Tony? What the hell was he doing here? I hadn’t seen him in months, though my memories of him never strayed far. Some days I missed him like crazy, but I couldn’t tell you why. We were toxic together. Maybe I was a little conceited—okay, a lot—but our volatile relationship always reminded me of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Fool! Don’t you see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live without you? Cleopatra reportedly said to her lover. I know just how you felt, Cleo baby. Tony and I fought battles time had forgotten, but our makeup sex was epic, sheet-scorching stuff. He was my first heroic romance and my first crushing heartbreak.

“I’m coming,” I called out, jumping up and running for the closet. Tossing my damp clothes in the overflowing laundry basket, I grabbed a fresh shirt and pants, then darted into the bathroom to splash cool water on my face and readjust my hair into a messy bun. I tamped down the nausea rumbling in my belly and answered the front door. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to see him, but I didn’t want to look like a slatternly old hag either.

Damn, he looked good in a leather jacket unfit for the warm May weather, white V-neck T-shirt, and dark jeans. I immediately noticed he had lost weight since I last saw him almost a year ago.

He held out a colorful bunch of flowers wrapped in yellow gauze. “Long time no see,” he said after a moment of dis-orienting silence. “May I come in?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, all Italian attitude with my hand perched on my hip.

“Nice to see you too.” His dark hair hung in loose curls around his face, and familiar tattoos crawled over his skin, peeking out from under his shirt collar in tribal shards. In all our years together I had never grown tired of his face—those lips that savored every inch of my body once upon a time, that cheek scrawled with scruff I still yearned to touch. Sensual. Sexy. Exciting. No matter how much I hated his brooding nature and arrogance, it was unabashedly tempered with my desire for him.

“These are for you.” He handed me the flowers, then strode past me into the belly of the apartment. “What the hell? You’re living like this?” He gestured to the rumpled blanket on the floor, the scattered magazines, the numerous half-empty glasses littering the table, the partly chewed toast I couldn’t stomach finishing. “You ever clean, Liliana?”

I used to love the way he called me by my real name: Liliana. No one else did, but I always thought it sounded exotic and poetic as it rolled off his tongue. Now it only sounded caustic.