Her heart ached at the reminder that she’d be back to living alone, no closer to her one-time goal of being a wife and mother. That was okay, she told herself as they took the stairs to the third floor. She’d make a happy, productive life for herself, and if she fell in love again someday, it would be with someone who wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. Being with her friends tonight, she’d seen that kind of love in action and wanted nothing less than what she’d seen among the other happy couples.

“What’re you thinking about?” Adam asked as he watched her withdraw her key card from her bra.

“You ask me that a lot, you know.”

He leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “It’s because I genuinely want to know what’s going on in there.”

She smiled at him, amazed once again at how attentive he was. “I was thinking about how happy everyone seems to be. Mac and Maddie, Luke and Syd, Tiffany and Blaine, Evan and Grace, Laura and Owen, Janey and Joe…  Engagements and babies… They’ve all found the one they were meant to be with.”

“I confess to feeling a twinge of envy over that tonight.”

She opened the door and went in ahead of him. “Really?” she asked, turning to him.

“They’ve got it all figured out. They know who they’re going to spend forever with. It must be nice to have all the questions answered so definitively.”

“They’re lucky to have that.”

He put his arms around her. “I want that,” he said. “I want the answers to the questions.”

“Despite my statements to the contrary on the ferry the other day, I suppose I do, too.”

“Have you considered that this, right here, might be the answer for both of us?”

Abby stared up at him, amazed again.

“I’m sorry,” he said when she didn’t reply. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, I mean yes. Yes, I’ve considered it.”

“You have. Really?”

She nodded. “I’ve let myself entertain a few fantasies in which you play the starring role.”

He took her hand and sat on the bed, tugging lightly to bring her down next to him. “Tell me about them.”

“I can’t. You’ll think I’m crazy. I left Cal only a few days ago. I’ve got no business having fantasies about you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“After the stuff we’ve done together, you’re still embarrassed around me?”

“This feels more intimate somehow.”

He caressed her face, his touch setting off a riot of sensation that traveled to all her pleasure points. “Before you tell me, I have a confession that might make you never speak to me again.”

She couldn’t imagine never speaking to him again. “What’s that?”