Page 22 of Where We Began

Curiosity guides me closer. I hop over the flat stones that border the yard, splitting the greenery from the front. The sun hits the car's windshield. Squinting hard, I slow down, only a bus length away now.

The angled door pops open. Hair the same shade as morning coffee comes first. It's styled close to his head, but still long enough that you could run your fingers through and tug. A chiseled jaw layered with a carefully shaved beard. Not wild, but deliciously rugged.

A thick neck and thicker shoulders are enhanced by the tight, rust-red shirt. It leaves most of his arms exposed. Muscles twitch, decorated here and there with tattoos. What strikes me most is howtallthis guy is. I'm near enough to tell that I'd come up to just his collarbone with the top of my skull.

He slams the door and everything in me shudders, as if the sound jumped straight into my blood and never left. His head turns—I get his dagger-sharp profile—then his eyes fix on me. They're the color of a violin left alone in an attic and forgotten with cold black centers that pierce relentlessly.

I know this man.

But I don't know those eyes.

“Dominic?” The name whistles as it leaves my lips. It reaches him, his only reaction is how he rolls his gaze from my face, down to my toes, then back again. I'm fully dressed but Ifeelnaked.

We stand across from each other. I think of the first time I saw him... that scrawny boy who kept insisting he wasnota boy. Well. He sure isn't one now. His jeans grind together over his powerful legs as he takes two steps my way, but that's all. “Laiken.”

My tongue tingles when he speaks with a velvety, base-of-a-canyon tone. “Yeah, it's me. I—you look good.”Real good.What does he think about how I look? I've changed, too. Those bras I avoided are familiar to me now. My sharp limbs have softened in places, but my running around the estate has kept me fit.

Not like him, though. He looks like he wakes up every morning and does a thousand push-ups. Dominic is icy steel.

“It's good to see you,” I say, hoping to break this painful discomfort. We should be hugging—laughing! Why is he acting like he wants an excuse to leave?

His full lips smooth out. “It's been some time.”

“Yeah. It has.” I buzz with the fact we're having a conversation. I start to think this unease is only in my head. I'm acting weird, suspicious, and it's on me. “I'm... really happy to see you again.”

“You are?” he asks, like what I said is crazy.

“Of course I am,” I half-laugh. “Dominic, it's beensix years!Why wouldn't I be happy to see you?”

He scrutinizes me. “You didn't hear the rumors.” It's a blunt statement.

“What rumors?”

His fingers smooth over his sleeve where it chokes his bicep. “Never mind,” he finally says. “I need to go. I'll see you around.”

“Okay,” I mumble. I want to grab his arm from behind and ask him everything that's happened in his life. Did he go straight from boarding school to college? Is he working for his father? Where has he been for so long?

I want to know. And I want him to ask about me, too.

His back is ruler-straight as he enters the mansion.What did he mean by rumors?I'm sure I'll never find out, because there won't be time to tell me. It makes my heart ache to realize this is it for us.

It seems our fate is stuck on repeat. Last time we met, he left so soon. Now he's returned, and I'll be the one leaving. It's cruel to do this to me all over again.It doesn't matter.Or it does, but I can't let it. Nothing is going to wreck the chance I've been holding my breath for. Not even my heart.

Tonight, I'm finally going home.

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