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Avoiding his gaze again, I nodded, not even sure why I couldn’t look at him or why there was warmth rising in my cheeks. “I started seeing her about a month after we broke up.”
“Oh. Has, um… Has that helped?”
“A lot, yeah.” I paused. “I started going because the guilt was killing me. She’s actually the one who helped me figure out what I told you earlier—about how I thought I was bored when I was actually content.” I cringed inwardly, afraid he’d be upset that someone else had led me to that conclusion rather than me figuring it out on my own.
But a small smile curled his lips. “I’m glad you’ve had someone to help you through it.”
I blinked. “You are?”
“Yeah. Even if I was still angry about everything, I mean… You still have your life to live, you know? Being angry and breaking up doesn’t mean I want you to just wallow in guilt and be miserable forever.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. I was pretty sure the version of Owen who’d heard my confession and ordered me out of the condo would’ve been perfectly fine with me staying alone and unhappy until the end of time. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have been upset to hear I’d been hit by a meteor or had another basilisk glare at me.
Then again, that wasn’t him and never had been. Sure, he’d probably gotten wine-drunk with some friends and talked about how he wished I’d run out into traffic or get eaten alive by a hellhound, cackling gleefully all the way. But venting and fantasizing were very different animals from actually wishing death or misery on someone, and… yeah, I could believe that Owen—the version with all his memories intact—would still have wanted me to move on and live. Maybe even be happy.
Because I needed another fucking reason to hate myself.
“Matteo?” He squeezed my hand. “Still here?”
Shit. I must’ve been spacing out. Shaking myself, I cleared my throat. “Just thinking. We, um… We’ll definitely get a counselor if we decide to do this.”
The hope in his eyes killed me. The longing. My God. He was right here, but he was one recovered memory away from gone, and I wasn’t sure I could handle losing him again.
I also couldn’t handle dragging this out any longer, because he wasn’t the only one in this bed who was getting his hopes up.
“We should get down to that shop.” I caressed his cheek. “While they’re still open.”
“There’s time.” He slid in closer, his warm skin against mine taking my breath away. “I want to spend a little more time here first.”
I searched his eyes. For all I’d marveled at how well he could read me, I read him like a billboard right then.
One more time while I still can’t remember how bad things really were.
Just like in the parking garage, I knew deep down I was going to hate myself for it later. That I was just going to torture myself with everything I’d been missing, knowing damn well it was going to be gone.
This time, though, I could remember vividly how flayed and wrung out I’d been afterward.
“We shouldn’t,” I whispered, though I couldn’t stop myself from caressing his cheek. “We don’t know how things will—”
The warmth of his palm on my cheek lodged my breath in my throat.
“I know we shouldn’t,” Owen said. “For all I know, in a couple of hours, I won’t want to see you again.” Damn him, his voice was shaking and his eyes were definitely welling up this time. Fingers trembling against my face, he whispered, “What I do know is that I want you right now.”
My heart pounded. Yeah, he wanted me, and God knew I wanted him. If that changed after we visited the fae, then the memory of this moment was going to hurt like hell.
But the one constant in my world was how much I loved Owen and how much I wanted him. No matter what happened with the fae, that wasn’t going to change.
Right now, if only for a little while, Owen loved me and he wanted me. He was all but begging for me for the sex I’d stupidly taken for granted for six perfectly imperfect years.
I didn’t have it in me to tell him no. I didn’twantto tell him no.
So I pulled him in close and kissed him.
Then I made love to him like this would be the last time we ever touched.
And like I hoped to God it wasn’t.
Chapter 11
