had been good.
Very good.
For a large chunk of her senior year and a portion of her first year at community college, Everett had been the love of her life. He’d made her happier than she could ever remember being.
But it was what had happened at the end that outweighed everything, that threw all those good recollections into the shadows, leaving her to remember that awful, awful ache in her heart as Emma was taken out of her arms and she watched her baby being carried away.
Away from her.
She’d wanted Everett to hold her then. To tell her that he was aching as much as she was. That he felt as if something had been torn away from his heart, too, the way she felt it had for her.
But all he had said was: “It’s for the best.” As if there was something that could be described as “best” about never being able to see your baby again. A baby that had been conceived in love and embodied the two of them in one tiny little form.
Lila felt tears welling up in her eyes even after all this time, felt them spilling out even though she’d tried hard to squeeze them back.
She wished she hadn’t agreed to see Everett.
But if she’d said no to lunch, Everett would have probably put two and two together and realized that she hadn’t the courage to see him again. If she’d turned him down, he would’ve understood just how much he still mattered to her.
No, Lila told herself, she had no way out. She had to see him again. Had to sit there across from him at a table, making inane conversation and proving to him that he meant nothing to her.
That would be her ultimate revenge for his having so wantonly, so carelessly, ripped out her heart without so much as a moment’s pause or a word of actual genuine comfort.
“We’ll have lunch, Everett,” she said, addressing his response that was posted on her Facebook page. “We’ll have lunch, and then you’ll realize just what you lost all those years ago. Lost forever. Because I was the very best thing that could have ever happened to you,” she added with finality.
Her words rang hollow to her ear.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She had a couple of days before she had to meet with him. A couple of days to practice making herself sound as if she believed every syllable she uttered.
She’d have it letter-perfect by the time they met, she promised herself.
She had to.
Half the contents of Lila’s closet was now spread out all over her bed. She spent an extra hour going through each item slowly before finally making up her mind.
Lila dressed with great care, selecting a two-piece gray-blue outfit that flattered her curves as well as sharply bringing out the color of her eyes.
Ordinarily, putting on makeup entailed a dash of lipstick for Lila, if that. This morning she highlighted her eyes, using both mascara and a little eye shadow. She topped it off with a swish of blush to accent her high cheekbones, smoothed her long auburn hair, then sprayed just the slightest bit of perfume.
Finished, she slowly inspected herself from all angles in her wardrobe mirror before she decided that she was ready to confront a past she’d thought she’d buried—and in so doing, make Dr. Everett Fortunado eat his heart out.
Maybe, Lila thought as she left her house, if she took this much trouble getting ready for the occasional dates she went out on, she might not still be single at the age of thirty-three.
Lila sighed. She knew better. It wasn’t her clothes or her makeup that were responsible for her single status.
It was her.
After breaking up with Everett, she had picked herself up and dusted herself off. In an all-out attempt to totally reinvent herself, Lila had left Houston and moved to Austin where no one knew her or anything about the past she was determined to forget and put totally behind her.
She’d gone to work at the Fortune Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing assistance to the needy. Through hard work, she’d swiftly risen and was now manager of her department.
And because of her work, Lila’s life went from intolerable to good. At least her professional life did.
Her personal life, however, was another story.
Sure, she’d dated. She’d tried blind dates as well as online dating. She’d joined clubs and had gone to local sporting events to cheer on the home team. She’d gone out with rich men as well as poor ones and those in between.
It wasn’t that Lila couldn’t meet a man, she just couldn’t meet the man.
And probably even if she could, she thought, that still wouldn’t have done the trick. Because no matter who she went out with, she couldn’t trust him.
Everett had destroyed her ability to trust any man she might become involved with.
Try as she might, she couldn’t lower her guard. She just couldn’t bear to have a repeat performance of what had happened to her with Everett.
Rather than risk that, she kept her heart firmly under lock and key. And that guaranteed a life of loneliness.
At this point in her life, Lila had decided to give up looking for Mr. Right. Instead, she forced herself to embrace being Stubbornly Single.
As she took one last look in the mirror and walked out the door, she told herself that was what she really wanted.
One day she might convince herself that was true.
* * *
Her upgraded appearance did not go unnoticed when she walked into the office at the Fortune Foundation that morning.
“Well, someone looks extra nice today,” Lucie Fortune Chesterfield Parker noted the moment that Lila crossed the threshold. “Do you have a hot date tonight?” she asked as she made her way over toward Lila.
“No, I don’t,” Lila answered, hoping that would be the end of it.
Belatedly, she thought that maybe she should have brought this outfit with her and changed in the ladies’ room before going to lunch instead of coming in dressed like this.
Lucie and she were friends and had been almost from the very first time they met at the Foundation, but Lila really didn’t want to talk about the man she was having lunch with.
Initially from England, Lucie was married to Chase Parker, a Texas oil heir who had been her teenage sweetheart. Because of that, Lucie considered herself to be an expert on romance and she felt she had great radar when it came to the subject.
Her radar was apparently on red alert now as she swiftly looked Lila over.
Studying her, Lucie repeated, “Not tonight?”
“No,” Lila said firmly. She never broke stride, determined to get to her office and close the door on this subject—literally as well as figuratively.
“Lunch, then?” Lucie pressed. “You certainly didn’t get all dolled up like that for us.”
Lila looked at her sharply over her shoulder, but her coworker didn’t back off. The expression on her face indicated that she thought she was onto something.
When Lila made no response, Lucie pressed harder. “Well, are you going to lunch with someone?”
Lila wanted to say no and be done with it. She was, after all, a private person and no one here knew about her past. She’d never shared any of it. No about the child she’d given up for adoption or the man who had broken her heart. However, it wasn’t in her to lie and even if it were, Lucie was as close to a real friend as she had in Austin. She didn’t want to risk alienating