It can take years to recover from the loss of it. I know that all too well. When I fell for Gavin Vaughn, I never expected to watch him marry someone else. The experience changed me, shaped the woman I became.

Now he's divorced and wanting to reconnect after twenty years. As if that same shattered heart doesn't still beat inside me.

He's as charming as he ever was, better looking, too. And a star player for the NHL team in the city I just relocated to.

I'm not that same girl who loved him and watched him leave. I'm a woman who built her own empire from scraps. I'm also the woman who will be mentoring his daughter to do the same.

I'm the woman who can still be brought to her knees by the only man she ever cared about. But it's going to take more than sly smiles and bouquets of flowers to convince me he's worth my time. Or my heart.