Ryan regards me for a moment longer, then takes a few steps further inside to lay the portfolio on my kitchen table. Doing so brings him close enough to me that I can smell the almond and vanilla notes of his cologne. It threatens to pull me back under memories of him, but he speaks before I can go too far down.

“Just a few developmental notes at this point. Some suggestions about moving some scenes and a few to add for clarity. Nothing huge, but I thought you might want to get started.”

“You printed it out?” I ask.

“I always work in print for the first round,” he responds.

“Only for the books you really like,” I counter.

He pins me with those eyes again, and I can hardly breathe. “Yes,” he says simply. Then he adds, “I told you I loved it.”

That’s not what he said, and he knows it, but I’m not going to bring it up if he isn’t.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” He takes a few steps toward the door. “Wouldn’t want to get between you and your baking show.”

“Hey, Ryan?” I say to his back. “Thanks.”

He stops, then turns slowly around. “For what?”

“For asking what I wanted. No one…” I hug my arms around my torso and pinch the satin fabric between my fingers. “No one did that all those years ago, and I wish someone had. I don’t know if things would have turned out differently, but…maybe.”

The hurt that flashes over his expression is unmistakable. I didn’t mean to hurt him or imply that he should have been the one to ask, though he certainly could have. It would have meant a lot if he had asked before steamrolling ahead with a million-dollar deal that was going to demand more from me than I was already giving when I had nothing left to give. But he wasn’t alone in that, and in his defense, who doesn’t want a million dollars to write books?

“You’re absolutely right,” he says. “I’m sorry for the part I played in what happened.”

The truth is that wasn’t all of it. Maybe it’s Dianne’s suggestion I talk to him about it or the way his kind eyes have been drinking me in like I’m an oasis in the middle of the desert, but the rest is on the tip of my tongue. I almost unload all of it right then and there.

But he says, “I hope you can eventually accept my apology and that we can put the past behind us, where it belongs.”