The Groom Wanted Seconds: A Novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

My Love,” and Rebecca’s steps slowed. The song, coupled with the reminder that this had been the path she and Jeremy had jogged a hundred times over the past year, made her steps stutter. She crossed to the grassy banks of the river and took a seat, watching the crew team and other boaters, while the music played in her ear, and she realized she couldn’t outrun anything.
    She hadn’t found any answers. If anything, she’d created more questions. Rebecca ripped out the earbuds and let them hang around her neck.
    A pair of familiar Nikes appeared in her peripheral vision. Rebecca jerked her head up. Jeremy stood beside her, his dark hair lit by the sun behind him. He had on shorts and a T-shirt, baring the muscles in his legs and arms. God, he was a sexy man. No doubt about that. She’d been attracted to him since the first day.
    “Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked.
    “Same thing as you, I bet. Running off some stress.”
    “You still run this path?” she asked. Like she hadn’t been looking for him. Like she didn’t care.
    He nodded. “Several times a week.”
    She wanted to ask if he did it because he loved the Esplanade or because he missed running it with her. She could have chosen one of a million routes in Boston, but today, she had chosen the one that had been their favorite. A subconscious move? Or just a need to be near the water? Or because she secretly hoped to run into him?
    “Mind if I sit down?” He gestured toward the grassy space beside her. She nodded, and he sat down, not too close, but not too far away either. For a long moment, the two of them just watched the water ripple, the boats pass.
    If she didn’t think about it too much, it was like they were still together, sitting in comfortable silence. But she didn’t want comfortable anymore. She didn’t want predictable. She wanted—
    Real.
    There’d been moments when she’d been with Jeremy where she thought they had that, then he would retreat into work or his lists, and the sparks would get lost in his insistence on logical order, the romantic moment swept away before it even really began.
    She cursed the fact that she still felt that same rush of sexual tension when he was near, that craving for his kiss, his touch, the way he knew her body like no one else. But that wasn’t enough to build a future on, and she needed to remember that, even as a part of her ached to reach out, to touch him.
    “We, ah, got our first order,” she said, focusing on the impersonal, asexual. Not on how close he sat, how it wouldn’t take much effort at all to brush against his skin, to be curled under his arm and pressed into his chest. How tempting the thick grass seemed, how it urged her to lay down with Jeremy and soak up the last rays of sun for the day. She cleared her throat. “So I guess that means we’re in business now.”
    A smile filled his face. “That’s great, Rebecca. Really great. I’m proud of you.”
    She shrugged. “I owe it to you. You’re the one who introduced me to your cousin’s wife, you know, the one who’s a realtor? She ordered twenty baskets to give to her top clients.”
    “I’m glad that worked out.”
    “Me too. It’s a start.” She fiddled with the grass by her ankles, wanting to stay, but knowing it would only lead them down a path she didn’t want to take. Hadn’t she learned her lesson this summer? Acting without thinking caused her to make very, very bad decisions, as did forming a relationship that was never going to have real love at its core. The logical side of her knew that Jeremy was never going to change, and hoping for more just because of the way he kissed her or because she craved his touch, wouldn’t make it so.
    She spent a year hoping he’d become a man who would put their relationship first. Jeremy had been a nice guy, caring, sweet, but…distracted, his mind never fully there when they were together. Even when she’d broken up with him, she’d hoped he’d come to his