It would only lead to disappointment, even heartbreak, and her heart was too precious for me to let that happen.

I don't think Harry cares about being forgiven," Poppy said glumly. "Of course he does. Men love to be forgiven. It makes us feel better about our inability to learn from our mistakes.

I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.

If loneliness was a choice, what was the other option? To settle for second-best and try to be happy with that? And was that fair to the person you settled for?

I had learned this lesson so many times before. It was the great inner truth that didn't require the support of logic. Every time I loved, I lost, and I was diminished. I wondered how much of me would be left after tomorrow.

But the absence of tears wasn't the same as an absence of feeling.

She was a beautiful woman, if not a happy one, and attracting a man was never a problem. Keeping one, however, was a different matter.