Love, Accidentally Read Online Free PDF Page A

the tension, instead of adding to it. By not mentioning Elise by name, everyone in his family had turned the incident into a bigger deal than it needed to be. Worse, it had put Ilsa on the outside.
    “There’s something I want to ask,” she said. Grif didn’t look up from his paper, and she reached over and grabbed it.
    “Hey!” he protested.
    “Why did you and Elise break up?”
    He glanced at her. “A lot of reasons.”
    “Such as?”
    “Where is this coming from?” Grif asked. “Look, we just had a great weekend. . . . Do you really want to talk about my ex-girlfriend?”
    “No,” Ilsa said. “But I want to understand you better. So I need to know.”
    He stretched out his jeans-clad legs and crossed them at the ankles. “Everyone assumed we’d end up getting married someday,” Grif said. “We were together so long it probably seemed inevitable. But then when we started to talk about it, it turned out Elise wasn’t on the same page.”
    “What about you?” Ilsa held her breath. His answer was so important.
    He shrugged. “I guess I felt like it was ridiculous for us to keep dating for so long and not have it go anywhere,” he said.
    Ilsa felt light-headed. All the air in her lungs left in a rush.
    “But she was right,” Grif said quickly. “It was just . . . I don’t know, maybe inertia that was holding us together at that point. She knew we’d be happier with other people.”
    “You told me you broke up with her,” Ilsa said. She glanced at the guy sitting on the other side of her, not wanting anyone to eavesdrop on this conversation, but he had a cell phone to his ear and was saying “Yeah” every few seconds.
    “I did break up with her,” Grif protested.
    “Because she didn’t want to get married! It’s kind of a big difference, Grif! You made it sound like you wanted to end things, but instead you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her!”
    “Look, it wasn’t like that,” Grif said, but Ilsa was shaking her head.
    “They’re calling our flight,” he said. She silently handed him the newspaper and walked toward the gate agent, her thoughts churning. She’d thought it was so romantic, the way she and Grif had fallen into such a deep relationship, so quickly. He was the right guy for her; she was certain of it. But he’d wanted to marry someone else less than a year ago. Was she just the rebound girl?
    She found her seat in 10A and fastened her seat belt as Grif settled in next to her. “Were you planning on inviting her to the wedding?” she asked.
    “What? I hadn’t even thought about it,” he said. “It’s not like I think about her a lot, Ilsa. I mean, sure, we can invite her. Or not.”
    “She’s close with your parents, isn’t she?”
    “What’s going on?” Grif asked, frowning.
    “I know she bought your dad that jazz CD,” she said. “Why did you all try to hide it from me?”
    “We didn’t—”
    “I want to meet her,” she said.
    “What?” Grif asked. “Seriously?”
    She folded her arms. “I’m not going to meet the woman you used to love on our wedding day, Grif. You said she lives in San Francisco, right? We can drive there sometime.”
    Grif was silent for a moment as the flight attendant gave her safety speech.
    “Look, don’t get upset by this,” Grif finally said as the plane began to taxi down the runway. “But Elise actually e-mailed me a few days ago. She’s coming to L.A. at the end of the month on business. Maybe we can all get a drink together, if it’s that important to you.”
    Jealousy swirled inside Ilsa, thick and hot as a stew. “Were you planning to tell me?” she almost hissed, feeling her mouth twist around the words.
    “I just did!” Grif protested. “Jesus, Ilsa, it’s not like I was going to sneak off and meet her somewhere alone. The only reason I would see her is because you want to.”
    Ilsa felt the plane lurch into the air. She’d always hated that sensation, ever since she’d read that the