Marissa felt tears pooling beneath her closed lids as she heard the word “I love you. I love you. I love you” repeated itself in her mind, remembering that she had finally realized that what she felt for Bernard was not just any form of likeness. It had been nothing but the feeling she had thought would be elusive to her when it came to any man. She had come to her full realization the day after her grandmother’s celebration, when she had been lying awake in bed trying to analyze her feelings about the divorce and Bernard.

Marissa had come to the shocking realization that, despite her fears, she...