Oh man, she thought.
Kat tried to put herself together, tried to take a step back and gain some perspective, but the room was spinning and there was no way she was going to slow it down. Her still-shaking hand came back to the mouse and clicked on the profile picture, enlarging it.
The screen blinked to the next page. There Jeff stood, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, hands in his pockets, eyes so blue you’d look in vain for a contact lens line. So handsome. So goddamn beautiful. He looked trim and athletic, and now, despite everything, another stirring started from deep within her. For a quick second, Kat risked a peek at her bedroom. She had lived in this co-op when they were together. There had been other men in that bedroom after him, but nothing ever came close to reaching the high of what she had experienced with her fiancé. She knew how that sounded, but when she was with Jeff, he had made every part of her hum and sing. It wasn’t technique or size or anything like that that made the difference. It was—unerotic as it sounded—trust. That was what had made the sex so mind-blowing. Kat had felt safe with him. She had felt confident and beautiful and unafraid and free. He would tease her at times, control her, have his way with her, but he never made her feel vulnerable or self-conscious.
Kat had never been able to let go like that with another man.
She swallowed and clicked the full-profile link. His personal statement was short and, Kat thought, perfect: Let’s see what happens.
No pressure. No grandiose plans. No preconditions or guarantees or wild expectations.
Let’s see what happens.
She skimmed toward the Status section. Over the past eighteen years, Kat had wondered countless times how his life had turned out, so the first question was the most obvious one: What had happened in Jeff’s life that he was now on a singles website?
Then again, what had happened to her?
The status read: Widower.
Another wow.
She tried to imagine that—Jeff marrying a woman, living with her, loving her, and eventually having her die on him. It wouldn’t compute. Not yet. She was blocking. That was okay. Push through it. No reason to dwell.
Widower.
Underneath that, another jolt: One child.
They didn’t give age or sex and, of course, it didn’t matter. Every revelation, every new fact about the man she had once loved with all her heart made the world teeter anew. He had lived a whole life without her. Why was that such a surprise? What had she expected? Their breakup had been both sudden and inevitable. He might have been the one to walk out the door, but it had been her fault. He was gone, in a snap, just like the entire life she had known and planned.
Now he was back, one of a hundred, maybe two hundred, men whose profiles she had clicked through.
The question was, What would she do about it now?
Chapter 2
Gerard Remington had been only scant hours away from proposing to Vanessa Moreau when his world went dark.
The proposal, like many things in Gerard Remington’s life, had been carefully planned. First step: After extensive research, Gerard had purchased an engagement ring, 2.93 carats, princess cut, VVS1 clarity, F color, platinum band with a halo setting. He had bought it from a renowned jeweler in Manhattan’s Diamond District on West 47th Street—not in one of the overpriced larger stores but at a booth in the back near the Sixth Avenue corner.
Step Two: Their flight today would be leaving Boston’s Logan Airport on JetBlue flight 267 at 7:30 A.M., touching down in St. Maarten at 11:31 A.M., where he and Vanessa would transfer to a small puddle-jumper to Anguilla, arriving on the island at 12:45 P.M.
Steps Three, Four, etc.: They would relax in a two-level villa at the Viceroy overlooking Meads Bay, take a dip in the infinity pool, make love, shower and dress, and dine at Blanchards. Dinner reservation was for seven P.M. Gerard had called ahead and arranged to have a bottle of Vanessa’s favorite wine, a Château Haut-Bailly Grand Cru Classé 2005, a Bordeaux from the Pessac-Léognan appellation, at the ready. After dinner, Gerard and Vanessa would walk the beach barefoot, hand in hand. He had checked the lunar phase calendar and knew that the moon would be nearly full at the time. Two hundred eighteen yards down the beach (he’d had it measured), there was a thatch-roofed hut used during the day to rent snorkels and water skis. At night, no one was there. A local florist would line the front porch with twenty-one (the number of weeks they had known each other) white calla lilies (Vanessa’s favorite flower). There would be a string quartet too. On Gerard’s cue, the quartet would play “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane, the song he and Vanessa decided would be forever theirs. Then, because they both liked tradition, Gerard would bend down on one knee. In his mind’s eye, Gerard could almost see Vanessa’s reaction. She would gasp in surprise. Her eyes would well up with tears. Her hands would come up to her face in astonishment and joy.
“You have entered my world and changed it forever,” Gerard would say. “Like the most startling catalyst, you have taken this ordinary hunk of clay and transformed it into something so much more potent, so much happier and brimming with life, than I could have ever imagined. I love you. I love you with my entire being. I love everything about you. Your smile gives my life color and texture. You are the most beautiful and passionate woman in the world. Will you please make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
Gerard had still been working on the exact wording—he wanted it to be just right—when his world went dark. But every word was true. He loved Vanessa. He loved her with all his heart. Gerard had never been much of a romantic. Throughout his lifetime, people had a habit of disappointing him. Science did not. Truth be told, he had always been most content alone, battling microbes and organisms, developing new medicines and counteragents that would win those wars. He had been most content in his laboratory at Benesti Pharmaceuticals, figuring out an equation or formula on the blackboard. He was, as his younger colleagues would say, old-school that way. He liked the blackboard. It helped him think—the smell of chalk, the dust, the way his fingers got dirty, the ease of erasing—because in science, truly, so little should be made permanent.
Yes, it was there, in those lost moments alone, when Gerard felt most content.
Most content. But not happy.
Vanessa had been the first thing in his life to make him happy.
Gerard opened his eyes now and thought about her. Everything was raised to the tenth power with Vanessa. No other woman had ever moved him mentally, emotionally, and yes, of course, physically like Vanessa. No other woman, he knew, ever could.