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Ashford Harbor. Near the hospital. A small bookstore.

Weekends were busy. She stayed at the shop until past midnight.

The pace here was easy. Enough sun, mild weather, an occasional rain that didn't dry the air out.

She'd been here a year.

She'd gone from "I don't know if I fit here" to "I love this." Her injuries had healed. A handful of scars was all that was left.

Nathaniel had given her enough to open the store. Quiet work, her own hours, space to visit her mother, space to see Everett.

Julian had fully recovered. He'd passed the bar again and joined Calloway Chambers, one of the town's better firms.

Her mother still hadn't woken. But otherwise — life was real.

She was closing up late when her phone rang.

"Sera, come to the hospital now. There's been a change with your mother."

Everett.

Her mother's numbers were trending. This could be the first real sign she was waking up.

The fog burned off her brain instantly. Her eyes stung. She grabbed a cab.

She jumped out at the main entrance, and before she could take a step, someone grabbed her arm hard from behind.

She lost her balance and fell into a man's chest.

"Sera —"

The voice was unmistakable. She was crushed against him before she could process anything.

"It's you — I found you — you're alive —"

His voice was cracking, relief and grief at once.

"I thought you were dead — God, I was so —"

He kept looking at her face like he needed to keep confirming it was real.

His eyes welled up. Tears hit her cheek. Ran down onto her collar.

"This year has been every kind of hell. I wanted to come with you — I wanted to die with you — but I knew you hated me, and I had to pay for what I'd done."

"Three hundred days. I never slept through a night. I was apologizing the entire time. Sera, if you were alive, how could you not look for me? How could you not come back? How could you be that cruel to me —"

Damien.

He had found her.

She hadn't planned for this. Her brain took a full thirty seconds to catch up.

So Nathaniel had broken his promise.

She couldn't breathe. She pulled back and, with everything she had, shoved him off.

"Let go."

Her face said everything. Flat cold.

There was no joy in seeing him again. Just irritation at being interrupted.

Her mother was what mattered right now. She didn't have the bandwidth.

She turned. He caught her again and pressed her into him.

"Sera — don't — please don't — I've missed you so much — six months ago I found out you were alive and I've been counting down to this moment — I was wrong, I'm apologizing, it was all my fault —"

"Vivienne has paid for it. The whole country knows who she really is. She's going to spend the rest of her life in a cell. And I've paid too — I was stabbed, I spent six months putting myself back together. For the sake of what we had — for the fact that I know now — please. Forgive me."

He had been born into a world where everyone else scraped for him. He'd never had to beg.

Right now his eyes were pure pleading, and there was no pride in his voice at all.

Like everything — pride, status, dignity — was trash next to her.

It made her skin crawl.

"Damien. Stop talking."

"I'm going to say this once. Let. Go."

The sarcasm in her voice cut.

He faltered. One second of hesitation. She was out of his arms.

She looked at him. There was nothing behind her eyes.

"Forgive you? Do you think you have the standing to use that word?"

"Stop saying these ridiculous things to me. We are nothing. Stop coming near me."

She turned and ran for the hospital doors.

He stood there. His face had gone dead white.

He hadn't let himself believe she would mean it.