Page 14 of Say It Isn't So

I wasn’t going to keep apologizing for seeing to it that my dreams came true.

And shedding tears, getting emotional was pointless. Did you cry over the past? No, because it was in the past. It didn’t matter that Knox was standing in front of me. For all intents and purposes he was in my rearview mirror.

Knox would get over it; he would get over me.

And, in time, I would fall out of love with him, too.

We’d be nothing more than a distant memory to one another.

Some people were meant to be, and others were meant to be nothing more than someone they once knew on their way to happily ever after.

It turned out Knox was the latter for me.

I needed to look at the big picture, which was that I could be someone.

Not just Rina Blum from Minnesota, but a famous designer.

Dreams didn’t just come true—people worked hard to make them happen, and that was what I was doing.

He may have seen me as the bad guy, but that was something I’d have to live with, because I knew I was doing the right thing for me.

* * *

Knox

Unfortunately, something told me this moment would be forever emblazoned in my memory, so I didn’t need it to last longer than it needed to. Rina was physically here, but emotionally she was gone. I saw no point in prolonging the inevitable. She wanted to leave, had her bags packed and was ready to go, so she should do that. She should go.

“Bye, Rina,” I said, taking a page out of my mother’s book and setting her free. Those were the only words she’d wanted to hear from me anyway.

I picked up my keys from the fishbowl where I’d dropped them when I walked in and put my hand on the doorknob. She was leaving and we were over, but that didn’t mean I needed to stick around to watch her walk out on me.

“I transferred the lease into your name. If you need to reach me, call my parents. They’ll be able to get in touch with me in Spain.”

Nodding, I opened the door. “Have a nice life,” I said and walked out, expecting to never see or hear from Rina Blum again.

* * *

a few months later

Bianca laughed, tossing her head back as she did, her loose brown waves cascading down her back. Her tongue darted out to wet her top lip and there went my ability to function properly, all coherent thoughts escaping my mind.What would it be like if that was my tongue wetting her lip?

Woah, where’d that thought come from, Knox?

As we walked back to the office, coffee cups in hand from our usual morning run, she elbowed me lightly and I felt a jolt at the touch.All right, what is wrong with me?

“That granny!” she shouted, a little too loudly, because a man in a suit that looked like it cost more than my rent gave us a snarl. “Good for her,” she added in a lower volume.

I chuckled and shook my head. “You just ruined that man’s whole morning. And he probably can’t imagine why a woman dressed as professionally as you is yelling loud enough to be heard over the myriad of city sounds.” Like the construction crew working on the sidewalk.

She pointed a finger at me, a smile tugging at her lips. “People need to get over themselves.”

“Hey, I have no problem with you being loud.” I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I actually prefer when the women I’m with get loud.”

And something told me Bianca would be really, really loud.

“Shut up!” she admonished, swatting my arm. “You wish we were together. Then you could have all of this.” She enunciated the last word and waved a hand over her side, allowing it to dip along her curves.

Boy, if she’d only known how badly I’d wished that were true; that we were together.

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