Chapter 8

Dominic took me back to his place.

He handed me a folder the moment we stepped inside. Inside it was a set of documents — the evidence he'd pulled together the day I'd been kidnapped, while he'd been stationed somewhere outside that burning warehouse.

He suspected the kidnapping itself had been Celeste's work, start to finish.

She'd been careful. She'd covered her tracks. Still — Dominic had spent considerable resources getting these threads out.

He said all of this with his long legs crossed and his body angled back into an armchair, the lamplight catching the side of his jaw. He looked completely at ease.

"Hand this to the police," he said, "and Celeste Pemberton is going to spend a long time behind bars."

I'd been thinking the same thing on the drive over. I'd been planning to start my own investigation. My prime suspect had always been her.

He'd beaten me to it.

Staring at the folder, something odd rose up in me. A ridiculous thought I couldn't quite shake.

I tested the water.

"Dominic — I'm sorry. For the way I spoke to you before. That time."

"It's fine," he said, with his usual unruffled calm.

So.

Just like that, I knew.

In my first life, Dominic Blackwood had been the youngest City Commissioner in Ravenport's history. He'd taken office at forty. I'd attended the ceremony. I'd sent a substantial gift.

We had not been young anymore, by then.

I apologized again — this time for what I'd said at that matchmaking dinner years back. The deaf husband comment. I'd been carrying that guilt for years. He'd never married in my first life, and I'd always wondered if I was part of the reason.

The thing was: the Ravenport matchmaking dinner had happened after Julian and I were already married, in my first life.

Meaning: the Dominic sitting in front of me in this life had no reason to know what I was apologizing for.

Which meant he had to have come back too.

The way he didn't flinch. The way he'd been protecting me all over again. The way he'd simply stepped into the role a total stranger should never have stepped into.

"Miss Harrington — "

He was terrified of my crying, apparently. The iron-jawed Commissioner Blackwood of my first life — the one who never moved a muscle no matter what was falling apart around him — was now awkwardly trying to wipe the tears off my cheeks with his knuckles.

"Don't. Don't cry. Please."

I buried my face into his shoulder. My voice came out muffled.

"Don't call me Miss Harrington."

I felt him swallow.

It took him a long time to speak. When he did, there was something warm under his carefulness — something resigned, in a good way. Something almost steady.

"All right," he said softly. "Don't cry, Vera."

I remembered a rainy afternoon in Ravenport. Years ago. Years and years.

It had been the two of us, caught under the stone arches of St. Eldridge Cathedral, waiting for a storm to pass. He'd just taken office. I'd been about to fly overseas with Julian, for what would turn out to be the last trip I ever took.

It had been our last meeting.

He'd smelled faintly of sandalwood cologne. The cathedral had been enormous and quiet around us.

When the rain stopped, we'd wished each other well. He'd gone south. I'd gone north.

That had been our entire life.

I lifted my face, and before I could lose my nerve, I leaned up toward his ear.

"Being my boyfriend doesn't have conditions, Dominic. Only that I want you."

I pressed a kiss to his earlobe.

He stopped breathing.

I thought he might actually short-circuit. His whole body had gone still, like someone had dropped a shock of cold water on him.

Earlier, on the way here, his assistant had told me what he'd said in the other room — the words I hadn't caught because of Tess.

It wasn't hard to guess, after that.

Dominic Blackwood had been in love with me for a long time.

He'd loved me quietly, without letting me see. Even when I finally caught on, later, I hadn't been able to do anything about it. I'd been too deep into my own obsession. Too married. Too ruined.

I'd carried the obsession like a disease. I couldn't let it go.

I was letting it go now.

I had someone, in this life, I couldn't afford to fail.