Page 35

35

“He fell,” I whisper. The scraps have stitched themselves together. I was never afraid of him. Not really. He was the knight, not the ogre. We tried to get away. “Nick hurt her. Liam—he must have tried to help. That’s why he brought her here, to get away. But Nick found out where she was. He was there. I remember him standing there.”

Watching me die.

Connor’s hands are shaking. I still can’t seem to feel warm. “I told Mom about meeting you,” he says. “Dad told me to keep it a secret, but I slipped up. She must have told Nick. If he went up there—if Nick hit him and then Dad got away and got you, but then…”

A sound escapes me, like a cry of pain. Connor startles. I look at him, my vision blurring. “You believe me,” I say.

He pauses, but it’s not because it isn’t true. I can see him thinking it through—because he wants to be deliberate. He wants to be certain. And he wants both of us to know that he means it when he says, “I believe you.”

“And you didn’t know who I was,” I say.

“No, I had no idea.”

“And bringing me here wasn’t some kind of trap? To find out what I knew? If I was going to cause trouble?” I demand.

“No, of course not. I wasn’t even sure about bringing you, but Mom convinced me,” he says. “Not that I didn’t want you to come,” he adds quickly. “It’s just, my family can be a lot. Even without… all this.”

“But you found me. On the other side of the country. If you didn’t know…” How could it be a coincidence?

“Fate?” Connor suggests.

“I don’t believe in fate,” I say flatly.

He regards me, and for all the horror, there’s something like wonder in his eyes. “That day, all those years ago. We spent hours together, in the snow. You told me that you didn’t like the cold. That you wanted to go where it was always warm. I said you should live in Los Angeles. It’s where my mom is from, and it’s warm there all year long. You said you were going to move there and go to school for books—you said it like that, go to school for books because books are where they keep all the interesting stuff.”

I make a skeptical noise. “You think I moved to Los Angeles because you told me to?”

“Maybe,” Connor says.

“Los Angeles is a big place.”

“And I found you. Stumbled in off the street and there you were in black-and-white,” Connor says.

“So we’re back to fate.”

“It’s enough for me,” he says.

A strained laugh forces itself between my lips. “We should have just eloped.”

“Still could,” Connor says. He puts his hand in mine. I stare down at our fingers.

He could still be lying. Maybe this is a ploy to discover what I remember and what I’m planning to do.

Maybe he saw me and then released the arrow.

But I know that I was never afraid of Liam Dalton. And I am not afraid of Connor now.

I lean in toward him and press my lips against his. The lightest touch, a question and nothing more, until he answers it. His hand cups my face as he deepens the kiss and then he’s shifting from the table to the couch. His hands run over my leg, brush my neck, slide my coat gently from my shoulders. I wince as his palm brushes against my arm, but the pain is fleeting.

It isn’t delicate. It isn’t demanding. When his palm skims under my shirt, he pauses; I press against him. When I wrap my legs around his waist, I put a hand against his chest and look him in the eye, and I don’t move again until he does, bringing his body to mine.

Every movement now is a question. We could put words to them, but there is only one answer that matters in this moment.

The parts of me that are wounded still hurt, but having him like this is worth the pain, because I’m sure now. I’m sure of nothing else, but I’m sure of him.