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I smiled and she couldn’t seem to look away from my eyes. “Where’s her office? I’d rather go in unannounced.”

I didn’t want our quarry warned ahead of time. The receptionist could well have instructions to look for anyone of our description. The proverbial men in black. I wanted to keep things nice, quick, and simple. I hated when these things turned into a chase.

Finally she pointed down a hallway to the left. “Second door. At least knock.”

I didn’t. I found the door and pushed it open.

And my world tilted on its axis for the second time.

Decades had passed, but she was unchanged, though her white-blond hair was longer, her clothes different. She was the same age and still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on.

She froze mid-motion and stared.

Joy filled me. Elation. Unadulterated relief. Sharp comfort.

I’d been waiting for this since the day she’d disappeared. I’d known it would come. I hadn’t known the when, but fate would have its way. She was always my destiny, I knew it deep in my soul. And finally the wait was over.

“Jillian,” I said her name like a prayer.

She stared at me with tender gravity. “Domhnall.” It was a soft, astonished utterance, but it spoke the world to me. She hadn’t forgotten anything. Our love affair had only lasted a few months before she’d disappeared but in that time I’d given her my very soul, and it hadn’t left her unscathed, either.

“Do you believe in fate now?” I asked her pointedly.

“How?” she asked. Her lips were trembling and she bit them.

“I’ve been looking for you this whole time,” I told her. And it was true. I took every case I could with two women involved, knowing she always stayed close to her sister. “I would have searched forever. I’ll always find you. You swore I’d outgrow my obsession with you. Well? What do you have to say for yourself now?”

She took a step closer, then another, her hand touching my face, finger tracing delicately along the brow above my wolf’s eye. “I never thought I’d lay eyes on you again.” I don’t think she meant to, but she said it with wonder.

“Why did you leave me?” I hadn’t intended to ask the question, it had been torn out of me, a world of longing in my voice.

She traced her finger over my lips. “I wasn’t leaving you. We’d been discovered. I think one of your friends turned us in. No one told you?”

It was a blow I wasn’t expecting. “I didn’t know. One day you were just gone without a trace. You said goodbye with a note that I found weeks later in a random pocket. It’s haunted me.”

She moved closer, her hand on my jaw. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave you, couldn’t stand the thought that I’d hurt you, but it was out of our hands. They raided our place, tried to take us into custody. There were some… unsavory allegations against us. We couldn’t even take anything with us. We just fought them off and ran and didn’t stop. We’re good at disappearing without a trace. We’ve had a lot of experience.”

I leaned into her hand like it could hold up the world. For me it could.

I closed my eyes and just breathed, letting that special something fill me, that something I’d only ever felt when I was near her.

Everything that had ever kept her aloof from me, every obstacle in our path was gone now. Everything I’d ever wanted from her was within my grasp now, and it was a heady feeling.

I was hesitant at first to touch her, I didn’t know where to begin, I wasn’t prepared, but while her unapproachable beauty and stoic demeanor had always made her look a bit untouchable, she wasn’t that.

Hers was a cold beauty, but inside I’d always known there was fire. Fire that felt like only I had ever truly touched it, like it was mine alone.

Her arms slipped around me, hugging, her face lying softly against my shoulder.

I touched one hand to the top of her head, the other stroked her back but I almost recoiled at what that simple touch did to me.

I drew back, pushing her away.

She looked at me, puzzled, then studied my face.

I stared at her and she saw it then, the raw, primal animal staring back at her. I was holding onto my civilized self by a single thread.

This place was too public. I couldn’t so much as lay a finger on her the first time without absolute privacy.