And whether he does or not, I don’t want to pretend to be someone else—someone unknown to him. I want our history, not just the present. Nor can I play this game much longer when he’s being so open with me.
“Though I’m lucky in that regard, not in others,” he adds, as the waiter brings the plates and sets down our food.
“Why do you say you’re unlucky?” I ask, and now that guilt deepens because I can’t help but wonder if something tragic prevented him from meeting me again. Something terribly sad. My throat hitches, but I swallow it down. I need to know. “Is your mother okay?”
“Oh yes. My family is all fine,” he says, reassuring me as he thanks the waiter and I do the same. “I just meant there were things I wanted that didn’t happen. Jobs that fell through.”
“There were?” I ask, and a wave of relief rolls gently through me as we eat and talk.
He nods as he lifts his fork. “Yes. And I didn’t take it well. I thought everything was supposed to happen how I wanted it to. But I have to remind myself that I’m lucky to have what I have now, and I try to give back to my family. To do what I can for them. If things had unfolded in a different way, perhaps I wouldn’t be able to do that. I have to believe that we’re on the path we’re supposed to be on,” he says, his delicious accent wafting over me, intoxicating me, along with his words of loyalty, and family, and the fickle finger of fate. “I have to believe in fate, too.” He takes a beat, holding my gaze. “Do you? Believe in fate?”
Fate.
And like that, I tumble back in time.
“Do you believe we were meant to meet, my Penelope?” he asked the last night we were together, moonlight streaking across his warm skin through the open window in his room.
“I do,” I said, breathless from the lovemaking, from the way he absently ran his finger along my hip, down my thigh, making me shiver even after he made me come again and again.
“I believe in it with you,” he said, then he climbed over me, pinned my wrists above my head, and smothered my neck, my throat, my breasts in kisses, making me squirm in pleasure, making me moan with need. When he raised his face, his eyes full of lust, he dropped his lips to my mouth and kissed me madly. Then he whispered against my lips, “I will see you again. I have to.”
A clattering of dishes from the kitchen snaps me back to the present. I set down my fork and bring a hand to my temple, pressing my fingertips hard against my head as if I can push away the dizzying reminders of all that we had, all that we wanted, all that we planned.
I meet his gaze, and his eyes seem so honest, so truthful, as he asks me about fate. Here with him, right now, I’m not sure how I could believe in anything else.
Even if it scares the hell out of me. I hate that I like him. I love that I like him.
Which one do I want to win out?
Love or hate?
But really, there’s only one answer.
“I suppose I do believe in fate,” I say, and a ribbon of warmth unfurls in me, flowing from head to toe. It feels delicious and mutinous at the same time, because it reminds me of how easy it was to fall under his spell, since it’s happening again. I try to center my thoughts on my mission for being here with him tonight—to understand why he’s an ex, not to serve up my whole truth.
Nicole had said that ex-boyfriends are in the rearview mirror for a reason.
For ten relentless years, Gabriel has been my benchmark. In that time, I’ve dated, I’ve fallen in love, I’ve nearly become engaged. But even so, a part of me has held back. A portion has been hobbled by fear—fear of being used. Stood up. Cast aside. Is there something unlovable in me? Is there some part of me that could make a man leave me standing all alone by a fountain again?
I’m not the dewy-eyed girl who fell for him at twenty-one. I’m older, wiser, and experienced enough in the world to know what I want—I want the one. And if I don’t put what I had with Gabriel to rest, I’m not sure I can ever be in a place to have that.
How can I move forward if I’m still plagued with questions from the past?
After the waiter refills our drinks, I take the sangria and down a hearty gulp, seeking liquid courage.
Gabriel lifts the other glass and I watch him, all the sounds of the restaurant blending into a distant soundtrack as the voice in my mind rises above the rest. Like a chorus to a song, growing louder, the words repeat in my brain. Tell him, tell him, tell him.
He never takes his eyes off me. His gaze is intense, as if he’s memorizing me. A flurry of nerves spreads inside me, but it’s mixed with something else, too. A strange new hope that I can speak the truth and not reopen the wound. That I can say what I need to and not regret it.
But words slip through my fingers under his stare. His eyes darken, and I swear he roams his gaze over every inch of my body—my arms, my breasts, my neck, and even my hair. Then they linger on my shoulder, and they don’t seem to stray from the flowers marked on me. My tattoos remind me of desire. They remind me of femininity. They remind me of strength. Of the girl who had the courage to spend a summer in Europe after college even when her parents didn’t want her to. The girl who only knew enough Spanish to get by when she boarded the plane, but who learned enough in her travels to speak to nearly anyone. That girl was bold enough to talk to this man at a café on the streets of Barcelona.
And later, many months later, she was courageous enough to walk away from a job she didn’t love and to take the leap into one she’s still passionate about.