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believe that just a little over a month ago she’d been working as a perfume girl, handing out samples of Fendi and Liz Claiborne. She probably wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t approached her. She probably wouldn’t have agreed to have dinner with him that first time if he hadn’t had roses and a limousine waiting by the curb for her after work. It had been so easy to crawl inside that air-conditioned limo, out of the heat, humidity, and bus fumes. If she hadn’t felt so alone, and if her future weren’t so uncertain, she probably wouldn’t have agreed to marry a man she’d known for such a short time.
    Last night she’d tried to tell Virgil she couldn’t marry him. She’d tried to call it off, but he hadn’t listened to her. She felt horrible for what she’d done, but she didn’t know how to fix it.
    Letting go of the tears she’d held back all day, she quietly sobbed into John’s pillow. She cried for the mess she’d made of her life, and the emptiness she felt inside. Her future loomed before her, terrifying and uncertain. Her only relatives were an elderly aunt and uncle who lived off Social Security and whose lives revolved around I Love Lucy reruns.
    She had nothing and knew no one besides a man who’d told her not to expect kindness from him. Suddenly she felt like Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire . She’d seen every Vivien Leigh movie ever made, and she thought it a little eerie, and more than coincidental, that John’s last name was Kowalsky.
    She was scared and alone, but she also felt a sense of relief that she wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. She wouldn’t have to pretend to like Virgil’s awful taste in clothes and the trashy things he liked for her to wear.
    Exhausted, she cried herself to sleep. She hadn’t realized she’d dozed off until she woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed.
    “Georgie?”
    One side of her hair fell over her left eye as she turned toward the sunlit doorway and looked into a face she was sure she’d dreamed off one of those studs calendars. His hands gripped the frame just above his head, and he wore a silver wristwatch turned so the face rested against his pulse. He stood with one hip higher than the other, and for several moments she stared at him, disoriented.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked.
    She blinked several times before it all came back to her. John had changed his clothes into a pair of worn Levi’s with a shredded hole in one knee. A white Chinooks tank top stretched across his powerful chest, and fine hair shadowed his armpits. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d changed in the room while she slept.
    “If you’re hungry, Ernie’s fixing chowder.”
    “I’m starving,” she said, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”
    John lowered one hand and glanced at his wrist. “Almost six.”
    She’d slept for two and a half hours and felt more tired than before. She remembered passing the bathroom earlier and reached for her overnight case on the floor next to the bed. “I need a few minutes,” she said, and avoided looking at herself in the mirror as she passed the dresser. “I shouldn’t be too long,” she added as she approached the doorway.
    “Good. We’re about to sit down,” John informed her, although he didn’t appear in a hurry to move. His shoulders practically filled the doorframe, forcing her to stop.
    “Excuse me.” If he thought she was going to squeeze past him, he’d better come up with a new plan. Georgeanne had figured out that game in the tenth grade. She felt a vague disappointment that John should belong to the caliber of sleazy men who thought they had the right to rub up against women and peer down their blouses, but when she looked up into his blue eyes, relief washed over her. A wrinkle appeared between his dark brows and he gazed at her mouth, not her breasts. He reached toward her and brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. He was so close, she could