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I’ve spent two months trying to erase a woman I can’t name.

Just one night. Masked. Wild. No names. No bullshit.

And yet—every time I close my eyes, I see flashes. Feel her again. Taste her.

She tasted like heat and sin and fucking surrender.

And now? I’ve got this mouthy blonde in front of me who drives like a bat out of hell, talks shit like it’s a sport, and looks like the ghost of a woman I can’t forget.

Nah. It’s not her.

Can’t be.

But my cock doesn’t seem convinced.

“You can get dressed,” she says, stepping back like I might explode.

I reach for my shirt—but she’s not looking at my face anymore.

She’s staring at my chest.

No—at the ink.

Mom’s locket. Heart-shaped. Black. Centered over my sternum.

She gave it to me a couple weeks before the end—drunk, shaking, barely lucid. “This is yours now,” she said, pressing the broken piece into my palm like it meant something.

Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. But I had it inked where I can’t lose it.

Her expression goes pale. Like she’s seen a ghost. Her clipboard dips in her hands.

And I feel it. That shift. The room tilting just a bit.

That look on her face? That’s not professional shock.

That’s like, memory.

I drag my shirt on like armor. “Something wrong?”

She shakes her head. Too fast.

But her hands are shaking as she slides the meal plan across the desk.

“This is your breakdown for the next two weeks,” she says. “Protein. Recovery. Performance optimization.”

“Thanks,” I say, reaching for it.

Our fingers brush.

It’s just a touch.

But it lights me up.

Electricity rips through me like I’ve just taken a puck to the chest. That familiar pull. That skin-deep recognition that makes no goddamn sense.

She jerks back like she’s been shocked.

Our eyes meet.