Like Shortcake is doing.
I tug her close and kiss her sweet little butterscotch face. “I love you,” I tell her, and she responds with a speed-round of kisses.
“She has the right idea.”
I sit bolt upright when I hear his voice.
“Hi,” I say, and I push my hands on the ground to stand. But he’s faster, and he parks himself next to me. He holds a small white paper bag, the top folded over.
“I’m sorry,” he says, contrition in his voice and etched deep in his eyes.
“I’m glad, because you really were being unfair,” I say, my voice soft—but strong, too, as I speak my piece. “You didn’t want to know about the past. You said as much.”
His smile is rueful. “I know, love. I know. Because I want you all to myself, and that’s not fair.”
“But you have me, Gabriel. Don’t you know that?”
“I do.” His eyes plead with me. “Forgive me.”
“Of course.” My lips twitch. “And I’m sorry, too.”
He tilts his head. “What are you sorry for? I was the asshole.”
Laughing lightly, I say, “Because I never mentioned Gavin.”
He shakes his head and places a hand on my arm. Shortcake scoots between us and licks his forearm, working on the map of Europe. He strokes her head, and damn if that sight doesn’t just slay me. “No, my love. You’re not required to give me your dating résumé. It was ridiculous for me to react that way—like a jealous ass.”
My lips curve into a grin. “Weirdly, I like your jealous side. Well, some of it,” I amend.
He laughs. “Which part?”
I angle my body closer to his. “The part that makes you want me all to yourself.”
“But that’s all of me,” he says, as my dog raises her snout and sniffs the white bag. “And that’s why I want to apologize. I reacted badly because I think of you as all mine. Since I was your first.” As he says it, everything makes sense. His comments. His reactions. His possessiveness.
“You feel an ownership of me?”
He nods. “I suppose I do. But that’s not fair. I know ten years passed, and of course you’ve had other relationships. It’s foolish of me to think you’ve only ever been with me, even if that’s what the jealous fool in me wants. But it’s not fair for me to expect you to have detailed every relationship for me. Especially since I pretty much told you at the museum that I preferred to think of you as having no history.” His grin is wry and his tone self-deprecating.
I reach for his hair, playing with the ends. “I’ve dated some over the years, but mostly I’ve been focused on dogs, and work, and my friends. I’m not someone who sleeps around. And you also need to know, I was never engaged to Gavin. I thought that he might propose, but he didn’t, and if he had, I’d have said no. I left him because he was a cheater. He had affairs left and right.”
Gabriel sneers. “Ass. He’s unworthy of any woman.”
“But that’s not the biggest reason why it ended.”
His brow furrows. “Why did it end?”
I tiptoe my fingers up his hair. I love his long hair—the lush, soft strands, the sexy, rock-star look of him. “I didn’t love him deeply. I didn’t love him at all, actually.”
“No?”
I shake my head and lower my voice. “My heart was given a long time ago, in Park Güell. No one else has ever come close,” I say, and this is the true vulnerability. This is my heart on the line.
He presses his forehead to mine and sighs deeply, happily. Then he whispers, “It’s only ever been you, Penny.” He pulls back, runs the pads of his fingers across my chin, and meets my gaze. “You’re the only one for me.”
I lean in to kiss him but he holds up a finger. “I bought you a little something.”
“You did?”
“When a man messes up, he should always bring a woman a gift. He should say he’s sorry, he should give her a gift, and there’s one more thing he should do. But first…this.” He opens the small, white, paper bag, reaches in, and takes out an even smaller bag.
Of caramels.
“Your favorite candy. You told me so the day we met. It has always reminded me of you.”
I beam. It’s just candy, but that’s the point. It’s candy because he’s sorry, and because he’s with me, and because that’s what you do when you’ve hurt the one you love. Then you move on. You keep going. You put it behind you.
“Take a bite,” he says, reaching for a wrapped candy from the bag. “I like the way you taste with caramel on your tongue.” He strokes his chin. “Scratch that. I always like the way you taste.”
He curls his hand around mine and kisses me deeply. It tastes like the past, like the present, and like all our tomorrows.
But I’m wildly curious about something he left unanswered, so I break the kiss and tap his shoulder. “What’s the third thing a man should do when he’s messed up?”
He rises, reaches for my hand, and pulls me up. “Why don’t we go back to your place, and I’ll show you.”
And that night at my home, that’s when he gives me more orgasms than I can count.
All things considered, I think I came out okay from this little tiff in the park. As the night blurs to an end, and the early light of the dawn peeks through the blinds, we fall asleep at last—him, me, and Shortcake, who’s wedged herself between us.