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A breath whooshed past her lips. “Fouryears?”
“Med school and residency are really fucking lonely, Rowan—”
She cut him off again. “Who wanted the divorce?”
“What?”
“Which one of you ended it, damn it?”
“Her. It was her,” he bit out. “Why does it matter?”
“Are you serious?” Wetness clumped her lashes. “You spent fouryearscommitted to a person, in amarriage,thatyouweren’t the one to end?”
Harry’s throat tensed. “I would’ve ended it. She did it first, because I’m a fucking coward.”
“Don’t you see what this is? I’ve been yourrebound,Harry. From Nicola, from Cora. All this time, you’ve been too emotionally compromised to understand anything you feel.”
His brief laugh was dark. “You and I—it’s the only thing I’m sure Idounderstand.”
All color drained from her complexion, even more alarming than her dramatic red flushes. “I’ve been, like—some glorified therapy animal for you.”
Harry’s vision blanked, like a camera flash had gone off inches from his eyes. He shoved a hand through his hair. “What in the hell iswrongwith you? Who says things like that?”
“You’ve been lying to me, formonths.”
He surged forward. “I haveneverlied to you.”
“Lying by omission is still a lie,” she said.
“Nicola doesn’t have anything to do with us. From the moment I first saw you last September, you’ve been the axis thateverythingelse in my consciousness revolves around.”
Those words landed hard. Rowan’s mouth pinched into a pale line. “You think telling me that makes thisbetter? I was the other”—she faltered—“other woman.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
“You were still married when we met. For m-months.”
“Separated. The papers were signed, Rowan. California has a six-month waiting period for finalizing a divorce—”
She wasn’t hearing him. “The heated looks, the flirtation. If I’d known—”
“Damn it, when I met you, it had been more than a year since my life with Nicola remotely resembled a marriage. The divorce was finalweeksbefore you and I evenkissed—”
“Between the two of us, we have a failed engagement and a failed marriage.” Rowan looked down at the splayed fingers of her left hand. Angry tears quivered in her eyes.
“Noah was yourfiancé?” Harry blurted.
Impressively, her tears failed to fall when she thrust her chin up. “How do you even know that name?”
“Answer the question.”
She didn’t. “Clearly, you and I both have a serious problem with judgment when it comes to relationships. That’s enough reason to not take this any further.”
“See what you did right there? I’m asking you direct questions, and you give menothing.”
“Yes, Noah was my fiancé,” she snapped. “But it was a fucking farce. It ended. Badly.”
The person before him was a shadow of the warm, sensualwoman he’d made love to in the shower less than an hour earlier. Her chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, and she sniffed, hard.
