Face-Off by Nancy Warren Page A

both knew each other’s weaknesses too well—not only were they not getting married, they weren’t even talking.
    He held out, stubborn and angry, for five days.
    The day that Sam was getting on a plane to Toronto was marked with a big black ring on the family calendar. His mother asked about having Sam and her family over for a goodbye dinner and he came up with some excuse.
    Each day he waited for the phone to ring. For Sam to show up and tell him she’d overreacted. She was sorry.
    And each day ended with him going to bed in howling frustration.
    At last it arrived. The day with the big black ring around it.
    She was leaving.
    In a panic, he realized that she wasn’t going to come crawling back. If he wanted her, he had to go and do the groveling, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong.
    Truth was he didn’t even care, he couldn’t let her go without saying goodbye, without trying to make things right. In a panic he’d rushed to her house, but he was too late. They’d already left for the airport.
    He’d wanted to write, and didn’t have a clue what to say. Waited for her to get hold of him, and his in-box remained Sam-less.
    Now here he was, back in her bed, and as the old familiar feelings rushed through him his smile faded. He wondered how he could have been so stupid.
    He felt like a drug addict who manages to stay clean and sober for a decade and then one day thinks he’s strong enough for one drink. One toke. One hit.
    And finds himself as deeply addicted as ever. No twenty-eight-day program would ever help him now.
    A decade of sobriety and he was starting down a slippery downward path. If he didn’t act fast, he’d be lost forever.
    The sleeping woman beside him stirred. She was even more gorgeous than she’d been at twenty-two if that was possible. Her mouth was a little firmer and there was a tiny fan of crows’ feet around her eyes that were new to him, but she had grown into herself. Instead of bravado, she now had true confidence. Her body had filled out nicely and in all the right places. She looked, smelled, tasted fantastic…familiar.
    Greg raised a hand to smooth her hair back off her face and let it drop, not wanting to wake her. She was so peaceful sleeping. Not arguing or stating her case or in some way trying to piss him off. He realized how much he’d missed her.
    Not just the sex, which had never been as good.
    He’d wondered over the years if his memory might be faulty because no woman, and there’d been a few, had ever felt as right in his bed as Sam. Maybe he’d never experienced the highs he and Sam had reached together because they were each other’s first, and he’d built that time up in his memory to some lofty height that reality could never achieve.
    Making love with her again had been—if possible—better than he remembered. They both had a little more maturity and experience but it was something beyond that.Something elemental with them, as though they knew each other’s bodies and needs as well as they knew their own. Instinctively. It was weird. But in a good way.
    He lay on his side, watching her sleep. It wasn’t just the sex, there was some magical quality between them that had always been there. That he’d never believed he’d find again.
    What was it? And why with this woman and only this one?
    A pain pierced his chest so quickly he thought for a second he was having a heart attack.
    And in a way he supposed he was. Because the truth, when it hit him, was inescapable.
    He was still in love with this woman. Had loved her since before he understood what love was, had believed in them enough to propose marriage when she headed off for university.
    He’d so carefully avoided her for years and his plan had been working. He got on with his life, she got on with hers and if they happened to bump into each other—between high-school weddings and the fact that