Daniel watched Marian and Katherine walk away, their silhouettes weaving into the late-afternoon mall crowd. He couldn’t stop the small, quiet smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Marian may not have said much, may have kept her walls up, may have acted as though his presence merely startled her—but he saw it. The faint flush in her cheeks. The way she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. The tremor in her voice when she told him she would look for a hotel.
He still had an effect on her.
After years of regret gnawing at his ribs, that tiny reaction was enough to ignite something fierce and hopeful inside him. He just needed time—time to show her he wasn’t the same man who broke everything. Time to show her that he still loved her as fiercely as he did back then. This—this strange, unexpect
