“It made me want things I said I was done with. It made me wish I hadn’t already been through this same thing twice before so I could say to hell with it and do what I really wanted to do.”

“Which was what?”

“Write back, to start with.”

His smile unfolded slowly across his gorgeous face, making his eyes light up with mirth. He stopped walking and turned to her, the late afternoon sunlight bringing out red highlights in his hair that she hadn’t noticed before. The light blue shirt made his eyes even more vivid than usual. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life. “What would you have said, if you’d written back?”

“That I’m happy you got your company back.”

“Are you?”

“Of course I am. That company was yours, and what happened was wrong.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Did you see Sasha?”

“Once, briefly, when I was packing up my stuff in the apartment. She apologized, I said thank you, and that was the end of it. She knows she screwed up royally.”

“Were you…happy to see her?”

He shook his head. “Not one bit. I couldn’t be happy to see her when I was so busy thinking about you all the time.”

Only with him standing right next to her, with his expensive cologne filling her senses, was she finally able to fully acknowledge how desperately she’d missed him. “You did?”

Nodding, he said, “Did you think about me?”

“All the time.”

His smile warmed the places inside her that had gone cold when he left.

“I’m glad it worked out for you, Adam.”

“It hasn’t worked out for me. Not yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know why I went back in the first place?”

“To get back the company that was rightfully yours?”

“Primarily, but it was also to take care of the employees who’d made the company successful. After I was restored as CEO, my first order of business was to recommend to the board that we entertain one of the many offers we received when word of the shakeup in our ranks hit the news. It took a while to find the right buyer. I wanted someone who’d retain my staff.”

Abby was still trying to wrap her head around what he was saying when he added, “I sold the company. We signed the papers this morning. Thus the suit.”

“You…you sold the company.”

“I sold the company.”

She looked up at him, daring to hope… “Why?”

“It’s not what I want anymore. I want other things now.”

“What other things?”

“For one thing, I thought it might be fun to be the island’s resident computer geek. Things are a mess around here. They need me.”

It wasn’t lost on her that he’d used the same words she’d used to describe the fantasy she’d built around him.