Page 4 of The Biker and the Curvy Widow

Something flickers in her eyes—relief, maybe. Or gratitude. Or something else entirely that I don't have the right to name.

"Thank you." She turns to go, then pauses. "Pope?"

"Yeah?"

“I don't blame you for staying away, even if I’m conflicted about it. I know this is hard for you too. Losing him." Her voice catches. "I just wish... I wish it hadn't been so hard alone."

She walks back toward the kitchen before I can respond. Before I can tell her that she was never supposed to be alone. That I'm the biggest coward who ever lived for letting her drown while I stood on the shore and watched.

I leave without ordering. Without saying goodbye. The night air hits me like ice, and I stand on the sidewalk, staring at the restaurant that Marco built, the restaurant that's killing his widow, the restaurant I should have been helping hold together for two goddamn years.

Two years of staying away to protect us both. And now she's leaving anyway.

I kept my distance thinking it was the right thing—and all I did was let her drown alone.

I don't go home. Can't face the silence, the emptiness, the ghosts that live in every corner of my house. Instead, I get on my bike and ride until the sun comes up, until my hands are numb and my throat is raw from the cold.

But I can't outrun the truth.

She's leaving. And I never even let myself have her.

CHAPTER 2

MARA

I've been in love with my dead husband's best friend for longer than I was married. If that doesn't make me a terrible person, I don't know what does.

The morning prep goes the same way it always does—chopping onions, simmering marinara, pretending that muscle memory is the same as actually being present. My hands know what to do even when my brain checks out, which is good, because my brain checked out somewhere around 3 AM when I finally gave up on sleep.

Pope came to the restaurant last night.

Pope. After two years of avoiding me like I carried some kind of plague, he just... showed up. Walked through my door like it was nothing. Like he hadn't left me to grieve alone. Like he hadn't been a ghost at my husband's funeral, unable to even meet my eyes when they lowered Marco into the ground.

I dice the garlic too hard, the knife thudding against the cutting board with more force than necessary. Gina glances over from where she's folding napkins, but she's smart enough not to comment.

Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days of waking up alone in a bed that still smells faintly like Marco's cologne because I can't bring myself to wash the pillowcases. Seven hundred and thirty days of running this restaurant into the ground because I don't know how to do anything else. Seven hundred and thirty days of waiting for someone—anyone—to show up and tell me it's okay to stop pretending I have this under control.

And when someone finally does, it's him.

The one person I needed most. The one person I couldn't have.

I scrape the garlic into the pan and watch it sizzle, the sharp scent filling the kitchen. My eyes sting, but that's the onions. It's always the onions.

The worst part isn't that Pope stayed away. The worst part is that underneath all the anger, all the hurt, all the abandonment—I was relieved to see him. My heart actually leaped when I looked across the street and saw him sitting on that bike like some kind of dark angel, watching me with those eyes that see too much.

I'm a widow. I should be mourning my husband.

Instead, I'm thinking about the way Pope said my name. Like it cost him something. Like it meant something.

God, I'm a terrible person.

The memory surfaces before I can stop it—the one I've buried so deep I almost convinced myself it never happened.

Three years ago. A party at the clubhouse, back when Marco was still alive and I was still pretending my marriage was everything I'd dreamed it would be. The room was packed, loud with music and laughter and the rumble of men who'd seen too much trying to forget for one night.

Marco had wandered off to talk to Diesel about something—club business, probably, the kind of thing he never shared with me. I was standing alone near the bar, nursing a drink I didn't want, feeling like an outsider in my own husband's world.

Then Pope appeared beside me.