“You wanted to see how she would react,” Zach said with a sad half smile. “And she called your bluff.” Zach couldn’t stop himself from recalling the day he told Grace he was moving to the States. If that’s what you want, Zachary, wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping for.

“That she did.” Wesley grinned at Nora who looked away from her fan long enough to return the smile.

“I see it worked for you. Didn’t work quite so well for me. I think I underestimated you, Wesley.”

“I hope I overestimated you,” Wesley said, and Zach felt a quick pang of guilt.

“I’m not your competition, young man. I am still married after all.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Wesley said with far too much bitterness for someone so young. “Holy vows have never stopped her before. Yours won’t, either.”

“Yours seem to have stopped her.”

Wesley said nothing for a moment, and Zach knew he’d misspoken.

“She told you I was still a virgin?”

Zach heard Wesley’s wounded pride.

“I’m sorry, Wesley. I accused her of taking advantage of you and she was simply defending herself.”

“It’s okay,” Wesley said. “I’m not ashamed of it. I’m just…waiting.”

“For her?”

“You think I’m an idiot, right?”

“Of course not. But whether you like to admit it or not, she is fourteen years older than you. These sorts of relationships rarely work out even under the best of circumstances. Not if experience is any indicator.”

“Yeah, well, whose experience?”

Zach looked from Wesley and back at Nora. He stared at her but didn’t see her. Instead, he saw a door and the door opened and standing in the doorway was Grace, and no woman in the history of the world had ever looked so brave or so scared or so beautiful standing in a doorway.

“Mine.”

Wesley didn’t answer. Zach didn’t know what to say to comfort him. If he had any words of comfort, he would have told them to himself. But there was nothing but the cold, hard truth that loving someone and being loved back was only the beginning, not the end, of all the pain.

The young man in the green jacket came to Nora with his book to sign. Zach heard Nora asking for his name and if he wanted her to write anything in particular in his book.

“How about, ‘To my number one fan, Fuck me,’” the young man said leaning over the table. “And then sign it in blood.”

Zach’s stomach dropped when the man pulled out a small thin, knife and started to climb onto the table. Wesley was already on his way to Nora. It was a good thing, too, because Nora had pushed back out of her chair and the man loomed only inches from her. He saw her back pressed to the wall.