She shakes her head, biting her lip. When she exhales, she answers, “I wanted you to realize it was me. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I wanted you to see me and know me in a heartbeat. Just like I knew it was you.”
I grip her hand tighter, standing closer. “I knew it was you. My God, I knew it was you. Do you know how many times I looked around and wanted to see you?”
Her mouth falls open. Her eyes turn to moons. “No. I don’t know that at all. How would I know?” she asks, full of disbelief. “You never showed up at Lincoln Center.”
I drag my free hand through my hair and heave a frustrated sigh. “I’m well aware I didn’t make it to New York ten years ago. But why wouldn’t you say who you were now? The other day, sure, I suppose I can understand. But tonight? Not once?”
With her eyes narrowing, she hisses, “Because you should have recognized me. You should have known I was the same girl you slept with,” she says, anger radiating off her. “I gave you my virginity, and you knew that. How could you sit across from me at your restaurant and not recognize me? Is it because you’re Manhattan’s sexiest chef? Or maybe because you were busy being the heartbreaker in the kitchen all these years after you ditched me?” She shimmies her shoulders, tossing off the nicknames like terrible insults. And her words sting. The names, which I never wanted but are far too true, are little stabs in my chest.
“Oh, I knew it was you. Trust me. I knew,” I say, spitting out the words, annoyance getting the better of me. “I didn’t forget you, Penelope.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Really? Is there room in your memory for one more? Because you broke my heart, so the name fits.”
“Stop,” I say, holding up a hand before we veer too far in the wrong direction. “Stop saying those things. Don’t punish me for what I did before you waltzed back into my life. Because as soon as you did, I asked if we’d met. How many times did I ask you? But then you flat-out denied we knew each other. You were certain. Adamant. And you said you were Penny Smith. I chose to believe the woman I’d just met rather than continue questioning her. And you don’t look the same. Your hair is longer and darker, and your shoulder is covered in all those fucking gorgeous tattoos. Why shouldn’t I have believed you when you said we’d never met?”
She raps her knuckles against my chest. “You should have known here. You made me feel stupid. You said you believed in fate. You said ‘I will see you again. I have to.’ Those were practically your last words to me in Spain.”
I grab that free hand from my chest and grip it, wrapping my palm over her tight fist. Both her hands are in mine, and I won’t let her go. “I didn’t ever want you to feel stupid. Not then. Not now. So, no more games. No more pretending—”
She jumps in, the vein in her neck beating hard as her pitch rises. “You want to know why I didn’t say ‘I’m your Penelope’? Because I waited for you, Gabriel. You promised you’d show. You said how much you wanted to see me again. I stood outside that fountain for two hours. Hoping. And you never emailed. I never heard from you. Not a peep. Not that day. Not the next. Not once through all the years. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?” Her voice breaks, as if she’s a heartbeat away from tears. “Why would I think anything other than you got what you wanted from me in Barcelona and then didn’t want to see me again?”
The sheen in her beautiful brown eyes tells me exactly how much it hurt. My actions didn’t just wound her. They cut her deeply. “That was the last thing I ever wanted to happen,” I say in a rush.
But my words hardly register as she raises her chin higher and pushes against my chest with our joined hands. For a moment, it occurs to me that she might run. I don’t want her to escape, but I’m not the kind of a man who’s going to force her to stay.
I let go of her hands. She doesn’t slip away from me, though. Instead, she grips my shirt, fisting the fabric near my collar, her eyes blazing. “Then tonight you take me out and you romance me, and you make me realize why I fell for you in the first place. And I don’t want to feel stupid again when you don’t show up.” A pair of tears slide down her cheeks, and her voice turns impossibly soft, but she doesn’t look away. “Because it’s happening again. I’m starting to fall for you all over again.”
Cupping her shoulders, I lean in and kiss away one tear, then the other. “It is my greatest regret,” I whisper against her soft cheek. “All I wanted was to see you again. I wanted it so much.”
Her anger drifts away, like smoke. “Why didn’t you show?”
Taking a breath, I back away to meet her gaze. “In retrospect, it’s kind of a funny story.”
Chapter Eight
Gabriel
She’s wedged against the iron fence, and I’m inches away.
She waits for me to explain my absence, and she probably expects a tragedy. Something worthy of the movies. Or a Nicholas Sparks novel.
But there’s no terrible misfortune here. No fire. No mother who hid handwritten letters. No horrific accident that prevented me from writing.
Just fate. Just life. Just a stupid mistake made by my twenty-four-year-old self in a fit of rampant frustration. I’m going to sound like an idiot when I tell her. But fuck, that’s the cost. I blurt out, “I threw my phone.”
She scowls, her eyes registering surprise. “You threw your phone?” she asks, like it will make more sense if she repeats it.