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S old?

I glance toward the sign, lit in the warm glow of a street lamp, then back at Damien, his face alight with humor and just a hint of something else. Nerves, I think. Except Damien very rarely gets nervous.

“You?” I say, my voice little more than a whisper. “Damien, did you buy Vivien Lorainne’s house?”

He spreads his hands in a little boy and the cookie jar gesture.

“For me?”

“For us,” he says, moving in front of me and putting his hands on my hips. “Good surprise, bad surprise, or weird surprise?”

My laugh seems to echo from this hill all the way down to the beach as I throw my arms around his neck. “Good,” I say. “And also a little weird. But in the best possible way,” I add, rising on my toes to kiss him as his hands slide to cup my ass. The kiss is long and deep and fully worthy of a gift of the two-thousand-square-foot variety. And when I pull away, I’m as giddy as if I’d just downed a bottle of champagne.

“You’re sure? You’re not worried about the rumors? Hauntings and all that?”

I wave a hand, brushing away the words. “Vivien Lorainne’s house.” I shrug. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all that needs to be said.

A white picket fence surrounds the house, and when he opens the gate, I practically skip through and onto the front porch. When he joins me, I grin. “I’ll say this for you, Mr. Stark—there’s never a dull moment.”

“And there never will be.”

We share a smile as I lean against the porch railing and study this man who not only still loves me, but still surprises me, managing to make every one of our days together just a teensy bit better than the one before.

Luckiest girl ever , I think, and I can’t help but wonder what I did to deserve Damien in my life.

He dangles the key with a knowing grin. “You want to do the honors?”

I definitely do, and I hurry to snatch the key from his hand, then shoot him a sideways glance. “You do realize we already own a cottage on an island?”

“Ah, but it’s a different island. And that one’s actually on the beach. This is on a hill with a view of the beach.”

I fight a laugh. “You do know how to split hairs.”

“And this is historical,” he adds. “Totally different.” He gives me an exaggerated shrug. “But if you don’t want it…”

He plucks the key from me. I laugh and dance toward him, easily taking it back because we’re both laughing too hard to put any real effort into the game.

Once it’s safely back in my hand, I put my fist over my heart. “I would say I can’t believe you’d do something like this for me, but I know that you would. Thank you.” I slide the key into the lock and start to turn it.

“ Nikki .”

I look over my shoulder, something in his voice sending a shiver through me.

“Are you sure?”

I frown. “I just told you I was. What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He sounds almost confused, and Damien is never confused. “I just—I just thought I should tell you that you don’t have to accept it.”

“Damien?”

“I left an escape clause in the contract,” he says. “If you don’t want it, we can just void the purchase.”

“An escape clause?” That’s not the way Damien usually operates. I know that he’ll always give me an out. If I didn’t want the house, he’d just turn it into a rental or hold on until the market improves and take a profit. But voiding the sale entirely…?

“Why?”

He shakes his head, something in his expression making him look almost as confused as I feel. “Just felt like a good idea. But you want it? You’re sure?”

I nod, realizing as I do that he’s taken the journal out of the inner pocket of his tux … and out of its plastic bag. He’s shifting it from hand to hand, and for a moment, I want to snap that it’s humid and to put that thing away before it’s damaged.

But I bite back the words. “It’s Vivien Lorainne’s house. You knew I’d want it, and you were right. You still are.” I grin. “I think Dr. Hart spooked you.”

He chuckles. “You know, maybe he did.”

I meant the words as an explanation for Damien’s out-of-character reaction, but now I can’t help but think about the darkness that this house has seen. This is where Vivien lived with the man who killed her. The man who bashed her over the head and stabbed her, leaving her to escape to the beach and die alone.

He denied it until the day he, too, died. Over and over, he cried out from jail that he wasn’t the killer. That it was someone obsessed with Vivien. Someone dark and evil named Basil who had insinuated himself into their lives.

But, of course, neither the police nor historians ever found such a man.

Is this a house I truly want to enter?

I hesitate, fully intending to turn back to Damien. To tell him that maybe this isn’t such a great idea. But I don’t. Instead—almost as if someone is urging me forward—I put the key in the lock and push open the door.

A chill rushes up my spine as I step over the threshold into the pitch-black entryway, with Damien right behind me, his hand on the small of my back.

And as the door closes behind us, I think I hear, beneath the creak of the hinges, a woman’s voice whispering— Nichole! Nichole! What have you done?