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“Anything. Where you came from. Why you’re here. What you wanted before all of this.”

I picked up my wine and put it down. I hadn’t been asked anything like this in a long time, and apparently I wasn’t prepared for it.

“I’m from a town in the Central Valley you’ve never heard of. My father worked in agricultural equipment. My mother was a teacher. They fought a lot. I have a sister, Lauren. She got out at eighteen. She lives in Charlotte now and we don’t talk enough and she’s the best person I know.”

He nodded, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I came up here for a guy, originally. Six years ago. The guy didn’t last, but the coast did. There was something about being able to walk to the water that fixed a broken part of me, so I stayed. I worked at a bookstore in Old Town for two years, then a gallery. Then a wine bar like this one. Then Vivienne hired me because I had organized an event she came to, and she said I had ‘the gift of anticipating a woman’s needs.’”

“And before that. Before the gallery and the bookstore. What did you want?”

I looked at the candle in its cloudy aura for a moment. “I wanted to be an interior designer. I went to school for it for two years and ran out of money. I never went back. I tell myself I’m too tired now, but the truth is I think I stopped believing the version of me who would do it was still in there.”

“She’s still in there.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually. I’ve been looking at her for two hours.”

I almost cried at that. I was getting tired of almost crying. I drank some wine instead, to give my face something else to do.

He picked up his wine and didn’t push further. Somehow knowing when to stop was the most attentive thing anyone had done for me in a very long time.

Our server arrived to clear our plates. Damian asked for the check.

“I’m supposed to give you something. The bartender will be watching, so act surprised. Take the box, look at it, smile, but don’t touch what’s inside it. We need to clear it.” He handed me a small velvet box.

“I’m supposed to tell you that it’s to celebrate your first retreat.”

I opened it timidly, like it was the home of a tiny venomous snake.

Inside there was a delicate opal pendant, set in a small silver star on a thin chain.

“It’s pretty,” I murmured.

“It has a tragic past.”

I looked at him, and suddenly I knew. “Bram?”

“It was marked, just like you, then polished clean. But the residue and the intent are still there.”

I snapped the box closed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bartender glance in our direction then pick up his phone. He typed, looked up, typed again.

“Let’s go,” Damian said. “We need to go to the beach.”

Chapter Sixteen

Moonstone Beach didn’t feel like land. It felt like the ocean’s hallway, narrow and cold, pressed between the surf and the dark looming cliffs. The air was a gray soup of salt and cypress.

We walked across the sand, the chalcedony like pale eyes at our feet, gleaming in the glare of our phones. We held our towels in our hands.

The waves stalked the shoreline, curling under long ropes of clotting fog. We followed the wet sand until we reached a stretch walled in by tall rock. Damian looked once over his shoulder.

“What?” I said, my voice faint over the crash of the surf.

“Just checking for headlights. I want to make sure we’re truly alone.”