All eyes were on him as Ronnie introduced him, and not just because he was new to the group, but because he stood out in so many ways. One, he was gorgeous; two, he was American; and three, he just had that special something about him that drew people to him.

I’d have thrown my book at him if it wouldn’t have gotten me kicked out of the group. I even seriously contemplated it for a moment and by the silent laughter parting Marco’s lips he knew exactly what I was thinking about doing.

I glared at him and looked away.

“Have you read The Help, Marco?” Ronnie asked him, clearly enamored with him.

“Nope, can’t say I have.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Just follow along with our discussion.”

“Sure thing.”

Sure thing. I made a childish face in mockery and his snort brought my gaze swinging back to collide with his. He was laughing at me. He found me amusing.

He was enjoying himself!

I attempted to join the discussion, attempted to say all the intelligent things I had to say about the book, but with his blue-green eyes boring into me the whole time, my brain wasn’t cooperating.

Thirty minutes later, Chris was shooting me concerned looks and Ronnie was preening because she’d brought up most of the talking points this week. She turned to Marco. “Is there anything you might like to add, now that you’ve heard a little something about the book?”

I froze, my eyes glued to him despite myself. My heart sped up in anticipation.

Marco didn’t disappoint. He looked straight at me and replied, “I think it sounds like a book about determination, about pursuing what’s right, what feels right, despite the odds stacked against you or the possible fallout. It sounds like my kind of book.”

I was frozen in that moment, looking at him as he looked back at me with all the determination he had mentioned. My palms began to sweat, I couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in my ears, and I wondered where the hell I was supposed to go from there.

He was telling me he wasn’t going to give up.

I think I believed him.

Clearing my throat, I abruptly stood up and stuffed the book in my bag. Without a word, I hurried out of there, ignoring Ronnie’s concerned call of my name as the others murmured their bafflement.

CHAPTER 9

“When I’m with you it feels like everything’s going to be okay. I can’t explain it.”

I couldn’t get Marco’s voice out of my head, those words he’d said to me so long ago. They had meant so much to me then because I knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy who expressed his emotions well, and that day he’d let himself be vulnerable with me.

Despite everything that had happened, despite him leaving me and breaking my heart, I couldn’t stop those words from haunting me.

Standing alone on the small patio at the back of the house where I grew up, I stared at the ground and I fought with myself, calling myself foolish for dwelling on the sweet when it was the bitter that had done so much damage. But in a way, I guess, the bitter wouldn’t affect me so much if the sweet hadn’t been so damn sweet.

“Nanna.”

I glanced up at the now open French doors that led into my parents’ dining room to see Cole gazing at me in concern. The noise from the front of the house filtered toward me now that the door was open. Although Joss, Braden, Beth, and Luke weren’t with us because they had tickets to a children’s musical, the house was still crowded and loud. Liv and Nate had made it this time, along with Lily and January. Ellie and Adam were there too with William, and Jo, Cam, Cole, Dec, and Penny had joined us.

I smiled at Cole. Ever since Lily started calling me Nanna, Cole used it playfully. “What’s up?”

He stepped outside, closing the door.

I frowned at the thin T-shirt he wore. Although it exposed his artwork, it also exposed him to the spiky November cold. “Go back inside and put on a jacket.”

One corner of his mouth pulled up into an amused smirk. “I’m fine, Mum.”

“You’ll catch a cold.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted. “You? I’m thinking not so much.”

It was getting harder and harder to pretend with my friends and family that I wasn’t in a mood. I’d spent the last week completely discombobulated, living inside my own head. I didn’t know how I felt about Marco’s persistence and because no one else knew the whole story I didn’t even have anyone to turn to. And in the end that was my own fault.

“Hannah, seriously.” Cole’s smile slipped, a deep frown line appearing between his brows. “You’ve been quiet all week and you’re out here by yourself, looking like you have the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. I’m worried. Tell me what’s going on.”

I sighed, not wanting to piss him off with an obvious lie. “Do you remember Marco from the wedding?”

He nodded and waited for me to continue.

“I used to be in love with him.”

Cole’s eyebrows rose at that little bomb of information. “How did I not know this?”

“You and I weren’t as close back then. Jo, Ellie, Joss, and Liv know about him. We met when I was fourteen and by the time I was seventeen I was mad about him. He’s older, so we were just friends. Sometimes I tutored him. But I always wanted more. We kissed when I was seventeen” – I diluted the information – “and just when I thought maybe he felt the same way about me, he went back to America. The wedding reception was the first time I’ve seen him since then and… he told me he’s been back in Edinburgh for four years.”

My friend’s eyes glimmered with sympathy. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish I’d known. I would never have left you alone that night.”

“I needed to be alone,” I reassured him.

“His reappearance is obviously messing with your head.”