Page 67 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

I pressed on. “After I checked into the inn, I went for a walk down the coast road to the gravesite. There was this little cottage up on the hill above the road, just across from the cemetery—cozy, with cheery yellow window trim and a matching door. I noticed it right away.”

I paused and took a sip of wine, trying to steady myself.

Here it came.

The moment he would slip into my story like a ghost through a half-closed door.

I wanted it to sound offhand, like nothing special.

Just part of the tale. Not the moment my life cracked wide open.

Not the moment I met someone who wasn’t entirely human— that detail definitely wasn’t getting aired out tonight.

“So,” I continued, aiming for breezy, “I touched the headstone— Agnes Garvie Campbell —and passed out. Again. Like when I touched the portrait.”

Anne gasped. Dillon looked vaguely impressed.

“When I came to, I was lying on a couch in front of a fire. In the cottage—the one overlooking the grave.” I gave a tiny shrug, like none of this was particularly remarkable.

“And that’s when I met Baird. And Bunny, his giant dog.

Both of them were eyeing me suspiciously.

He’d seen me collapse at the grave out his kitchen window and carried me back. ”

I laughed—unconvincingly, probably.

“Did you know right away?” Dillon asked, leaning in, completely absorbed.

“No. But he walked me back to the inn that night,” I said. “And when we said our goodbyes, I noticed his eyes were green. I figured it was just a coincidence.”

I shrugged like it didn’t matter, like it hadn’t meant anything.

“But then I saw him again the next day when I was hiking—he was out checking on some cattle he had grazing nearby—and later we had lunch. He was…just easy to talk to. I told him about my visions, my parents, everything. It all came spilling out like it had been waiting.”

I paused, letting the memory wash over me. “I felt different with him. Like some part of me I didn’t even know was locked up had suddenly been let loose.”

Anne’s eyes lit up. “So how did he end up back in Edinburgh?”

Of course she’d skipped ahead—she already knew that part. Dillon didn’t.

“Turns out the hot farmer from the island also had a place in the city,” I said, smiling despite myself. “And he made up this ridiculous excuse about needing to be there. Just so we could have dinner.”

Anne let out a dreamy sigh. “ OMG, this is so romantic. ”

Dillon rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Let’s get to the good stuff. How was the sex?”

Straight to the money shot. And just like that, the breath caught in my throat.

How was the sex?

Devastating.

Transformational.

The kind of physical connection that rearranges your sense of self—and then leaves you haunted by it.

I hesitated, the tears already threatening, rising hot behind my eyes.

“Mind-blowing doesn’t even come close,” I said, forcing the words out with a shaky laugh.

“I mean…I don’t even have the vocabulary.

I’ve never felt what I felt with him. And you know I’m no innocent—I’ve had a few to compare to. ”

I tried to smile again, but I could feel the corners of my mouth faltering. And they saw it.

Of course they did .

Anne and Dillon exchanged a glance—quick, sharp. The kind you don’t notice unless you know people deeply.

They knew.

Knew something wasn’t adding up.

Knew the woman sitting across from them, still in her old sweatshirt, who’d dodged their messages for weeks, wasn’t glowing with post-romantic bliss.

She was grieving.

And no story—no matter how carefully told—could cover that up.

“Oh…babe,” Anne murmured, brow furrowed, voice soft with concern. “He dumped you? Even after knowing you’d just lost your parents?”

That’s when I lost it. Tears. Hysterical sobbing. Eyes squeezed shut, shoulders shaking, the kind of grief-scream that lives somewhere between heartbreak and humiliation.

I heard their chairs scrape against the floor before I felt them—both of them—coming around the table to wrap me in their arms.

But then I spoke, and it only made it worse. “No,” I sobbed. “He didn’t dump me. He said he loved me.”

As if that explained everything. As if that made any of it make sense. I could feel Anne and Dillon coming to the same conclusion without a word: I needed to be on the couch. And we needed more wine.

Dillon grabbed the bottle.

Anne took my arm and guided me to the sofa, settling beside me with one arm wrapped tight around my shoulder.

I wiped my tears on the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

Dillon returned with a box of tissues and set my glass on the coffee table, then pulled a side chair in close, like we were in a makeshift support group for the romantically wrecked .

Anne leaned in gently, voice low and careful, as if speaking to someone on the edge of a cliff. “And what did you say…when he told you he loved you?”

I drew in a trembling breath. “I told him it was impossible. He still loves his dead wife…and I feel like some fucked-up second-string quarterback,” I whispered, the words landing like stones in the silence that followed.

There was no way to explain the rest. Not without saying the words vampire , Agnes , or Bastien. So I didn’t.

“Um…” Dillon tilted his head. “How long ago did she die?”

I sniffled, buying time.

“A long time,” I said carefully.

Maybe without saying so directly, Dillon had made a point. Maybe Baird was ready to move on.

But the truth still gnawed at the edge of everything: I hadn’t let him.

“He said we were destined to meet. That he was destined to love me.” I threw my arms out, exasperated. “And the fucker hasn’t called or texted since I got back!”

As if that explained everything.

As if that somehow made my tears reasonable.

Anne straightened up, eyes narrowing as she tried to piece together the chaotic mosaic of my confession.

“Okay,” she said slowly, her voice turning analytical.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight. A Garvie family psychic tells you to be on the lookout for a green-eyed man, that he’s your destiny somehow.

You find him. You have ultra-hot , mind-blowing sex.

He tells you he loves you. Tells you you’re meant to be together. ”

I nodded warily.

“And you ”—she pointed at me—“tell him he can’t really love you. That you’re leaving . Did you…did you even tell him you loved him? ”

I blew my nose loudly into a tissue, trying to stall, the shame already creeping in.

Then just shook my head.

Dillon blinked at me, incredulous. “But, like—Mira. You do love him. Right?”

“Yes! Fine. I admit it.” The words came out sharper than I intended, edged with fury.

“Okay.” Dillon leaned back, ticking it off like a checklist.

Then Anne continued. “So…he tells you he loves you. You don’t say it back.

You tell yourself he can’t love you because you think he still loves his dead wife—those two things not being mutually exclusive, by the way—and then you leave.

And now you’re pissed he hasn’t reached out?

” She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “That about sum it up?”

I looked between them, utterly deflated.

“Well…when you say it like that ,” I muttered with a shrug, “I sound like an absolute lunatic.”

Anne handed me another tissue and topped off my wine. “No, babe. You sound like someone who’s scared.”

I stood up and grabbed my phone from the kitchen counter, pulling up the photo—the one he’d taken on the boat. The one that had wrecked me all over again when it showed up on my screen.

I handed it to Dillon.

He took one look and let out a low wolf-whistle. “ Fuck me , Mira. This is him? He doesn’t look like any farmer I’ve ever seen.”

“Give me that,” Anne said, snatching the phone from his hand.

Her eyes widened as she stared at the screen, taking in our windblown hair, the smiles, the truth behind our eyes.

“Woman,” she said, looking at my phone, “you are clearly in trouble. This man has ‘I love Mira Garvie’ written all over his drop- dead gorgeous face,” Anne said, handing my phone back with dramatic flair. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged, helpless. I didn’t know.

Dillon cleared his throat theatrically. “So… can I circle back to the sex for a second? You know, purely in the name of science. Was it all just hot and filthy—the kind of partner who’s a specialist in one very specific flavor you didn’t know you were missing? Or was he more of an…all-arounder?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “All-arounder. He’s got all the gears—hot, dirty, frantic sex, slow, tender, emotional sex, even some transcendent kind I didn’t know existed until I met him. You know, the ‘I love you and never want to let you go’ kind of stuff. He’s no one-trick sex pony.”

“I wouldn’t have come home— and I have a boyfriend ,” Dillon said under his breath, not willing to let that go. Anne shot him a ‘ I don’t think that’s helpful right now’ look and then just sat there looking at me pitifully.

They seemed to sense it—no more questions, no more pushing. Just the gentle, loving silence that comes when your friends know you’re barely holding yourself together.

We curled up on the couch for the second phase of Friendsgiving: cheesy movies, another bottle of wine, and the slow drift toward sleep.

It was Anne who made the first suggestion. “Anyone up for that new vampire movie? It’s streaming on Prime now.”

“ Absolutely not, ” I said, a little too quickly.

The words dropped like a rock, but no one pressed.

Thank God, because if I started picking apart every tired vampire trope, they’d start asking how I suddenly knew so much. And I wasn’t quite ready to unravel that thread.