Prologue
MICHAEL
She was gone.
I didn’t realize it right away.
At first, I thought she was dodging me again. Playing that game of flirt and flee, push and pull.
But after three days of retracing every place I’d ever seen her—the café, the bluff trail, the Italian joint with the checkered tablecloths—I knew better.
She wasn’t hiding.
She’d disappeared.
Slipped through my fingers like smoke in the wind. Like she'd never existed in the first place.
And I was pissed.
Not just at her. At myself. For letting it happen again.
I was in meetings I couldn’t focus on. Deals I didn’t give a shit about. The crew was restless, the streets were heating up, and everyone around me had an opinion.
Especially my associate and best friend, Brett.
“She looks good on your arm,” he said, not for the first time, as Krystal laughed too loudly at something I didn’t say. “She’s exotic. She’s sexy. Every man in this town wants her.”
I said nothing. Just lit a cigarette I didn’t need.
Brett leaned in, his voice dropping. “She sweetens the deal. Tribal by blood. That land on the reservation? She could be yours. What’s your problem?”
I didn’t answer. Because I couldn’t say what the real problem was.
The problem had honey-blonde hair, eyes that saw through me, and a mouth that tasted like danger and freedom all at once.
The problem was missing.
And then I saw her.
The friend.
The brunette from the Italian place. The one who’d laughed over wine and tiramisu while Kate tried to pretend I didn’t exist.
I spotted her at the boutique on 7th. She was alone, arms full of dresses, distracted.
I stepped in front of her before she could bail.
“Afternoon,” I said, calm and slow.
She flinched.
“Michael,” she said tightly. “Of course.”
“Where is she?”
She looked away. “She left town for a few months.”
I tilted my head. “Where?”
“I’m not saying,” she snapped. “And don’t ask me anything more than that. She made me swear. Said if I ever ran into you, you’d try to force me to talk.”
I smirked. “I don’t torture women for intel.”
Her jaw clenched. “Well, I don’t break promises.”
I studied her. She wasn’t bluffing. She was loyal.
And Kate had trusted her.
That meant something.
I stepped back, gave a nod.
“Tell her something for me, when she checks in next,” I said.
The friend didn’t answer.
“Tell her,” I said, voice low, “I’m not done.”
Then I turned, stepped out into the heat of the Bayview sun, and lit another cigarette I didn’t need.
Because now I knew.
She didn’t just disappear.
She ran.
And that meant… she’d be back.