His light-blue eyes have flecks of orange in them that have always mesmerized me. I stare into them, remembering how I used to feel about him. Can I feel that way again?
“Have you missed me?” he asks softly.
I move the pasta around the plate. “Of course I have.”
“Missed me in your bed?”
That makes me look up at him. I don’t reply, but I do shiver, and he obviously interprets that as a pleasant memory and gives a sexy smile. “I still ring your bell, then?”
“I don’t know, Dom…” He obviously isn’t going to apologize. My spirits sink. “Nothing’s really changed, has it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the things we argued about. You talking over me. Trying to tell me what to do all the time. Wanting to control who I did and didn’t see.”
A flicker of impatience passes across his face. “You’re too nice. You don’t have the ability to say no. I just tried to help out every now and again.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t like Gracie, or some of my other friends, and you did your best to stop me from seeing them.”
“They’re leeches. They’re only interested in you because of your money.”
“No, they’re not,” I say heatedly.
“Whatever.” He looks bored and glances at his phone. I watch him read a text, and his lips curve up, just a little.
Something strikes me then. “Have you been seeing anyone else?”
He puts the phone face down on the table and looks at me. “Not seriously.”
“But you have seen other women?”
“Just one or two dates.”
“Have you… slept with any of them?”
He doesn’t reply.
“You have.” I give a short laugh. “Oh my God.”
“Jesus, Aurelia. You’re not going to give me the ‘we were on a break’ speech? You walked out. We’d broken up.”
“It’s only been a couple of months.”
“Sorry, what’s the specific amount of time that I have to remain a monk for after my girlfriend leaves me?”
My chest heaves with resentment. Technically, he’s right. We’d broken up, and I’d given him no reason to think I’d be interested in getting back together. It’s been about three months now. Why should he remain single?
But I suppose it’s his declaration that I was the love of his life, and that I broke his heart. He tried to shift the guilt onto me, and yet he was hardly pining away.
He slept with someone else. He’s been intimate with another woman. My stomach flips, and I feel a swell of nausea.
“Aw,” he says, and he reaches out and takes my hand in his. “Babe, come on. It was nothing, seriously. She wasn’t a patch on you. I loved you. I still do. I wish I had sent you those flowers. I want us to get back together.”
“Only because you miss having control of someone. I haven’t forgotten what happened that night.” I say it to see what his reaction is. Whether he looks guilty, or finally says he’s sorry.
He doesn’t say anything. He just looks vaguely amused.
I get to my feet and try to extract my hand from his grip, but he rises with me, still holding it.
