“Her heart had been through the shredder too many times to count, and she still had a small bit of hope left in her. She didn't like to admit. She certainly didn't like to think about it. But Jack had been her everything. Even after all the terrible things that had happened between them, she still couldn't look past the tiny piece of hope she'd kept locked away.”

“She looked as though everything that she didn't like had happened to her.”

“Later, while she was sleeping, she woke to the sound of Ray moving through the house. At first she confused. She thought she was still married to Bill. Then, when she had everythbing straight in her head, shame washed over her because she had denied her first husband when she had told Ray that no man had ever been as good to her as he had. But it was true, wasn't it? She lay in bed, listening to him opening cabinets, and she knew it was impossible to say what was between people, and the longer you were with someone, the harder it was to even come close. All she knew was that once she had been with Bill and now she was with Ray. She had come out of her old life and into a new one, and even if she wished for it, which she didn't-not really, she didn't, not even in her heart of hearts-she couldn't go back.~Clare”

“She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.”

“As for her perfume, it was the kind you only noticed after she'd left a room, not while she was still in it. Even then you didn't realize it was perfume, you only wondered what had made you think of her just then.”

“She didn't know how much she'd been hoping that he still loved her, until she felt how much it hurt to realize he didn't.”