The mug falls from my hand and shatters on the driveway. I’m shaking, swaying, panting sandpaper breaths from a chest too tight to heave. I can’t rationalize this. It isn’t real. It can’t be real.
I reach for him, and my legs don’t work right, lurching me forward and throwing me off balance as a low keening sound claws from my throat.
His arms come around me. Strong arms. Intimate arms. I know the shape, the golden skin tone, the dusting of dark hair.
Except there are no tattoos.
I drag my gaze to his neck, to the pristine skin above the collar of the t-shirt. No snake. No ink anywhere.
“You’re not him.” I push against his chest, my heart rate careening out of control.
“I know I look different.” He grips my head with both hands and puts his eyes inches from mine. “Take a deep breath and really look. It’s me, baby.”
My face crumples as I stare into the liquid brown eyes that never stopped haunting me. Tears gather at the corners, clinging to his dark lashes, and the sight of his agonized expression sucks all the oxygen from the atmosphere.
“How?” A sob escapes, but I fight back the next one. Everything inside me goes cold and still, my voice a scratchy whisper. “How is this possible?”
“I have a lot of explaining to do, but there are things I can’t… I just need to hold you for a minute.” He cups the back of my head and pulls my cheek to his chest. “Christ, I missed you so much.” The heavy tempo of his heart pounds in my ears. “You have no idea how much I love you.”
My body melts against him for a fraction of a second before my brain fires.
“No!” I twist out of his embrace and stumble back, my hands shaking violently. “Where have you been? It’s been four and a half years! How could you do this to me?”
“Shhh. Baby…” He reaches for me, his eyes burning with desperation. “I’m here now.”
“I buried you!” I swat him away as painful memories flash behind my eyes. “The ashes…the funeral… I mourned you. Goddammit, I cried myself to sleep every night for years. Why didn’t you call me? Message me?” My voice tumbles into an anguished cry. “Why didn’t you come home?”
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes. “It kills me to see you hurting. Please don’t cry.”
“Tell me!” My muscles cramp against the relentless pain.
I can’t stop staring at him, devouring the sharp angles of his too-thin face, reacquainting myself with his fierce mannerisms, the confidence in his movements, and the compulsive way he looks at me. I never thought I’d see him again, and my brain struggles to make sense of what is standing right in front me. How is he here? Whose ashes did I bury? Why isn’t he explaining his absence?
“It’s complicated.” The despair in his eyes hardens. “Trust me, I would’ve been here if I could.”
“No, that’s not good enough. You ruined us, and I need to understand why!”
His jaw flexes, and his brows dig in. I know that determined look. He wants to touch me, comfort me with his body, and he’ll hold me down if he has to. I brace for a struggle.
He steps toward me, shoulders squared, and halts at the sound of the back door opening behind me.
Trace.
Sharp pain stabs through my chest, stopping my heart. The world around me stands still, holding its breath. This is happening, and I can’t stop it.
My past and my future.
My first love and my second chance.
Two hearts from two separate lives colliding helplessly, cruelly together.
Cole’s furious gaze snaps over my shoulder. “What the fuck?”
His face turns red-hot, eyes wide and agonized, expressing all the nuances of shock as he watches a man step out of my house at six in the morning.
I turn my neck as Trace disperses the fog with his slow approach. Shirtless, clad in pajama pants, he stares at Cole with an unreadable expression.
My stomach feels rock-hard, my throat strangling in a fist of dread. I inch backward, reaching a hand toward Trace.
“You’re with him?” Cole thrusts a shaking finger at Trace, teeth gnashing. “Are you fucking him?”
“You died.” My whisper is tormented, torn from the darkest hours of my life. “You weren’t here.”
Trace stiffens beside me, and I rethink my answer. I’m with Trace. I’m sleeping with him because I love him.
I open my mouth to explain, but Trace speaks first.
“You’re late.”
Three and half years late. I can’t breathe beneath the debilitating shock.
Cole’s alive.
He’s been alive all this time.
And he didn’t come home.
Trace laces his fingers through mine, squeezing painfully hard. “You told me to take care of her.”
A chill slithers up my spine, and my blood turns to ice. “What did you say?”
Cole stands a few feet away, biceps bunching as he scrapes his hands over his head repeatedly. “You weren’t supposed to make contact.” His expression contorts between devastation and rage. “I told you to watch over her, not fuck her.”
They know each other. Trace fucking knows Cole and never thought to mention it?
I yank my hand from his and wrap my arms around my shaking body. “How do you know each other?”
“We used to work together,” Trace says in a hollow voice.
“Auditing for the government?” I gape at him, silently begging him to tell me this is all some kind of joke. “You own a casino. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”
He and Cole share a look, communicating something that’s beyond my realm of understanding. Or rather, beyond my security clearance.
The deployment in Iraq. The silence at the government building. The fake funeral. The removal of tattoos.
“You’re not an auditor, are you?” I ask Cole on a thin breath, shaking from head to toe.
“I can’t say, Danni.” Cole doesn’t remove his glare from Trace.
“You lied to me.” My skin tingles, and disorientation sweeps through me as I turn to Trace. “You lied, too. You knew Cole and never told me.”
More tears fall, and I bury my face in my hands. I need to step back. I need to think.
“What is that?” Cole rushes forward and grabs my wrist, his eyes zeroed in on the engagement ring. “No.” His whisper crashes into a pained guttural noise. “No, no, no!”
He yanks his arm back and stumbles. Every visible muscle in his body goes taut as he spins away and paces like a caged animal, shoulders heaving, hands stabbing through his hair. The tortured sounds coming from him threaten to bring me to my knees.
When he whirls back, he looks absolutely destroyed. “You missed me so much you fucked my best friend? And now you’re what? Getting married?”
Best friend.
How deep does the deceit go?
My shoulders curl forward, wracked by an onslaught of grief and betrayal.
“I didn’t mean that.” Cole rushes toward me and frames my face with shaky hands. “I’m not upset with you. I put you in a terrible position and kept things from you. I had no right to expect you to wait around for a dead man.”
The ache in his voice crushes me, and I feel his terrified pain as if it were my own. Because I never stopped loving him.