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waited.
    “What the fuck was that about?”
    Michael’s voice cut into the side of my face. Quickly, I turned my head towards him and blushed. I had no idea what to say. I didn’t want to tell him the truth and embarrass myself further, but I wasn’t one to lie. Actually, I was terrible at it.
    “Nothing.” The word slipped from my mouth, and I knew it wasn’t going to be a good enough answer.
    “Nothing? Come on, Sam, you can do better than that. Was he hitting on you?” He laughed with his question, as if a man like Roman Blake would never waste his time on a woman like me.
    My body stiffened, and I looked down at the plain tablecloth. “Of course not, Michael.”
    He placed a warm hand on the back of my neck, his touch reaching through my body to my toes. Leaning in close, he placed a soft kiss on my cheek, and I melted.
    So long.
    It had been so long since Michael had given me even the smallest amount of affection. I covered my heated skin where his kiss still lingered with my palm, as if to hold the sensation in. And then he ruined it when he opened his mouth hot against my ear.
    “I was joking. Of course he wasn’t hitting on you.”
    It was like a slap to the face. My head popped up to see a few ladies staring at Michael and me, letting me know the soft kiss had been for show.
    A cold chill moved over me when Michael stepped away and left me alone for the rest of the night. I wanted so badly to leave and go home, but the house I lived in didn’t even feel like home to me. Honestly, it never did. It had always been too big—too cold.
    Home was where my father was, and he was gone. Home was a place full of love and laughter—a place I felt wanted, and I knew as I watched Michael flirt with a redhead from across the room, that I’d never feel like I was home again.
    That night I slept in the guest room again. I didn’t even think about whether or not Michael would collect me to come to bed. He didn’t, of course, and I fell asleep with tears on my pillow and a growing ache in my heart. Monday could not come fast enough.
    On Monday morning, as I drank my latte alone at Starbucks, I worked up the nerve to see Roman. I was intrigued, yet I was still insanely embarrassed. A part of me even considered that maybe he was calling me to his office for an affair.
    Bouncing the idea around in my mind, I repeatedly wondered whether I’d go through with it if he offered until my cup was dry. I walked out of Starbucks certain that I’d sleep with Roman Blake if it were what he was offering. I deserved it. I’d been with Michael since I was young. He was the only man I’d ever been with and for the last two years, I’d longed for the touch of a man.
    Not to mention, Michael was running around sleeping with anything that would open their legs for him. It wasn’t like he would care anyway. Maybe I was going about this all wrong. I didn’t have any friends to tell me the way of things in the circles that we lived in, but maybe married couples were supposed to sleep with other people. Maybe I was missing out on something great because I was too worried about making Michael love me again.
    An hour later, I found myself following behind the pretty nurse I’d met my very first visit as she led me down an entirely different hallway. We stopped at a mahogany door—the name Dr. Roman Blake embossed deep in the shiny nameplate on the door. The nurse twisted the polished handle and with it, my stomach.
    She pushed the door open, and I let go of the breath I’d been holding when I realized the room was empty.
    “Dr. Blake will be right with you,” she said, motioning for me to go ahead without her. “Make yourself comfortable.”
    Biting my lip, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, I took two steps inside the room. I heard the nurse shift behind me, realizing she was shutting the door.
    “Thank you,” I managed to call out before she closed the door completely.
    Flinching at the sound of the click, I tried to