Her.
Almost a year of searching. Of wondering if he’d imagined her, if that night had been some fever dream his empty life had conjured. He’d gone back to the club three times. Hired someone to check guest lists. Scrolled through thousands of social media photos looking for her face. But there was nothing. It was as if she’d been a goddess come down to earth to mix with mortals for one night.
And here she was. In a tiny mountain town in North Carolina, of all places. Walking toward him on a misty late September morning like fate had finally decided to stop playing games.
His heart slammed against his ribs. He wanted to laugh. Wanted to run toward her and sweep her into his arms and demand to know her name—finally, finally know her name.
She looked up.
Her step faltered. A tiny hitch, a fraction of a second where her feet forgot what they were doing. Her blue eyes went wide, lips parting on a breath that fogged in the cold air.
“Hi.” The word came out rough, his voice betraying him. “It’s you.”
She’d stopped walking completely now. Her face had gone pale, which wasn’t the reaction he’d imagined during all those months of searching. He’d pictured surprise, yes. Maybe joy. Maybe the same electric recognition that was currently short-circuiting his brain. That she would run to him as well.
Not fear.
“I looked for you,” he said, taking a step closer. Leaves crunched under his feet on the path. “After that night. I went back to the club three times. I hired someone to—” He stopped, suddenly aware of how that sounded. “I just wanted to find you. To know your name.”
“Marco.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You know who I am?”
“I found out. Four months later.” She swallowed hard. “I was in the grocery store. I saw your face in a magazine.”
He processed that. She’d known who he was—for over four months. And she’d never reached out. Never tried to contact him. He pushed the hurt aside. There would be time for that conversation later. Right now, all that mattered was that she was here, in the flesh, standing ten feet away from him.
“I don’t even know your name,” he said. “Almost a year, and I still don’t know your name.”
Her hands tightened on something in front of her—he finally looked down at a handle of some kind. A stroller, he realized belatedly. She was pushing a stroller.
“Christina,” she said so quietly he almost missed it. “My name is Christina.”
Christina. He let it settle into his mind, finally having a word for the woman who’d haunted him. Christina. It suited her.
“Christina.” He smiled, and some of the tension in his chest eased. “I’ve been calling you ‘the girl from Miami’ in my head. Christina is better.”
She didn’t smile back.
His gaze dropped to the stroller, and for the first time he actually registered what she was doing out here at dawn. Watching someone’s baby, probably. A niece or nephew, a friend’s child. She was dressed as if she’d rolled out of bed—jeans, an oversized flannel shirt, no makeup. Not exactly date attire. More like someone doing a favor for a tired parent.
“Nanny duty?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light. Trying to bridge the strange distance that had opened between them.
Her face went even paler.
“I—no.” Her voice cracked. “She’s mine.”
Mine. The word landed strangely. Marco’s eyes dropped to her left hand, still gripping the stroller handle. No ring. No tan line where a ring might have been.
“Yours,” he repeated. “You have a baby.”
She nodded, a jerky motion.
Something cold crept into his chest. She’d been single that night in Miami—at least, that’s what he’d assumed. What they’d both assumed about each other, in that unspoken agreement to ask no questions. But eleven months was a long time. Long enough to meet someone else, fall in love, start a family.
Long enough to forget one night with a stranger at a club.
“Congratulations.” The word came out flat. He tried again. “I mean—that’s wonderful. How old?”
