Petite Madeleine: Drew's Story (Meadows Shore Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

Neither looked up until the waiter approached the table.
    “Good evening, and welcome to Uma . May I get you something to drink while you’re deciding on dinner? An aperitif, perhaps? You’ll find a complete list of offerings at the beginning of the beverage menu.”
    “I’ll just have seltzer with an orange slice, please,” she said.
    “A beer for me. What do you have on tap?”
    “I’d recommend the Heavy Seas. It’s a local brew, very popular.”
    “Perfect, thanks.”
    “I’ll give you a little more time with the menu,” the waiter said before walking away.
    “You don’t drink anymore, or are you keeping your wits about you? I know how irresistible I am.”
    “You are adorable,” she said, unfolding the napkin onto her lap. “I drink, but rarely, maybe a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve, and another on my birthday. Although I don’t have any hard and fast rules about it.”
    “Adorable, but not irresistible, huh?”
    She shook her head, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “Still drinking?”
    “I only drink to celebrate now, never to forget.” He fingered her charm bracelet. Aphrodite was almost indistinguishable from the other trinkets dangling from the gold links around her wrist. It pained him to see her there.
    He’d given Cassie the charm for her birthday, the first year they were together. He thought she would put it on her bracelet, but instead, she’d taken a thin gold chain from a wooden box on her dresser and placed the goddess of love on it. “Not on my wrist, I want her near my heart.” And it had hung from the delicate chain, nestled between her breasts, always. When they showered, made love, or trudged through the snow on a blustery day, it had always rested near her heart. She never took it off.
    “It’s part of my life story,” she said while his thumb caressed the gold charm.
    He should be grateful she hadn’t just tossed it in the trash or had it melted down for scrap. “I tried to find you after I finally got my act together. But you’d changed your number and your email address. Was that to avoid me?”
    “I was starting a job, and it came with a new phone and e-mail address.” Her shoulders slumped, as if weighed down by the past. “I thought if I changed all my contact information, you wouldn’t know how to reach me, and I could stop thinking you’d get in touch. I changed them, not only because of you—but it was a bonus.”
    He winced. And although the dagger she’d thrown carried no malice, the gash was deep and painful.
    “Cassie, I’m so sorry about the way it ended between us. So sorry it took me such a long time to get in touch with you. It took me much longer to pull myself together than I’d expected. But I tried to reach you as soon as I had my feet on the ground again. I called Reece, went by your parents’ apartment, sent letters.”
    “I know,” she whispered.
    “It was excruciating. I couldn’t accept that you wouldn’t see me. That you didn’t want to see me … And then you got engaged.”
    “You told me not to wait for you. I figured it was your way of moving on.”
    He’d sent her the note about a month after he left Brown. Don’t wait for me. I’ll find you when my head’s on straight , he’d written. But he’d been really screwed up, and it had taken the better part of a year before he could face her again.
    He studied her from across the table. Something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something else she wasn’t saying.
    “You had a lot to deal with,” she said softly.
    “And I dealt with it like an immature little boy.”
    “Have they written the definitive book on how to handle the sudden death of one’s parents? I haven’t heard about it.”
    “Well I certainly could write the book on what not to do. A tome.”
    “You lived through a catastrophe no one should have to experience in their lifetime, and coped in the best way a twenty-one-year-old kid could