Page 15 of Stolen Vows

GRAHAM

Five years ago

For a manwho doesn’t believe in body-snatching, the last twenty minutes have done a hell of a job convincing me otherwise.

I don’t remember making the decision to buy her coffee.

I don’t remember the moment I stopped seeing her as a face from the past and started thinking in terms of possession.

But here I am, standing in the middle of the coffee shop downtown, my fingers flexing restlessly around my cup, my pulse beating at an unfamiliar rhythm. Like my body hasn’t quite caught up with the fact that she was here. And now she’s gone again.

Gone.

Fuck me, that word chafes.

I exhale sharply, rolling my shoulders back, trying to shake the feeling that I just let something slip through my fingers that I wasn’t supposed to.

It’s ridiculous. It’s been five years.

A lot can happen in five years—a lothashappened.

I built Aegis Network from the ground up, turning a two-client operation into one of the most in-demand cybersecurity firms in the country.

Beau and I are poised to start a new venture—a racing circuit at the abandoned Avalon Falls Speedway. Nothing official yet, but the pieces are lining up.

I renovated my three-story maisonette into a fortress and convinced my brother to update the shared space. We bought a block of maisonettes—one for me, one for Beau, and one in the middle that we share.

I’ve spent more nights than I can count staring at three massive monitors, writing security patches, tracking breaches, following digital trails that most people wouldn’t even notice. I’ve handled high-profile clients, shut down hacking rings, buried secrets for people powerful enough to make those problems disappear entirely.

I’ve done everything I set out to do.

Over and over again.

But the one thing I haven’t done?

I haven’t forgotten about her.

I should have. That’s the logical thing. Thenormalthing.

But nothing about this has ever felt normal. Instead, I’ve spent every passing glance, every unfamiliar blonde in a crowd, every stray thought in a quiet moment looking for someone I never thought I’d see again.

And now? Now I have more information.

Something pulses beneath my skin, hot and electric, a high I haven’t felt in a long time.

The chase.

It thrums through me, steady and insistent, like something primal, something intrinsic, something woven into my very DNA. For a second, my thoughts stutter—logic sparring with instinct, hesitation colliding with inevitability. I debate what to do for all of two seconds.

Fuck it. Normal is overrated anyway.

I tighten my grip on my coffee and stalk toward the door, my pulse still drumming at an unfamiliar tempo.

“Graham, is that you?” The voice is warm, familiar, and just curious enough to grate at the edges of my impatience.

I pause one step away from the door, exhaling slowly before turning to face Mrs. Dunlap. Mid-seventies now, but still sharp as ever. She sits at her usual spot by the window, her cup of tea steaming between her hands, a knowing gleam in her blue eyes.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying hello, were you?” she muses, her eyes sparkling with genuine amusement.

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