The Dare Collection 2018. Taryn Leigh Taylor

didn’t let herself look back.

      She’d flown to Rome, then got herself on the first flight she could find back to Toronto.

      And all the while, her heart had kept hammering at her. That same panic had gnawed at her, not lessening in the least the farther away she got from the man who made her feel...too much. Much too much.

      When she’d landed in gray, listless Toronto, it had been easy to convince herself that everything that had happened in Italy had been a kind of daydream. Something gauzy that couldn’t hold up against the grim approach of a long Canadian winter.

      “I’m glad you finally came to your senses,” her sister said sternly when Maya turned up at her door. “I understand you had a shock, but it’s as if you’ve lost your mind these past few weeks.”

      “Maybe I did lose my mind,” Maya agreed.

      But she didn’t think she meant it in the way Melinda did. The truth was that she’d shut off her mind for a change, or Charlie had, and it was amazing how many things her body had found to teach her.

      She knew better than to say something like that to her distressingly unimaginative and unromantic sister.

      Instead, she set about the practicalities of separating her life from Ethan’s, because every day she remained linked to him felt like torture. And she didn’t really care if that seemed dramatic. She needed him unconnected to her by any means possible.

      The snow was coming down hard and she was hideously jet-lagged, but she thought it was absolutely perfect timing to swing by the condo the morning after she arrived. Very early that morning. She let herself in with her key, letting the front door slam shut behind her. Then she walked into the center of the space she had so carefully curated to reflect the up-and-coming couple she and Ethan had been meant to be.

      Looking around, it felt like she was standing in a hotel room. Or a stranger’s house. A place that had nothing to do with her and never would. She took a deep breath in and realized that it even smelled...off. Not like hers.

      It didn’t take long for the two of them to emerge, looking sleepy and something like scared when they came out of the bedroom to find her waiting there in her own damned kitchen.

      “Are you crazy?” Ethan demanded.

      Maya smiled. “I own half of this condo, Ethan. I’m not crazy. I’m home.”

      She was pleased she’d taken a little extra time with her appearance this morning. She had been trying to erase the signs of her international flight more than she’d been attempting to impress her ex, but no matter why she’d done it, it felt better to be dressed well. She knew she looked sleek and sophisticated, polished to a cool shine, while Lorraine’s hair was a tangled mess and Ethan blinked like an owl from behind his glasses.

      “If you want to yell at us, just yell at us,” Lorraine said.

      Bravely, as if she was prepared to suffer whatever was necessary for her great and abiding love.

      Maya rolled her eyes as she unwrapped her scarf from around her neck. “I don’t want to yell at you. What would be the point? I have no desire whatsoever to play into this forbidden-love, martyr fetish you two think you have going on. Let’s be practical, please. You want to stay in this condo? Make me an offer.”

      Lorraine looked as if she might cry but refrained. Ethan, on the other hand, glared.

      This was the part where she usually backed down, she knew. Where she offered an apology to ease the tension and then started agreeing to things.

      But she wasn’t that Maya anymore. She stared right back at Ethan until he was the one to look away. Then they sat down at the breakfast bar and started negotiating.

      And a few hours later, they’d hammered out a deal.

      When Maya staggered back out into the snow already blanketing her hometown and showing no signs of stopping, she let the cold shock her system, even bundled up against it as she was.

      This is good, she told herself sternly. You need to freeze. You need to put out that fire however you can.

      And over the next few days that was exactly what she did.

      She stayed in her sister’s guest room while she arranged for her things to be moved out of the condo and put into storage. She searched for new apartments online and, when the storm let up, toured them in person. She talked for a long time on the phone with the managing partner at her law firm and found it a whole lot easier to smooth things over than she had expected it to be. Of course she and Ethan could work together, and seamlessly. Of course there would be no “unfortunate romantic blowback” on the firm. Of course everything could carry on as it always had, because that was what the firm wanted most. But then, Maya didn’t want revenge. She didn’t want anything from Ethan. She wanted to move on from him as if he had never happened.

      And in the meantime, she had to figure out how to live in the black-and-white world she’d created for herself when inside she still felt wild and raw with color. Bleeding with it. Dreaming in Technicolor at night and waking up with tears on her cheeks, a weight where her heart should have been and that terrible, aching fire between her legs.

      It didn’t help that it was the darkest part of the year. She tried to lose herself in the Christmas lights that fought off the night, telling herself they were a promise that the sun would return. That she would, too, if she held on long enough.

      Sometimes she even pretended she believed it.

      But she’d returned to Toronto. She had chosen to resume her real life—the one that had nothing to do with staggering Italian vistas or a man who roamed about the cliffs of the Amalfi coast like a lion in blue jeans. That meant she couldn’t hide from her responsibilities, and this time of year was all about duty and putting on a brave face no matter her internal battles.

      She had two parties to attend and no interest in either one of them. There was the law firm’s annual holiday party, where no one had originally expected her to make an appearance because she’d been supposed to be off on her honeymoon. But of course, they all knew she was back by now. They would whisper if she didn’t show up with a calm smile on her face, exuding the sort of competence that was expected of her.

      After all, she was supposed to be a high-powered attorney. That meant she was expected to be unflappable—and what better way to prove it than this?

      As if that wasn’t enough, there was also her parents’ annual Christmas Eve party, where she would also need to parade about in front of so many of her parents’ friends and business associates, all of whom had been sitting in that chapel waiting for a wedding that didn’t happen.

      She would have to somehow spin her failure into triumph, her personal mess into strength—because she was a Martin. That was what was expected.

      But as Maya lay there in the guest room in Melinda’s tastefully stark and minimalist house, accented with important investment art, she honestly didn’t know if she had it in her.

      And she realized it was the first time in all her life that she hadn’t simply assumed that she could do whatever was expected of her, somehow. If she worked hard enough. If she extended herself. If she was too afraid of the consequences to fail.

      It all left a sour taste in her mouth, if she was honest.

      But if she had intended to shirk her duties, she would have stayed in Italy with the only man—the only person—she’d ever met who could make her forget herself entirely.

      And delightfully.

      She had come home to Toronto, so she dressed for her company party with exquisite care even though she would have preferred to stay in bed with the covers over her head like the teenager she’d never been. She chose a sparkling gown that skimmed over her curves but showed almost nothing. Because there was a power in restraint.

      And she needed to assure everyone she knew that despite what had happened, she had all the power.