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“What’s with the photos?” I asked.

He hesitated, eyeing them from across the room, then joined me by them.

“The moments when I wasn’t ten minutes late,” he said, flatly.

I faced him. “What?”

“Places I rescued someone. I know it doesn’t count. Saving one life doesn’t change what I did to another. Life isn’t currency. But I’ll never stop trying. I’ll probably never stop taking those photos. It’s an argument with myself that I’ll never win.”

I stared at the photos. They were beautiful, each one taken when the light was just right, the angles casting elegant shadows over rock and sand and canopy. He’d been racing the same clock for a year, trying to outrun one night, over and over, in the rain, in the fog, at two in the morning, for strangers, then returning to document it.

I turned to speak, but he’d disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the shower running.

When he came out, he looked exactly like the kind of weapon a sensible woman would not bring to a pool party. Navy linen shirt that clung at the shoulders in a way that made women flutter, sleeves rolled to the forearms, damp hair pushed back from his face, jaw shadowed just enough to suggest he’d suffered beautifully and recently.

“Jesus,” I said. “I see you understood the assignment.”

We left moments later, passing the bay where working boats bobbed against their ropes and the gulls circled a trash can.

When we hit the highway and the fog receded, giving way to sun-dappled redwoods, Damian called Kai and relayed my instructions. “And dress like you’re on a date with Amanda,” he added.

“Who’s Amanda?”

His fingers flexed on the wheel.

“You don’t want to know.”

I stopped breathing for a second. The last time he’d told me that, it had been when I’d asked about Bram.

He noticed. His hand found mine. “She survived. She didn’t sign up. I wouldn’t have said her name out loud if she hadn’t. Not like that.”

“Is that some kind of…rule? Between the two of you?”

He glanced to his left, to where the redwoods towered and encroached on the road. “We don’t talk about the ones who didn’t make it. Not if we can avoid it.”

We drove in silence for a while, the thought hanging stubbornly between us. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that fresh horror. I had my own devious plan to hash out with him. The redwoods gave way to vineyards, glowing green and gold in manicured rows.

“We need to go over our strategy,” I said. The word sounded dirty in my mouth.

Damian glanced over once, then back at the road. “Tell me about each one of them,” he said with a calm that unnerved me.

I described Blythe first, the sacred feminine embodiment coach. The enormous Sonoma house. The gin and St-Germain in teacups. The blog posts about dancing her divorce out of her hips.

“And here’s the thing about Blythe,” I said, because I’d stood next to her at three of Vivienne’s parties and watched it happen. “Everyone’s been telling her she’s ridiculous for years. That she’s too much. Too theatrical. Too embarrassing.” I looked at him. “So if you flatter her, she’ll hear pity.”

Damian glanced over at me, and something moved behind his eyes that I couldn’t name.

“Then I won’t flatter her,” he said. “I’ll ask her opinion.”

“About what?”

“I’ll start small. Wine, the flowers, Vivienne’s tablescape, if I can survive saying that word. I’ll let her correct me. I’ll thank her for it. Later, I’ll tell her she has better judgment than anyone else at the party.”

My stomach tightened.

“That’s horrifying.”

“I know.”