Page 58 of Promise

But is it possible to fuck up the second chance once you finally get it?

I’m about to find out.

17

[Trinity]

What was I thinking?

I shouldn’t have kissed him like that.

I could blame Benedict Bridgerton, but it wasn’t the fault of a fictional character. Dart Rivers was to blame. His closeness. The subtle brush of our fingers. The press of his shoulder against my arm. Him eating freakin’ popcorn.

I was so wound up. I don’t know if I wanted to punish Dart, feeling like I deserved a kiss from him. Or longed for him, after his apology the other night.

Either way, I hid in my room the remainder of the night.

Thank you, Mirabelle.

But even while using her as a distraction, my mind raced.

I haven’t been kissed in three years. The last one was sad, pathetic even.

Dart tried to kiss me at the end of our argument. The one where he asked me to go with him and I refused.

Let’s just give ourselves a break.

He’d leaned in to kiss me. I turned my head.

He was gone in the morning.

I was angry. I was hurt. I was alone. But the break gave me perspective.

Maybe I leaned on Dart too much. Like he said the other night, we pulled apart. He needed space, and I needed it as well.

I realize that now. We needed time to come to terms with reality. I wasn’t going to produce a baby. I needed time to accept myself, without Dart. And he needed to do the same.

The biggest surprise the other night had been Dart admitting he didn’t feel he was good enough for me.

Maybe I kissed him to let him know he was. Or he had been.

I shouldn’t have said the kiss shouldn’t have happened. A kiss was inevitable. We needed to experience at least one to see if that spark could be rekindled. But I’m kidding myself if I thought I was no longer attracted to Dart. If a flame didn’t exist beneath the surface.

And that kiss felt like promises made long ago. Even though promises were broken, the kiss still felt . . . right, even if I couldn’t explain yet why that was.

In the morning, I head to the store, hoping to give Dart and me further separation. My mind is still reeling from that kiss. My lips as well, because I still taste him. Salt and butter from the popcorn and all male. Not to mention, the feel of him beneath me. How hard he was. How he fit against where I’m soft, as he always has.

I might pride myself on being the queen of self-love. Might feel like an expert on taking care of me. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t need an active imagination to get what I needed, and Dart starred in many of those fantasies. Fantasies that were more like memories.

But my memory has clearly played a trick on me, because Dart felt different beneath me.

Maybe it was simply that I haven’t been with a man since him, and even then, we were more mechanical than intimate.

Maybe it was the passion of last night. Climbing over him, taking what I wanted, and the way he eagerly gave it back to me.

Or maybe, it’s as I said to him more than a week ago, it’s only ever been him who can make my belly flutter and my heart skip.

When I return from the store, Marshall and Hutch are in a truck, pulling out of the driveway, and offer me a quick wave. With all Dart’s home improvement projects, it hasn’t been unusual to see an extra truck in the yard, but his friends haven’t paid a visit. At least, not that I know of.