Chapter 49
Rayna
Something startled Rayna awake the next morning. A noise that broke through the barrier between reality and her mind, causing her eyes to fly open.
Sunlight faintly seeped through the curtains at her back, the AC was off, the blanket tangled around her knees, and Dominic’s T-shirt had ridden up past her shorts. But the space next to her was empty.
Dominic was no longer in bed with her.
Maybe it was her subconscious mind reacting to the situation they were in, or because she’d gotten so used to waking up next to him, but her gut tangled at the wrongness of an empty bed, and her pulse quickened.
She threw herself upright, but her sudden movement flittered something on Dominic’s pillow.
A folded piece of paper.
Rayna stretched forward to flick the lamp on. Then she grabbed the paper and opened it up.
To my dearest love,
Forgive me, for I lied to you.
I am not returning on the morrow. I am returning today, right now. Likely while you are reading this. River collected me from the farmhouse, and Victor will help me return. But please, my love, do not resent them for it. They only did what I asked them to.
I could not admit it, but you were right.
I cannot belong in your time like this. History will not permit it.
But more than anything, it is hurting you, and I cannot allow that.
I do not wish to hurt you, so I am leaving.
While you sleep, because saying goodbye would mean accepting everything between us has come to an end, and I cannot bring myself to do that.
But I leave with you all my love, and in return, I will take with me everything you taught me, all your kisses, the sound of your laughter, and the part of your heart you trusted me with.
I love you, Rayna, and memory or no memory, I will always, always love you.
Do not ever forget me.
Forever yours,
Dominic
Ice-cold dread began crystallising through Rayna’s fingers as her heart slowed and the room, the words on the page, spun before her eyes.
No…no…no.
He’d gone. He’d left.
Without telling her.
This wasn’t what was…this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
A distressed sound broke out of her as she crumpled the paper in her hands.
How could he do this to her? He wasn’t meant to up and leave while she slept! He wasn’t meant to disappear. Not like this, not yet. They were meant to have one more day together, so why now? She…she wasn’t ready. She hadn’t said goodbye.
She didn’t want him to leave.
Not really. Not like this. Please not like this. This wasn’t how it was meant to end.
Rayna’s burning eyes frantically flew around the room as her mind struggled to figure out what to do. But there was only one thing to do.
She had to get to him, to the lab. She had to stop him before he really left. Before it was too late.
Rayna tried to get out of bed faster than her feet could kick the blanket off, causing her to tumble off the mattress with it tangled around her ankles.
She landed hard on her hands and knees, juddering her down to her teeth, but she scrambled straight up, tripping towards the woven laundry basket between the two windows.
She picked up the cotton trousers draped on the basket’s lid and yanked them on over her boxer shorts. She let the string hang undone, didn’t bother with a bra under her T-shirt, and grabbed a pair of trainers scattered by the ensuite wall.
Heart thudding in her throat at the same speed she ran down the stairs, she collapsed onto the squeaky third step and forced her feet into her shoes.
She let out a cry of frustration as she struggled to get them on, scared she was wasting time, shaking and sweating even more because of that fear.
But once they were on her feet, she rushed into the living room.
Except in the cream bowl on the slim bookcase by the clock, rather than finding her car keys, she found another note.
Do not come after me, my love. Please do not make this harder than it already is.
“Dominic, you bastard,” she sobbed in agonised fury when she realised what he’d done as she rummaged around the shelves.
He’d hidden her keys, forcing her to waste time she didn’t have searching for them.
Choking on his betrayal as her eyes welled with tears, she rapidly thought of a solution and then chased it. She left the living room and went straight out of the farmhouse. The door slammed shut behind her as she clamped an arm over her chest and jogged down the gravel path.
She bashed a fist on the Griffins’ front door and smacked the door knocker in rapid succession too, struggling to get her erratic breaths under control.
Within two seconds, the door flew open, and her frowning uncle filled the frame with Boris wagging his tail by the man’s side.
“Rayna?” Declan said, concern shifting the angle of his brows. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Dominic…he left,” she stammered out. “He’s trying to leave. I–I need to get to the lab, but he hid my car keys.”
“Edmund,” the older man roared, turning away from her. “Car keys.”
Barrel-chested like Declan but with shoulder-length hair of the same blond waves as Winnie, Edmund, the Griffins’ eldest child, swiftly appeared in the kitchen doorway with a set of keys in his hand, and his three-year-old son on his hip.
Edmund threw the keys to his dad. “Go get him, Rayna,” he said in a deep, encouraging voice.
She just about managed a frantic nod before Declan nudged Boris back and closed the door.
Rayna hadn’t ever thought so before, but the room that housed the POTeM was too far away from the entrance lift of the lab.
She was convinced she wasn’t going to reach it in time as she ran through the corridors with Declan trailing her. But eventually, the room came into view, the light above the big metal doors shining green. She didn’t know how to feel about it.
If the light was green, then the door was unsealed, either meaning she was too late, or Dominic was still being prepared for his return journey. At least it wasn’t red, though. She’d never have been able to get in if the room had been sealed.
Panting as she stopped, Rayna jabbed the room code into the number pad on the wall with shaking fingers, then tried to keep her thumb still over the reader.
The second the door clicked, indicating it was unlocked, her uncle tore it open, and she hurried in ahead of him.
In the silver room of the POTeM, two consoles, with buttons and screens and keyboards, encircled the round, elevated platform of the time machine, with several big, metal triangles lying flat around it that would rise as a journey was made.
Wires came out of several nodes on the back wall, snaking around the metal flooring before connecting to the machine and consoles.
From the corners of her eyes, Rayna saw a few scientists falling still around the room, but her attention was on the three men standing on the platform.
Victor had his back to her before he turned, a tablet in his hand and shock behind his glasses that screwed into concern. On his left, River lowered his guilty expression to the floor, wearing dark brown half dress, a simply tied cravat, and trousers tucked into black riding boots.
And Dominic?
He looked every bit the imposing marquess he was meant to be with a dull blue, pinstriped waistcoat under his navy morning coat, and reddish-brown boots coming up to the cuff of his fitted, buckskin breeches.
His neckcloth was starched to perfection, a silver signet ring glinted on the end of his left hand, and in his right, he held a black top hat and a pair of gloves.
It was everything he must have worn when he’d first arrived, right down to the stubborn set of his shaven jaw, and the hard shell cast over his piercing gaze.
Rayna’s heart plummeted in devastation at how perfect he looked in Tregency attire, before rising back up in a wave of frustration.
She glared at him. “You said you were leaving tomorrow.”
“I lied,” he rasped, giving away that he wasn’t as unaffected as he was trying to act.
“Why did you lie?”
“Because I do not wish to bear a minute longer in your presence if I cannot have you.”
His words were sharp knives stabbed through the left rungs of her rib cage, but the burn brought with it more anger.
“Tough shit,” she ground out, storming towards the platform.
“You don’t get to sneak off while I’m sleeping and leave me with nothing but a note.
You don’t just get to leave me when you said we had two days, you fucking asshole!
” She looked to River and Victor, her mouth bunching in a pained grimace. “And how could you two help him do it?”
“Do not blame them,” Dominic said, edging forward. “I told them I had said goodbye.”
“Well, you didn’t. So get down from there.”
He gave the faintest shake of his head. “No, Rayna. I must leave.”
“You’re not leaving today, Dominic.”
“I am. I have to.”
“Get down from there now,” she snapped.
He jabbed his hat and gloves towards her floor. “This is what you wanted, Miss Faez!”
Rayna reeled back like he slapped her, her skin staining with hurt. A regretful dip appeared above Dominic’s bloodshot eyes, but it was too late. The damage had been done.
“Miss Faez?” she echoed with a croak.
“Leave,” he whispered the plea. “Do not make this any harder. Please.”
She slunk away from his hulking presence, made bigger by the added height of the POTeM platform. “So what? That’s it? You’re gonna tell me to leave without even saying goodbye?”
He stared at her, crestfallen and heartbroken, his jaw shifting and tightening like he was shaping silent words and then biting them back. Keeping them from her.
She huffed a weak, humourless laugh, staggering another pace back before she forced her spine to straighten. “Guess this is it then,” she uttered. “Have a nice life…Lord Norland.”
Rayna thought she heard Dominic let out a stifled noise, but she turned her back to him and marched towards the door—without a single glance back.
The air seemed cooler out in the corridor against her burning skin as she walked aimlessly away from the POTeM room.
Her vision was tunnelled, blurred and grey around the edges, not focusing on anything.
The eerie zing in her ears seemed louder as her mind scrambled, unable to discern any singular thought or emotion.
She was dissociating from her own body. From the world.
Maybe that was why it seemed to slow around her. Until she wasn’t sure she was walking as she stared at the long, empty corridor ahead of her.
He’s leaving. Dominic’s leaving. You’re never going to see him again, a voice in her head repeated. But it didn’t stir any immediate panic or pain within her.
He’s leaving, Rayna. He’s going to leave. You’re going to let him leave.
A loud beep suddenly echoed around her, and she flinched. It was enough to break the trance she’d been falling under, and her eyes stilled in realisation.
That sound…it was the POTeM room doors being sealed. That meant…that meant…
Dominic was about to go back. He was leaving. Really leaving.
She was never going to see him again. He wouldn’t remember her.
He will never know you loved him.
A bite of agony clamped around her throat, and her chest deflated on a choked noise.
I don’t…I don’t want this. I don’t want him to leave. He’s not supposed to leave!
Rayna whirled around to go back to the POTeM room, but Declan Griffin blocked her path.
“Rayna,” her uncle murmured with the faintest shake of his head. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not, it’s not,” she said, swiftly eating up the distance between them.
But the older man caught her around her upper arms when she reached his side. “Rayna, my child.” He ducked his face, giving her the full force of his sympathetic expression. “The doors are sealed. There’s nothing you can do anymore.”
“That’s not true!” A frustrated sob escaped her as she tried to drag herself free. “Let go. Uncle Declan, let go. Please let go. I need to stop him. He can’t leave.”
“I’m sorry.”
A mechanical voice rang from the speakers. “Returning to six-three-five PR, day one-seven, month five in…ten—”
Rayna cried out. “No! No.” Tears pooled in her eyes and slipped straight down her cheeks. “I need to stop him. I don’t want him to leave.”
“Eight…seven…”
She managed to wrench one arm out of Declan’s grasp and staggered forward, but he held her firm with the other.
“Five…four…”
“Uncle Declan, please.”
But his face only crumpled in apology.
“Two…one.”
Declan hurled her into him just as the mechanical voice announced the successful departure. Right as an anguished sob ripped from her. Along with her heart.
Rayna’s knees buckled, but the older man cinched his burly arm around her, holding her up. He covered the back of her head, hugging her to his shoulder.
And she bawled. Loudly.
“I love him,” she wept. “I love him. And I didn’t tell him.”
Now she would never be able to.