Bodie said, “But see, that’s what I came to talk about. Victor knows I’m unhappy. He said he can see this is breaking my heart. He…He said he’d be willing to give it another try if you want to come back to Dallas.”
She tilted her head, finally seeing him without the rose-colored glasses. “After all the trouble Victor had putting up with my supposed clutter? I sometimes hear his voice in my head, speaking so cruelly about my body and my habits, and no amount of time spent here with you has ever erased the memory of him saying he wanted things the way they were before.” She wiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks and avoided his hand when he tried to reach out to her. “You were hoping I’d move back in with the two of you?”
His gaze darted away, and he said, “Well…not quite. There’s another condominium vacant next to ours and he thought perhaps you’d like to come back as a neighbor, and—now these are his words, but he suggested an ‘open, come-and-go relationship.’”
She gulped over the knot in her throat, hating Victor a little right then. “He wants for me to ‘come’ and then ‘go’ away, you mean? Or more precisely, he wants you to come and me to go away afterward. Just slink off in the night to my space next door?”
He sighed, and she steeled herself when he sat back and she could see his eyes were bloodshot. Emotion choked him up, but he cleared his throat and said, “I love you, Violet. I need you with me, as much as I need him.”
Left cold, Violet shook her head. He deluded himself now as much as she had for all those months. “Almost as much. Bodie, I loved you, once, but I don’t want an open relationship. I deserve better than that.”
Frowning, he said, “It’s those guys, isn’t it? What’s going on with them? Another ménage? But you won’t try with us?”
“What I have with them is completely different. Until I met them, I didn’t understand the difference.”
“Are you in love with them?”
Her answer was slow in coming, not because she wasn’t sure, but because Josh and Lucas deserved to be the first ones to hear those words from her lips, not her ex. “What I have with them is new, and this weekend was a complete revelation.”
Pain etched his features. “You were with them? Both?”
“Bodie, I’m not going to go into detail about my personal life. You asked about them. I’m just being honest.”
“I’d take good care of you, baby. You could open another Emporium in the city. Everyone would love it. I could make you forget about them.” He reached out, and she didn’t have the heart to resist when he took her hands.
It was time to rip off the Band-Aid. “Bodie, I could never forget them, any more than I can forget you. But when I’m with them, I am their only focus. That’s the difference between my past and my present. I love being the center of their world. Will it last forever? I don’t know. But I love Divine, and I don’t want to leave, ever. I’m happy with my small-town emporium, and I have no desire to go back to the big city. And you know things could never be the same between Victor and me. I deserve so much more than the crumbs he’s willing to throw me.”
“You won’t give me a second chance, then?”
She slipped her hands from his grasp, and instead of pulling back, she held his hands in hers. He looked down at them and then up at her, pleading in his eyes, but he kept quiet. Tears threatened, but she needed to get the words out, get it said so he’d understand and move on.
“Bodie, in the last year and a half, every time you called me and I let you come, that was me giving you a second chance. It was never casual for me. Each time, I wanted to beg you to stay with me, but I wouldn’t put you in a difficult position. I know now I’ll never settle for half of a man’s heart ever again. Yes, I loved you, but there comes a point where it’s everlastingly too late. Good luck with Victor—and with any other hearts that trust you. You were very easy to love,” she added with a wobbly smile. The sense of finality was there, and she saw it in his eyes when he nodded.
“I’m sorry I upset you, coming here and making you cry. I’ve made you ruin your makeup,” he said with a wistful smile.
After grabbing a tissue and blotting at the mess, irritated that she kept forgetting she still had on the makeup, she said, “This has been quite a weekend.”
“You look adorable, and I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Will you keep my number in your phone, in case you ever need any help or a friend with a listening ear?”