Maybe it’s for the best. I don’t know what I’d say now.
I’m not sure why I feel…deceived? Enraged? Hurt?
But I don’t know that those fit entirely.
Pissed?
That works. She should have told me she’d almost married someone, shouldn’t she? She should have damn well let me know. I don’t want to run into her ex-boyfriend at the park. Or anywhere.
Especially considering she was bothered by the things that had been said about me.
That’s what’s gnawing at me.
But as the soothing notes of the cello bathe my brain, and New York starts to feel less like a carnival, I know that’s not it, either.
I wander past a bookstore. A book on modern art sits in the window, a new coffee-table hardback with full-color photos and a Mark Rothko on the cover. It catches my eye, and I stop and stare. The image reminds me of the night we went to the Museum of Modern Art.
The thoughts start to untangle from the ball of anger inside me. All the fuzzy ideas in my head sharpen.
It’s not her. It’s me.
As I recall our conversation in front of the Pollock at MoMa, Tina’s words to me about identity, and my own words to Penny, rise up in front of me.
It’s not my identity as the playboy chef that I’ll have a hard time giving up, like Tina had suggested. That’s not an issue at all. Sure, I’ve had a past. Yes, I’ve enjoyed the company of women. But giving up an amorous lifestyle for one woman who rocks my world? Ha. That’s the easiest thing to do. I don’t miss the merry-go-round. Penny is all I’ll ever need or want.
But Tina wasn’t wrong when she mentioned identity. Only, the issue isn’t how I see myself, but how I picture Penny.
And I said as much at the museum the other night.
“Besides, my brain has played this fantastic trick on me. It blots out any thought of what you’ve been doing from the moment you left Barcelona until you walked into my restaurant the other day.”
Penny is the sweet, innocent girl I met in Barcelona, and she’s the sexy, confident woman I know today. She’s the virgin and the lover. She’s the woman she was then, and the woman she is now.
But she’s also been herself for ten years, too, and I’ve blotted that out.
I’ve erased those ten years of her life without me.
I’ve only ever seen her as mine. And I may only want her to be mine, but to see her that way is terribly unfair to the woman she is today—the woman I’ve fallen in love with anew. That’s what set me off. Not whether she told me about some ass she dated—we’ve all gone out with jerks—but that my illusion of her as mine and only ever mine has been shattered.
And that’s okay.
To keep moving forward, I have to accept that she’s had a whole life in between Barcelona and two weeks ago.
Maybe I don’t need details. I certainly don’t want to linger on those thoughts, especially since I’m sure she doesn’t have a long trail of men behind her. But at the very least, I can’t let a normal, reasonable dating history get the better of me. And I can’t let it ruin this chance to be with the one I love.
She’s not pure as the driven snow like she joked. She’s not supposed to be. Neither am I.
We just need to only have eyes for each other now, and I know we do, and we will.
I also need to say I am sorry for being a jealous ass. She brings out that side of me, but only because I want her all to myself, all the time.
As I step away from the bookstore, I look at the time and pick up the pace, my long stride eating up the sidewalk as I return to the park.
I stop in my tracks, though, when I pass a candy store.
Chapter Seventeen
Penny
I make it through to the end of the event. I talk to donors. I play with dogs. I scratch the chins of Labs, and stroke the backs of dachshunds, and shake the paws of Jack Russell terriers.
The event is a smash hit, and it looks as if we’re ahead of our fundraising goals. Also, everyone’s been raving about the food and buzzing about wanting to visit Gabriel’s restaurant.
Me?
I haven’t touched a thing.
As I finish my last few conversations and then wrap up with Lacey, I try once more to will away the pang in my chest.
Drawing a deep breath, I remind myself that I’ve gotten over hurt before. I’ve moved past the particular kind of pain that love inflicts. I can handle this wound.
But as I say good-bye to my assistant, that twinge resurfaces. It’s a new, fresh cut, different from the one inflicted ten years ago when he didn’t show at the fountain. Because this one comes after the most wonderful reunion I could ever have dreamed up.
A little whimper sounds from beside my feet. I glance at Shortcake, who has conked out on the grass. Tired from her role as a mascot for the shelter, she lounges on the cool, green blanket of the ground.
“I like the way you think.” I flop next to her. She takes that as an offer to lick my face. As she sweeps her tongue across my cheek, I laugh.
And the laughter feels good.
It reminds me that life is good, and love is good, and that maybe I shouldn’t be quick to close the door. Just because I’ve been hurt before doesn’t mean it’ll happen again. Just because we fought doesn’t mean we’re through. Love isn’t all or nothing. It’s a million variations, and some days are better than others. Some are luminous, and others are muted, but none of them mean the end. I’d assumed Gabriel’s absence for the last two hours meant we’d reached the finish line. But maybe it just means he needed to cool off.