Something jumpstarted in Sean’s chest. Prickling awareness crept down his spine.
“Itisyou,” the man said in that same accent.
And what else could he say except “It is?”
In a surprisingly nimble leap, the man darted from the room, leaving Sean to stare at the place he’d left behind. A few other men shot curious glances, but none of them glowed purple.
What the hell?
With hands shaking from the flood of adrenaline, Sean splashed water onto his face. He needed to get out of there. He couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t focus.
Slamming through the swinging door, he stopped short right outside.
Pink Fedora stood with a redhead at the mouth of the hallway, surveying the crowds. Both women wore ill-fitting party dresses with sequins that glittered in the pulsing lights. They leaned into each other as they spoke.
A spike of pain drove straight through Sean’s heart. Sparklers ignited inside his veins. He had the same feeling when looking at the woman that he had when staring over a cliff—like his life was just a step away from changing forever. Or maybe ending completely.
He was frozen. His instincts knew something about her that his mind had clearly forgotten.
Sean took a few steps closer, ignoring the jostles from strangers leaving the restrooms. By the time he was close enough to detect the familiar curve of her nose and cheek when she turned to speak with her redheaded friend, his insides had completely rearranged themselves, making room for her.
Images came in a great flood—her, smiling…dancing…laughing. In an instant, his entire life reset and tethered to this woman in the pink fedora, and she hadn’t even looked at him.
The redhead turned, like he’d called out to her.
Her eyes weren’t purple.
They were gold. Not inhuman gold—more like the color of whiskey in sunlight. Vanilla caramel. Honey-drenched cinnamon.
He couldn’t hold his attention on her long though. It crept right back to Pink Fedora. His heart pounded against its cage, trying desperately to reach her.
Still staring, the redhead grabbed Pink Fedora’s arm in a vice grip. “Isobel!”
Isobel’s piercing gaze slinked over his body to land on his eyes, and the entire world slowed to a crawl, then restarted in double time.
Her face was poetry. Lovely and lyrical.
But it was also unmitigated ruin.
She was like the last breath before a leap from a building. She was the morphine that hid torture behind synthetic pleasure. She was the tremor that warned of a life-ending earthquake.
In the space of one second, she snapped every cell in his body in half and put them back together in a different order, and all he could think wasI know you.
But how did he know her? How had he already memorized every curve of her body?
Her eyes widened, and even in the dark, he could see the color drain from her exquisite face. Her tanned skin went ashen.
“Caden?” she said.
Sean stared at the woman, mouth slack. His pulse rose in his throat, choking him.
No one knew his given name. Only his mother had called him Caden, only when she’d been very serious about something. And somehow this woman knew it.
“Blaire was right,” said the redhead in that familiar accent. His mother’s accent.
Isobel shook off her friend’s arm and stepped closer. “Caden Sidera?”
He shook his head and backed away, right into the chest of someone else.
