He looked so different than I remembered him. It wasalmost hard to reconcile the gangly twenty-two-year-old I’d left behind withthe twenty-seven-year-old man in front of me. There were traces of him in theface, the boyish mischief that he could never hide, the floppy mop of darkhair. The signature beanie. The smile.
But he was so different too. Broad shoulders andmuscled arms. His jeans were stylishly ripped, expensive, nothing like thetorn, well-worn jeans he’d sported as a kid because he hadn’t cared one way orthe other what he looked like. His sweater was expensive too. Cashmere. The GusI knew from before never wore anything but T-shirts that said stupid thingsmeant to be funny.
The only thing familiar about his style was a leathercuff that used to be Atticus’s. It was worn and lined with age. The initials AUwere etched into a gold medallion in the center. A chill slid down my spine.Was that his business partner?
Was it Atticus?
And if so, what in the hell were they doing here?
If they meant to kill me, why had they gone to so muchtrouble to set up a gallery? They were using fake names, obviously, but why gothrough all this effort?
“We haven’t spoken in years,” I quickly told Jesse inanswer to Gus’s comment. “It’s been…Er, how long hasit been, Gus?”
“Five years,” he said plainly. “It’s been almostexactly five years.”
Trying to laugh off the sudden flatness in Gus’svoice, I turned to Jesse without taking my eyes off Gus. He might have oncebeen as close as a brother to me, but I didn’t trust the man. Not even a littlebit. “Five years. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long.”
Jesse bought my reassuring smile. I watched thequestions he’d wanted to ask me click into place inside his head. He turned toGus. “You know Caroline from back east?”
Gus’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, realizing the samething I did. Jesse saw this as an opportunity to find out about my past. And nomatter what I had done to Gus, he did not appreciate an opportunist. Even ifJesse was relatively harmless.
Gus ignored his question, jerking his chin in hello tosomeone behind me. “Look who I ran into?”
My stomach dropped to my toes. Instinct screamed at meto run. This was it. Get out. Get out of this place. Out of this town. Out ofthis freaking country!
Instead of doing any of that, I turned to greet thenewcomer at the same time Jesse did.
If seeing Gus after all this time felt like a kick inthe face, turning around to find Sayer Wesley was worse than that. So muchworse I didn’t have an adequate way to describe it. I felt turned inside out,strung from the ceiling by my toes so all my secrets could shake out of me andland on the floor below. I felt exposed and transparent and broken in half.
Here he was. Alive. And free. And standing in front ofme. And all I wanted to do was disappear.
“This is a surprise,” Sayer greeted smoothly, withoutany speed bumps of shock getting in his way.
My mouth fell open at the same time my heart just gaveup and quit beating. I was dead.
This had to be death.
Gus had stabbed me in the back or shot me in the heador didsomethingirreparable to me tocause death. And I was currently bleeding out all over his art gallery floor.
This could not be real life.
Sayer was here.
Sayer was standing in front of me.
Sayer was out of prison and here in Colorado. Withintouching distance.
My gaze traveled from his mouth up and over his noseto those blazing blue eyes that created an ache inside my soul so deep I couldhave sworn it tore me in two. And that’s where I stayed, trapped by the cold,lifeless nothing staring back at me.
Held hostage by the one man I never expected to seeagain.
By the boy I’d fallen in love with when I was tenyears old. The boyfriend I had let change the entire course of my life.
By the father of my daughter—the daughter he had noidea existed.
Chapter Ten
Ten Years Ago
