The smell of his aftershave was rich and familiar. So familiar. She could lose herself in it.

“You still wear the same aftershave,” she commented breathlessly.

“Annie, stop,” he warned.

“What?” she asked, turning to follow his gaze to the doorway. But there was no one there. “It’s just the two of us—we can talk about this...properly now.”

“All that was years ago.”

“For you, maybe, but not for me,” she replied bitterly. “You broke my heart, cast me aside for someone else—but not before leaving me with a permanent reminder.”

“I’m sorry. I told you that at the time, and I’m still sorry now, but the whole thing really was...unfortunate.”

“Can you imagine how it made me feel to see you outside that day in the courtyard, thinking you’d changed your mind, only to hear that you were there to see Colette? My friend? I loved you, for Christ’s sake!”

His head hung in shame. “I didn’t know she was your friend, truly. Or that you were staying here at the villa, too. But it didn’t matter, by then it was far too late to stop what I felt.” His eyes returned to hers. “Annie, I know you cared...”

“I still do. Did you know that there’s been no one else since you? No one.”

Annie hated herself for admitting that, but it was the truth. The alcohol was like fire in her veins and had loosened her tongue and sent her inhibitions flying. She was saying things she wouldn’t normally have said.

Truths she would never have uttered, least of all to herself.

“Annie, this isn’t healthy. I believed you when you said you needed financial help, but it seems now that there’s a lot more to all this. You need to move on.”

“You mean just swap out my heart the way you swapped me out for Colette?”

“That isn’t fair. It wasn’t like that. I fell for Colette. I’m not even sure why, she was just so sweet and...good.”

“And what was I? Evil?”

“No,” Ed replied. “You just...weren’t what I needed.”

“What you needed?” she retorted. “You wanted someone sweet and perfect.” She laughed mockingly. “Not so perfect after all, though, is she? Colette might have been what you needed, Ed, but she can’t give you what I did—a child.”

“Annie, I think you better shut up now,” he said, trying to extricate himself from her stronghold.

“Not that you cared. You picked her and just dumped me, like a piece of rubbish. And I never said a word while the two of you got to move on, go home to England, and live your happy little lives however the hell you wanted, while I raised our son alone.”