Kai takes a strand of my hair, twirls it around his finger, gives it a little tug. “Does it matter how it ends?”

“Yes. I want it to end happy.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Are you happy now?”

“Yes.” Well, happy and just a little sad, because I don’t feel this way at home. I don’t have anyone who touches me like this at home or is willing to spend all afternoon with me in bed. I don’t have anyone who grabs me and pulls me into the shower or rolls me under him in the sand or kisses the side of my neck or calls me “girl.”

Or calls me, period.

Kai pulls me down on his chest and kisses the side of my neck. “Then if you’re happy now, that’s all you need.”

But it’s not all I need. I need more. I need forever. I have to have forever. Don’t I?

I touch Kai’s mouth with mine; his lips feel cool, his breath is warm. I shiver, and the kiss deepens and continues to deepen, and I feel so much. I hate thinking that what I feel now—good, young, beautiful—isn’t going to last, that it won’t last. But maybe that’s life. Maybe that’s reality.

I hate reality.

“Kai,” I whisper, and he lets me go. I lift my head to look into his eyes, and even in the shadowy light of my darkened hotel room, they’re still blue, endless blue, forever blue. Daniel’s eyes had once been the deepest, sexiest brown. I wonder how long—if I had that long with Kai—it would take for the love/lust to go, the desire to fade. How long would it be before we irritated each other or one of us would tire of the other?

How long before I didn’t think his eyes were endless blue or he’d begin to notice all the wrinkles in my face he insists he doesn’t see?

“So when I go home this time, I’m supposed to just forget you?” I say, running my palm along his jaw, savoring the feel of his beard. He needs to shave, but I like it rough, sharp, like it that I feel something when his skin touches mine.

“Your life is there, baby girl.”

My life.

My life.

Tears almost prick my eyes. My life is in Madison Park. My house is there. The kids are there. My work with my clients is there. And it’s where Anne and Kris and Nicolette live. They’re wonderful friends, and I can’t imagine not having them, knowing them, seeing them for our coffees and our talks.

So why do I feel this way? Why does my heart feel pulled in two directions?