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Our first one took place in a crowded coffee shop in Midtown Manhattan. I’d picked it out personally for its lack of intimacy. Chances were we wouldn’t even get a table to ourselves.

But either I was unlucky or Banks was the opposite because he was there waiting for me, with a relatively private table in the corner for us. Chester pointed him out right after we walked in, but my eyes had already found him like they couldn’t even help themselves.

He stood when he saw me. He was painfully serious in his suit and tie, dark unruly hair slicked back with a vengeance.

He swallowed a big enough lump in his throat that I watched its progress from across the packed room.

He was wringing his hands. He looked nervous and anxious.

He looked like heartbreak and pain and multiple orgasms.

I wanted nothing more than to say fuck it, grab his arm, and head for the nearest mattress. I wanted him to do absolutely anything he wanted with me. My body. My heart.

I was a pathetic creature. All of our contracts had been voided, but it didn’t matter. It was as though he owned me still.

I shook off the urge with an iron will. Nothing had changed. No matter how much his eyes melted with sincerity, he was still the man with the pregnant mistress on the side, the man who’d broken my heart with minimal effort in a few short months.

It was smart to get out while I still had any pieces of it left, I told myself firmly and for the millionth time.

My feet had been automatically moving me toward him during that whole masochistic thought process, and before I knew it, I was in arms’ reach. He grabbed me by the shoulders drawing me close enough to kiss. I thought he was going to do it, the bold, gorgeous bastard, but he merely gave me two firm cheek kisses before drawing away to stare at me solemnly.

I’d taken a very deep breath when he had me close, drawing in his scent. God, this was going to be rough.

I was about five minutes late, so as we sat down across from each other I asked, “How long have you been waiting for me?”

His eyes were steady on mine, glittering with some bittersweet thing I was unable or perhaps unwilling to name. “A thousand years.”

“Don’t,” I warned him, voice steady, heart anything but. “Don’t try to charm me. I’m only here because you didn’t give me any other choice.”

He put his hands up as though surrendering, his face unsmiling. “Consider all the charm off, gone for good. How are you? I miss you.”

And so it went. I set a timer and left at one hour on the dot.

One week later, we met at a restaurant instead. I’d decided the coffee was a mistake. At least if we ate I’d have something to do with my hands aside from clenching them hard under the table, tamping down the urge to reach for him.

Again, I’d chosen the place. A noisy deli with a line around the block. A mistake again. Standing next to him, even if it was in a jostling crowd, was worse than sitting across from him. Our arms kept brushing. He took my hand once. I snatched it away, flushing.

He was flushing too. “Sorry,” he said, his voice absolutely unapologetic. “Habit.”

“We weren’t together long enough to develop any habits,” I reminded him.

“Speak for yourself,” he returned in a voice that ached.

I was hoping we wouldn’t get our food until our hour was up, but once again all the luck was on his side. We had sandwiches in hand in under fifteen minutes. We walked a few blocks to Bryant Park and found a table. Even with Chester trailing us it was downright romantic.

Banks nodded to my food as I unwrapped it. He’d somehow talked me over from a salad sans dressing to a turkey sandwich. “At least I can assure myself that you got one solid meal this week.”

I rolled my eyes and ate every bite.

Right before we parted he gathered me to him. Modern day men never did things like this. It was something you’d see in an old movie. “I want you,” he breathed into my ear. “Come home with me.”

What a bastard, I told myself. Even so, I let myself feel everything for five agonizing beats before I wrenched myself away.

The internet had predictably had a field day with us. The divorce, the pregnant mistress, the public spottings, the ever persistent rumors of the Bride Catalogue, all of it was just too perfectly messy not to gossip about. Even I understood why. We gave good headlines. Our messes were the most succulent fodder for the masses.

We were still coming up regularly, and if someone managed to nab a picture of us together post-divorce, they no doubt got a good paycheck for it, and it would unquestionably go viral. We became a regular segment on TMZ.

That picture of us hurt more than the others. Him gathering me close. The harsh longing on his face. The anguish on mine. I returned to it again and again. I must’ve spent hours studying it.