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“That doesn’t have to be the foundation of your relationship. Lance might be an idiot, but he wasn’t being callous. And Xander was in the dark, just like you.”
“Until he ‘broke up’ with Lance,” she said, putting the words in air quotes.
“And you should’ve seen him the weekend he told you the truth. He was a wreck. He ditched out on a friend intervention to be here with you.”
“I know he was sorry.” She exhaled and sank back. “I heard you stuck up for me,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
“Of course!”
Was it too late to ask for wine? “I wasn’t mad. I mean I was—”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“But I was embarrassed too. And hurt and…”
“You lost someone close to you.”
“I believed we were something we weren’t.”
“You were that something, just not quite in the way you thought. He does care about you.”
“It’s easy to believe a guy so gorgeous when he’s seducing you,” she said and licked her lips, adjusting to shift her weight to her shoulder against the back of the couch. “I don’t have to tell you that. Is it possible to stay mad at your fiancé?”
“Oh, Zairn’s had his share of the cold shoulder,” Roxie said, mirroring her position. “But I get what you mean. When we want something, whether we’re conscious of it or not, we make allowances.”
“Is that what I’m doing? Am I making allowances because the idea of him is so seductive?”
“Let’s get one thing straight, life with Xander will turn your world on its head.”
“If I was smart, I’d walk away.”
“The reality is, it’s only seductive if the man is right. Otherwise, it would get old fast. If I didn’t love Zairn as much as I do, if I didn’t know one hundred percent that I had a hundred percent of his support, I’d be over the nomadic lifestyle already. As it is, I love experiencing new things with him. But it’s the man who makes the adventure. Without him…”
“Do you feel you’ve lost yourself to him? I don’t want to throw myself into this and not recognize myself in six months.”
“Things do change. Part of that is us. But we change them too. It’s not the money and the lifestyle that changes us, it’s the man. The love. The partnership.” On an inhale, Roxie’s chin rose. “Hmm…”
“What?”
“I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything Zairn might say is too far, if there’s any scenario where he wouldn’t stand by me…”
The longer Roxie pondered, the higher her smile grew. “Okay, I get it.”
“I almost lost him once.”
Startled, she straightened a little. “You did?”
“Mm hmm,” Roxie said, nodding. “Because I fooled myself into thinking I could live without him. That he wasn’t my whole world.”
“What happened?”
“He dumped me and left me.”
“Oh, God,” she said, leaning over to take Roxie’s hand on the middle seat. “That’s terrible.”
“Nothing like watching the man you love turn his back and walk away.”
“How did you get back together?”
