“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you ring?”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I tried to but the number you gave me was wrong. I tried a few different combinations but…” She shrugged. “I didn’t know anything about you except that you live in Marlow and your name’s John. I couldn’t for the life of me remember your last name.”

“It’s Ethan, John Ethan.”

“John Ethan. Well, I had no idea where Marlow was until I found it on a map, and I discovered there’s two of them, both on rivers.”

I held her away from me, completely puzzled.

“I don’t get it. I could have sworn I gave you the right number.”

She wriggled free and went to her desk. Pulling it open, she took out the note I’d left for her and gave it to me. It was crumpled and flimsy, as if touched a million times. I looked at the number. It appeared right, and then I saw it. I’d transposed the middle three digits—instead of 839 I’d written 389.

Fuck! What a stupid prick I was! I groaned and told her what I’d done.

“I can’t believe I did that. Mind you, I’d only got the phone and the number the day before I came down, but all the same, I should have double-checked it.”

I shook my head, picked up a pen from her desk, and wrote the number out correctly.

“I am so sorry. I … shit. I tried to find you. All I knew was your first name and you owned a bridal salon. Do you know how many bridal places there are in Australia? I searched for all the ones in a four-hour radius from the villa.”

She giggled and that laugh filled me with such joy, such unbelievable happiness.

“Tell me, how did you find me?”

“There was an article in the local paper from last year. It was purely by accident. Yesterday evening I was finally sorting through things and there were a few items I wanted to keep in storage in the garage area. I found a bundle of old newspapers to wrap them in and when I opened one, there you were—Brides by Bella. I saw your photograph and I almost couldn’t believe it.”

I held out my hand and took hers, raising it to my lips. “I honestly thought you didn’t want to see me again, thought maybe when I’d told you about being a bit bossy in the bedroom you’d decided it wasn’t for you. That the few things we’d done were too much. I figured when you didn’t ring, you’d chalked it up as a sort of holiday fling.”

“Certainly not. I’m not the fling type. I was devastated when I couldn’t contact you. As for the bedroom thing, I enjoyed the things we did and was willing to try more—and still am, if the offer is open.”

I was still having trouble getting my head around it. I’d come here expecting to be thrown out and now, now this beautiful woman was telling me she wanted something together.

“It’s definitely open. Come here.”

She walked into my arms again and I kissed her. It was the same electricity that we’d shared each time we kissed. My heart skipped a beat, my chest tightened. I had to catch my breath as my arms wrapped around her. I wanted to swallow her and never let her out of my sight again. We finally broke for air, both of us breathing as if we’d run a marathon. I gazed down at that beautiful face, her lips reddened and swollen from my kisses, her cheek rosy from my beard stubble.

“Anabelle. Hell, I…”

She smiled and tilted her head. I could only shrug. How could I put into words the way I was feeling? My heart pounded. It seemed to press hard against my ribcage as it tried to escape. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs as if my body had forgotten how to breathe. I wanted to scream from the rooftops that I’d found her. But more than anything else I wanted to keep kissing her, keep touching her. That would be the only way I’d know this wasn’t a dream.

“I thought I’d never see you again and it hurt badly.”

“I was the same. It upset me when I discovered the number was wrong. I couldn’t think of how to find you either.”

“Oh, Ana, I’ve missed you terribly. Thank goodness we’re together again.”

“John, I’ve been really miserable. It was as if I’d lost my soul mate.”

“Me too, Ana, me too.”

I realized if we were going to make a go of this, there could be no secrets between us. I’d evaded a lot of answers when we met, but now, now I had to be open.

“Anabelle, there are things about me that I should tell you.”

She got this horrified look on her face and stiffened. “You’re really married, I knew it.”

“No. No, I told you the truth, I’m not married, not involved with anyone. I’m a free agent. But there are things I need to tell you about my past life. Can I take you to dinner tonight? I was going to tell you that last night, but then you didn’t come back and I had to leave.”