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She had Brian in her head again, and she hated it He didn’t deserve to take up any space inside her How had she ever believed otherwise?

“And is this why you have traveled so long and so far?” Khaled asked after a ive yourself this time?”

“I haven’t been a teenage girl in quite a while” It was alrooman, and Cleo refused to analyze why on earth she should want that She shifted in her seat, trying to ease that clenched, knotted thing inside her “This was more to prove that I could”

“Why was that soined, wouldn’t have to prove himself Ever

No one would cheat on this man No one would dare

“I had a decent job in a nice office doing huood routine I was doing everything I was supposed to do,” she said, and it sounded ed “But in the end, I wanted more”

“More?” he asked

More than aited for her in the wake of a broken engageazes More than the weak man she had nearly tied herself to, so stupidly More than Brian

“It sounds silly,” she said

There was no way that she could tell hiht into a travel agency the nextThere was no way she could admit how blind and foolish she’d been Not to this h she was neither of those things

She never wanted to look at a ht kill her

Khaled s like pity on his hard face “I cannot tell if it does or does not, if you do not say it”

“My entire life was laid out in front of me” Brian hadn’t wanted to break up, after all That had been all Cleo’s doing And Brian hadn’t been the only one who’d thought her reaction to what he’d deemed his “minor indiscretion” was more than a little overdramatic Life isn’t a fairy tale, her sister Marnie had said with a sniff You ht as well learn that now Cleo forced a smile “It’s a very nice life I could probably have been content with it Lots of people are And I have deep roots in the place I ca”

“Yet you were not happy” He studied her for a e to look away fros she didn’t want his instead of roots”