For years, I’ve been trying—in my way—to escape this magnetic pull he’s had over my life and my career. And today I’m stepping right back into its force field.

Part of me wants to get up and run.

I don’t like how my heart is racing. Don’t like that my palms are sweaty. Don’t like that I’m having almost the exact same reaction to him that I had ten years ago. I’d been so sure that I knew better by now.

Maybe my mind does, but my body sure as hell hasn’t gotten the memo.

Gabe looks up and smiles.

And dammit if my heart doesn’t skip a beat.

Fuck.

He sits there, across from me, and people are staring. He is, after all, impossible to ignore.

I smooth my hands down the front of my shirt, my fingers checking that button one last time. His eyes follow the gesture and they linger there for a moment.

At first, I think he might be staring at my boobs, but then I realize he’s looking at my fingers. Specifically, at my ring finger.

The last time he did that, I’d been wearing my wedding band.

But I stopped wearing it after the party with Jeremy in Brooklyn. When I knew my marriage was over, even if we still managed to draw it out for almost a year with therapy and promises to change.

I pointedly return the gaze, staring at Gabe’s hands. No ring.

Still, he holds them up, like a magician pretending he has nothing to hide.

But ten years ago, that hadn’t been the case.

Gabe had lied to me about Jacinda.

When he flew to Vegas days after the interview went viral, he’d made me feel like a fool.

Not just because I’d repeated that lie about them to the whole world in my article, but because I’d believed him. If I had known…

I’d felt a lot of things when I heard the news, but mostly I felt angry and humiliated. It’s what I allowed myself to feel. Because those emotions were powerful and protective. They helped keep Gabe and my memories of him at arm’s length. It was easier to be angry at him.

I summon that anger again.

Gabe, of course, has no idea what is going on in my head. He’s looking at me, studying me, but I’m doing everything I can to keep my expression neutral.

“It’s you,” he says.