They say that love finds you when you least expect it. In their case, love found them, trampled on them, abandoned them, and reunited them. All when they least expected it.

July 22nd, 1998

11:48 a.m.

Karen turned sharply on her heel, away from Grace standing at her desk, away from his face, away from the heat she felt rising in her own cheeks. It was only her third day of working here, in this small, cluttered designer's office in SoHo. It was only the third day and already she was looking for an escape.

Not that working for Grace was bad. In fact, she quite liked it, whether it appeared that way or not. Grace Adler was nice enough, although a bit boring, but Karen could tell she had a big heart. And that she was brave; I mean, it had to take guts to hire a woman like Karen to be your assistant. Her work was easy - and actually, since she didn't really know how to do anything, there wasn't much "work" at all. She liked to joke about the fact that her job at Grace Adler Designs was only a way of getting away from her husband, Stan, and his step kids, but the truth was, there weren't many places Karen could go to be alone.

Sometimes, she just needed to get away from it all. From Stan's loveless hands, from the way Olivia looked at her in judgment, from Rosario's constant reminders that she was less than perfect. But most of all, she needed to get away from herself. In Grace's office, she didn't have to put on airs or pretend to be someone she wasn't. As soon as she closed that frosted glass door behind her and set her purse next to the chair behind the desk littered with fingernail polish and martini glasses, she could release all of the decisions she had ever made and any regret she had ever felt.

Until today.

Today this man was standing in front of her, pretending that he didn't know her name, or the feel of her goose bumps under his touch, or the sound she made when she reached climax. Today, a splinter of her past that had long been untouched would be drudged up. Today she and Grace were not alone in the office, and today she was back to pretending.

"Karen, this is my best friend, Will Truman," Grace had told her, that stupid smile plastered across her face. As soon as they locked eyes, they knew. Actually, as soon as Will had walked in the room, Karen had known it was him. Everything about him was unmistakable - and although they had shared only a short time together, Karen could never forget his eyes. They were deep and intense, but all at once gentle and comforting as well. The image of those eyes hovering above her in a dark and cool room, illuminated by their body heat in a fit of passion, was burned into her memory.

Grace had spoken often of Will, but before their meeting, Karen would never have guessed that Grace's Will was the same as her Will. Besides, Grace told her he was gay, and there was no way Karen's Will could be gay. Or at least that's what she had thought. So what was she to him? An experiment? A slip up?

"I thought gay guys couldn't get turned on by women," she would whisper bitterly to him later in the hall.

"I don't know what you're talking about." His words came in a hiss, and she knew the conversation was over. He had turned the page, and so had she. Apparently he was much more reluctant to bring up their past than she was, but then again, he hadn't been as deeply affected.

After their first meeting in a bar in '93, Karen couldn't get Will out of her mind. It had been a chance encounter, but for her, it was love at first sight. Karen St. Croix wasn't used to being knocked off balance by a man, but this one left her completely askew. And when they made love, shockwaves went through her body like she had never felt before. Over the course of just a few short weeks, her heart was completely broken down by this mysterious man.

Will never wanted to meet in the daylight, and at first, it upset Karen. She wasn't completely opposed to the idea of a secret affair, hidden under cover of darkness, for Stanley Walker was always lurking in the back of her mind. They weren't together at the time, but she knew that if she wanted to keep any chance of getting back together with him, she would have to be careful with Will. And careful they were; they didn't exchange phone numbers or addresses; she didn't even know his last name. They met at 10 p.m. every night at the Grand Lafayette hotel, and left just before 1 a.m. They never spoke of an expiration date for this affair; they would know it was over when one of them stopped showing up.

And actually, it was Karen that had ended it. She and Will had been carrying on right up until the day that Stanley showed up at her door, begging for her to come back to him and asking for her hand in marriage. That's when she knew she had to end it with Will. In her dreams, it was him that had proposed to her instead of Stanley. But her conscious mind knew that what she had with Will couldn't last forever, and sooner or later, she would no longer know the feel of his lips on her neck. Stanley's offer was too good to pass up, and so, she accepted. That was the first night in three months that she didn't show up to the Grand Lafayette.

Karen was barely listening to the words being exchanged six feet away from her. Grace and Will chattered on easily and effortlessly, and Karen wondered how he could do it. He was proving to be a better actor than she, for in his presence her hands shook harder with every breath she took. But Will remained perfectly calm as the woman he had bedded time and again all those years ago sat in front of him. He acted as though she didn't even exist. And maybe to him, she didn't. She wouldn't have blamed him. She couldn't have.

The worst part, though - the very worst - was the gnawing sensation in her stomach. It was eating at her stomach lining, pecking at her intestines. It was merciless and persistent, and she knew exactly what it was: the secret. The one secret that she had told to only a handful of people, and the one that she had repressed so far into the depths of her psyche that it took her a minute to register why she was having such an adverse reaction to Will Truman and his re-introduction into her life.

And she knew that at some point, she would have to tell him.