♫ I get drunk, pretend that I'm over it
Self-destruct, show up like an idiot
Why, oh why does God keep bringing me back to you? ♪
(Ariana Grande—Everytime)

On some strange whim, Coralie picked out a dress eerily like the one she'd worn at Scarfes, when she was in London. Black and curve-hugging, stopping at the knee, it transported her to a time before she'd given in to Ryan's charm. Before she'd succumbed to his languorous lips and his magnetic presence.

Delilah semi-approved, worried such a bold choice might tempt him and put her in a position where she couldn't refuse him.

But still, she wanted Coralie to look her best.

"Remind him what he's missing out on, and what he ruined with his attitude," she'd said, helping Coralie curl her hair and affix a small diamond pendant around her neck. "Then come home, call Michael, and move on with your life."

Move on with your life.

Coralie repeated the mantra as the rarely used elevator led her down to the ground floor. And while the Lyft, on the road to the bar. And in front of the bar Ryan had chosen—an understated, hole-in-the-wall a few buildings down from her favorite coffee shop, near work.

Her lungs tightened, her legs wobbled, her feet were slippery in her ankle-high platform booties. She sucked in her tummy and clenched her fists and marched in, adamant on surviving the night.

The lights were dimmed, and a few patrons were packed around a table next to the door, clinking beers and cheering as they watched her walk in.

Most of the other tables were empty—it was nine o'clock on a Wednesday—but a few customers cramped at the crimson-colored bar sipping from martini glasses. A breezy pop song played in the background; it sounded like Ariana Grande, but Coralie wasn't sure, and she couldn't focus on it as one of the stool occupants spun to her and their gazes met.

Electricity shot up and down her arms. Her heart sank into her stomach. The strap of her purse rode down her shoulder and she didn't have the strength to stop it.

Just like in London, dammit.

"Cora," said Ryan as she approached him, her legs moving of their own accord.

Had their minds linked when getting ready that night? She'd chosen an outfit reminiscent of London, and so had he. He wore that baby-blue shade that brought out the ocean in his eyes, that covered his skin like a candy wrapper, with that form-fitting white shirt underneath that molded to his torso to remind her how irresistible he was. Was it the same suit, or had he bought a new one after tossing the old one out because it smelled like her?

"Hi," she said, her voice stuck in her throat, her shoulders tense, her core clenched so hard she could barely breathe. "Sorry if I kept you waiting."

She wasn't late, but she'd wanted to arrive first, to take a few shots to settle her nerves before facing him.

It was as if she hadn't bumped into him days prior. As if they hadn't seen each other in years and everything they'd been through was erased, nonexistent, a mere mirage or lingering dream.

There he was—Ryan fucking Bennett, in all his grace, his European elegance, his perfection.

He smiled and offered the stool to his left, which she accepted; but not without nearly stumbling into it.

If he saw her fumbled maneuver, he said nothing and instead waved over the bartender.

"Mojito?" She nodded. "Make that two," he added, motioning at his almost empty glass, where a sprig of mint had stuck to one of the ice cubes, drowning in a fizzy mix of soda and rum.

She set her purse onto the counter and tucked her wild curls behind her ears.

"So..."

"So you worried I wouldn't recognize you, either, huh? Since you wore a little black dress like last time." He chuckled as she turned to him, eyebrows raised. "That's why I put this on," he indicated his jacket and pants, "in case you'd walk past me."

She bit her tongue to avoid the retort that brewed in her mind; but no amount of willpower would stop her from saying it.

"No one would dare walk past you, Ryan."

Fuck. Shut up, Cora! Don't flirt!

As the bartender set drinks in front of them, Ryan averted his gaze, a subtle glow growing on his cheeks.

"You look like a goddess, Cora," he whispered, finishing his first mojito, mint sprig included. He then picked up the fresh drink and tilted it towards hers. "To friends?"

She grabbed her beverage and clinked it with his, hesitant to respond. Were they friends? Could they ever be again, after everything?

Instead of trying to come up with something smart to say, she took a few swigs of her alcohol and smacked her lips. The minty bubbles filled her mouth and spiraled down her throat and slowly loosened the knots in her belly and quieted the screams in her head.

He caught her up on current happenings with his job—expansions to several countries, including the USA—and she detailed her new life in New York. He praised her for taking the leap, the risk; she congratulated him on his accomplishments.

It was all so civil, so curt, so unlike them. But to get too personal would topple their easy balance and plunge them into one another again. Ryan seemed to agree—they kept a slight distance between their stools and avoided physical contact as best as they could.

After two more drinks—Coralie forgot her rule of one drink only—their tension melted, and the atmosphere shifted. Their shoulders touched, their arms brushed, their fingers grazed a few times. Coralie ignored the chills he caused when their eyes met and swallowed down the desire growing inside when she inadvertently fixed on his lips.

Ryan gulped a few large mouthfuls of mojito and wheeled his stool to face her completely. "I have to tell you something."

She fanned herself as her cheeks overheated, and twirled to mimic his position, to sit like he was. One leg crossed over the other, a napkin in his lap, drink in hand. They were mirror images—but she doubted he was as nervous as she.

Is this it? Is he going to apologize before I tell him how much he ruined me?

She'd been planning to wait, to get all the niceties out of the way before giving him her smoldering glare and yelling at him for all he'd put her through. She had a speech, too; one she'd rehearsed in front of her mirror, encouraged by Delilah and egged on by Bella, via video-chat. It was good—it hit all the right points and would make him feel like a loser. It would remind him how he should have considered her feelings, and those of his wife, before dragging her down with him—

"My wife left me."

My wife left me?

They were four words that, on their own, would have no meaning to her. But spat out of Ryan's rum-coated mouth, in his sultry voice, with his decadent English accent, they were like poetry. Badly timed, in-your-face, out-of-this-world hymns that Coralie had not been prepared for.

"What?" She refrained from letting liquid spill out of her drooping mouth and placed the cup on the counter.

"Gemma... she left me. She found out that the impromptu last-minute business trip a few months back wasn't what I'd said it was and wasn't in Los Angeles... but in San Francisco." He gripped his glass as if letting go meant dying; as if it were his ultimate lifeline, his only means to maintain his train of thought and say what he needed to. "And that the trip to Paris wasn't for work."

Coralie's limbs locked in place and she could have sworn her skin was peeling off, slopping to the floor. "How?"

Ryan puffed out a breath—a whiff of cool, minty air that nipped at Coralie's cheeks and reanimated her stiff muscles.

"Honestly, the stupidest thing," he said, rolling his eyes, tapping the rim of his glass with his index. "The wi-fi on her phone malfunctioned, and I let her borrow mine... and she saw the San Francisco Airport's wi-fi listed in the memorized addresses. And then the Le Royal Monceau, which I have never taken her to, and have never stayed at for work..."

"Fuck." Coralie swiveled to the bar and glared at a few drops of bubbly pooling near her drink.

"When she confronted me, I couldn't lie." He leaned forward, his hand nudging hers to draw her back to him; but Coralie struggled to move. "I advised her I'd reconnected with my long-lost high school crush and love. You. And she remembered your name."

"She what?" That was enough to pry Coralie from her stupor and get her to rotate towards Ryan once more.

His eyebrows were bunched, and for the first time that evening, she noticed they were messy, mismatched, some hairs black, some swirled with auburn. To avoid drowning in his crystalline eyes, she fixed on those hairs, on their coarseness, on how they ruffled with every word he said.

"I'd told her about you once, years ago, and she remembered. So when I said long-lost-love... she said your name. Coralie." He paused, fighting the tiniest of tugs at the corners of his lips. "But I assured her we'd ended it, I had ended it, and that I'd do everything in my power to make up for the hurt I'd caused. 'We swore vows', I told her, 'and I came back to you, and I regret it all'."

Coralie winced; his comments stung, no matter if they were truthful or employed as a ruse to get Gemma to forgive him. And why would she? It was a half-assed apology, just like the one he'd given her that fateful morning in Paris.

A part of her craved to tell him his behavior warranted this; that Gemma calling it quits and ending their marriage made complete sense. Yet the enamored, enraptured side of her wanted to make sure he was okay. They'd been married for a long time, and losing his spouse, despite his errors, couldn't have been easy.

"And then?" Her gaze lowered to his lips, stuck on the liquor covering them in an appealing luster, stuck on his tongue as he slipped it out to wipe them.

"She asked for time to think, which I gave to her. But she took too long, so I wrote her letters, emails, left her voicemails, rewrote my wedding vows to her. In the end, she chose to get a divorce. We're," he cringed and snapped his neck the other way, one fist tightening at his side, "filing paperwork."

Unable to stop herself, Coralie pressed a hand to his upper arm. She hissed at the firm muscles bulging beneath, reacting to her touch; but now wasn't the time.

"When did this happen?"

She expected him to say it had been a few weeks, that he'd taken the trip to New York to get away, to numb his pain, to come to terms with how he'd sabotaged one of the best things of his life.

But not for the last time that night, he surprised her.

"Two weeks after I got home from Paris."

She sensed her buttocks sliding off the stool, but Ryan caught her before she tumbled to the ground.

"Excuse me?"

They hadn't spoken in months, but they could have? Days and days of mourning their friendship, when they could have mended things sooner?

"What the fuck, Ryan? Why didn't you tell me?" She blocked her impulse to punch him and readjusted her seating.

He frowned and one of his legs jimmied. "I was mad. In pain. Too horrified at my actions and how I'd harmed you."

Horrified?

Again, she quashed her need to hurt him. He was in pain? He was mad?

It took her a few moments of silence, of ruminating, of chewing on her mint leaf to focus her thoughts and gain more clarity.

It's not all about me. He lost his wife.

She'd wanted to message him, to demand explanations, to fling insults and hate him and curse his name. But instead, she'd moved on with her life, though her heart still ached for him.

All that time he was undergoing a separation. He was in pain, and had every right to be, no matter his mistakes.

He posted vague articles on Instagram and watched her newsfeed without her knowing, but never said a single word about how their affair had destroyed his life, too. She'd spent days moaning about how he'd trampled all over her heart and made it so she'd never love anyone again—but he was suffering, too. Others would argue that he deserved it, but Coralie couldn't. She loved him.

She hated to admit it, but this fiasco was, in part, her fault. She'd let him in, given him access to her heart, enabled his desires, fed into them. He was weak when aroused, and she didn't stop him.

When she should have refused to see him in London, she'd accepted. When she should have thrown him out of her apartment in San Francisco, she'd removed her clothes and invited him further in. And when she should have declined the business class tickets to Paris and told him they could never sleep together again, she'd packed her suitcase and took off to meet him.

There were two parties in this affair, and he was responsible for his own actions, but she wasn't without blame. Even if he'd started this and never tried to back out, even if he was the main corruptor in the story... she loathed herself for permitting it. She'd heard her subconscious warn her more than once, and she'd ignored it.

Could this have been avoided?

"Ryan, I..." She withdrew her hand from his arm, that she'd squeezed without meaning to. "I'm sorry."

His eyes widened, and he grabbed her shoulders, his breaths speeding up as his face drained of color.

"You are sorry? No, absolutely not. You have nothing to apologize for." He loosened his grip, but his fingers infused her icy skin with warmth. He slouched, his ever-imposing stature fracturing before her eyes. "But I do. I did this. I came to you, I coaxed a confession out of you, I backed you into a corner. We both knew there was a strong connection between us, and instead of acknowledging how dangerous that was, I pushed."

"We were consenting adults, both of us," she mumbled, her mouth becoming dry, her back sore from keeping it so upright. She wanted to break from Ryan's touch and get up, walk around, air out her thoughts; yet he kept her steady. If he let go, she might have crumbled.

"We were, but I had the most to lose, and I didn't care. In the process, I didn't care about what you had to lose, too. Your sanity. Your heart. You've been wounded enough, and I wounded you more." He rubbed the back of his neck as he tilted his chin downwards. "I should have told you sooner, about the separation. And I'm sorry, I am; I was so mad at myself, and angered with you, too, but not because of what we did. Because you exist. Because I can't not care about you, and it irked me so much."

Coralie snorted; in his own twisted way, that was a compliment. Had she not been such an important part of his life, he wouldn't have been tempted.

He finally pulled his other hand from her and gripped the counter's edge as he inhaled, exhaled, then looked up. His eyes sparkled with sorrow, and his entire being seemed to deflate.

"She took the girls and moved to her parents, and I was seething. I wanted to blame you, to think you'd teased me and seduced me, and dragged me into the mistakes that got me caught. But with some reflection, I understood that I'd reached out to you, I'd started this whole ordeal... so I only had myself to blame. It took me forever to react, to comprehend things, to accept why you couldn't, and wouldn't leave my mind, even before Gemma left."

Free from his grasp, Coralie rotated to the bar and flagged the bartender over. "Two shots of Fireball," she said, then pointed at her cup, "and a refill of this, please."

"Shots?" Ryan scoffed, but when she flipped to him, she caught him smirking, so tranquil compared to moments before, when he'd let all his woes spill into her lap.

"Not in celebration," she groaned, "but to figure out how to digest all this. I need a shot, so I figured you did, too."

The two small cups of the cinnamon-amber liquid arrived, and though Ryan had never tasted Fireball, he obliged. They drained the liquor, and as it burned down Coralie's throat, torching the worries lingering there, blocking her airways, she slammed the glass on the counter and let out a moan of satisfaction.

The frigid mojito then soothed the spots the Fireball had scorched.

She craned her neck to Ryan. "So what are you going to do? Travel around the world opening stores to forget the fact that you're getting divorced?"

It was blunt, but her filter had evaporated—three and a half mojitos and a shot of Fireball did that to her.

Ryan, somehow less tipsy than she was despite having gotten a head start while waiting for her to get there, sniffed at the remnants of his shot and grimaced.

"Well, my company... like I said, we're expanding to the US. Starting here. And they offered me a leading position at the headquarters, in this neighborhood, so... I'm moving. Here. To New York."

Coralie fell off the stool.

♥♥♥