His dark hair fell over one eye and he brushed it away, his gaze set on her. “You’re always a mess. It’s one of my favorite things about you.” He kissed her again.

“That’s what my mother always said.”

“You’re a beautiful mess then,” Philippe said as sunlight fell through the large windows forming a spotlight on the hardwood floor between them.

“Philippe, I have to go home tomorrow.”

“And I didn’t even know you had one.”

Colleen looked at him and she laughed despite herself. “I don’t have one, really. Home. That’s a misnomer at best.”

In a swift motion, Philippe picked up the magazine from the counter, flipped to her article and read out loud. “‘Number ten: When you return home, take with you everything you’ve seen and learned.’”

Colleen stared at Philippe, aware of the obvious: she didn’t know what or where home was anymore.

“What happened,” he asked, “that you can write about going home and yet never do it?”

Chapter Three

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

She felt the air punched from her chest as Philippe held up that article, showing her words that had meant one thing when she’d written them and now meant something altogether new. She flopped onto the couch and he sat next to her, pulling her close. He didn’t ask, but he didn’t have to, because Colleen started to talk, to flatly tell the story she’d never spoken out loud, not once in ten years, the story of her wedding day.

“Holy shit.” Philippe’s voice held tenderness and compassion despite the profanity. “That really happened?”

“It really did.” Colleen was dry-eyed. She’d once assumed that if she ever poured out the story, she would fall apart, but maybe the narrative had dried out; maybe it’d lost its power.

“And then,” Colleen said, “she married him.”

“Damn.” Philippe shook his head. “No wonder you don’t like to get too close to anyone.” He grinned, but Colleen didn’t find the offhand joke funny. Not one bit. “Sorry, bad timing. So then what happened?”

Colleen found herself telling the rest of what she knew, what she’d heard from her brother, her parents, or worse, what had been in the texts, e-mails and voice mails from Hallie. Never, not once, had Colleen answered any of them. “I left. No, more accurately, I ran. I grabbed my already packed suitcase and drove away. Hallie is the one who sauntered into the bridal room and told everyone the wedding was off.”

“Did she tell everyone why?” Philippe asked in a low voice.