TOMORROW’S WIDOW

Chapter 3: Runaway Bride

LENA

Julian’s men locked the hotel before I could reach the street.

They called it a security precaution. According to them, a dangerous intruder had entered the building and threatened the bride.

No one mentioned the falling glass or the clocks that had stopped at the exact moment I refused to marry Julian.

My sister was taken to another floor. The guests were moved into the ballroom. Julian disappeared with the head of security after ordering two guards to remain outside my suite.

Ordering.

Not asking.

I changed out of my wedding dress, pulled on jeans and a sweater, and searched the room for another exit.

My phone had no signal.

At 9:14 a.m., the screen lit by itself.

A message appeared from an unknown number.

Laundry lift. End of the corridor. You have ninety seconds.

I typed back.

Aras?

The answer came immediately.

You always ask that before you run toward me.

I should have ignored it.

Instead, I slipped the black ring onto my finger and opened the door.

The two guards turned.

“Miss Arden, you need to remain—”

The fire alarm screamed.

Sprinklers exploded overhead. One guard reached for his radio while the other looked toward the stairwell.

I ran.

The laundry lift was open. I stepped inside and pressed the lowest button.

The lift descended six floors before stopping between levels.

The lights died.

“Aras?”

A panel above me opened.

His face appeared in the darkness.

“Climb.”

“You have got to be joking.”

“Julian’s men will stop the lift in twelve seconds.”

I grabbed his hand.

The instant our skin touched, heat flashed through me.

Aras beneath me on black sheets. My palms against his chest. His hands guiding my hips as he watched me with a mixture of torment and devotion.

The memory vanished so abruptly that I lost my grip.

Aras caught me around the waist and pulled me into the narrow maintenance shaft.

For one suspended moment, my body pressed against his.

His breath stopped.

Mine did too.

“You saw something,” he said.

“Get me out of here.”

His eyes darkened, but he released me.

We climbed through a service corridor and emerged in an underground car park. A black car waited with its engine running.

Aras opened the passenger door.

I didn’t move.

“You had my mother’s necklace.”

His expression changed.

“You saw that?”

“At the ceremony.”

“I wasn’t at the ceremony.”

I searched his face for a lie.

“Then what did I see?”

“A memory bleeding through.”

“You were covered in blood.”

His hand went unconsciously to the center of his chest.

“That hasn’t happened yet.”

The answer was worse than denial.

I got into the car.

Aras drove through the barrier seconds before black vehicles entered the garage behind us.

“Are those Julian’s men?”

“Yes.”

“Why does my fiancé have an armed security team?”

“Because Julian has had thirty-four years to prepare for today.”

“He’s thirty-five.”

“Exactly.”

I turned toward him.

Rain swept across the windshield. His profile remained unreadable.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

“How long have you been thirty-five?”

A faint, grim smile touched his mouth.

“You learn quickly.”

“Answer me.”

“Time doesn’t stop for us. It folds. There’s a difference.”

“That means nothing.”

“It means the year ahead has already happened, but it hasn’t happened to this version of you.”

“And you?”

“Some of it happened to me.”

“Did we marry?”

His hands tightened on the wheel.

“Yes.”

“Did you love me?”

He looked at the road.

“Yes.”

The word was stripped of performance. It sounded like an admission extracted under torture.

“Do you still?”

“That is the wrong question.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“No question about you has ever been simple.”

A dark vehicle struck us from behind.

The car lurched. Aras swore and accelerated.

Another impact threw me against the door.

“They’re trying to kill us!”

“They’re trying to stop me.”

“Is there a difference?”

“There will be if Julian reaches you first.”

A motorcycle appeared beside us. The rider raised a gun.

Aras pushed my head down.

The window shattered.

He jerked violently, but kept driving.

“Aras?”

“I’m fine.”

Blood spread across his shoulder.

“You’ve been shot.”

“I noticed.”

He turned into a narrow street, cut through an open market, and forced the pursuing vehicle to miss the turn. Minutes later, we entered an abandoned industrial building. A steel door closed behind us.

Aras stopped the car.

His head dropped against the steering wheel.

I reached for him.

“Don’t.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“Touching me will bring more memories.”

“Then let them come.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking for.”

“No. I don’t understand anything because both of you keep deciding what I’m allowed to know.”

I tore open his shirt at the shoulder.

The bullet had passed through, leaving a bloody wound along the upper muscle. I pressed fabric against it.

Aras hissed.

Another memory struck me.

I was kneeling over him in a candlelit room, stitching a cut along his ribs.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accused.

“I enjoy having you helpless.”

His hand closed around the back of my neck.

“I have never been helpless with you.”

He kissed me.

The vision snapped away before I could feel his mouth.

In the car, my face was inches from his.

Aras’s pupils widened.

“You saw our first night at Halcyon,” he said.

“You kissed me.”

“I did much more than kiss you in that room.”

My pulse stumbled.

He lifted his uninjured hand and gently removed a shard of glass from my hair. His knuckles grazed my cheek.

Desire moved through me with humiliating speed.

“Why does my body remember you?”

“Because it doesn’t experience time the way your mind does.”

“Then kiss me now.”

The words escaped before I could reconsider them.

Aras froze.

Every line of his body tightened.

“No.”

The rejection stung more than it should have.

“You said we were married.”

“We were.”

“You said you loved me.”

“I did.”

“Then why are you looking at me like touching me would kill you?”

“Because it might.”

He opened the car door and stepped out.

I followed him into a large concrete room. A mattress, medical supplies, water, and food had been arranged inside. This wasn’t a hiding place he had found that morning.

He had prepared it for me.

A wall at the far end was covered with photographs.

All of them showed me.

In some, my hair was long. In others, it barely reached my chin. In one photograph, I wore the black wedding band. In another, Julian held my hand outside Halcyon House.

“Where did these come from?”

Aras moved between me and the wall.

“Lena—”

I pushed past him.

Beneath the photographs was a row of gray envelopes.

I opened the first.

Another obituary.

LENA CROSS, 31, KILLED IN HALCYON FIRE.

In the next, I was Lena Arden, unmarried and missing.

In another, I was Lena Vale, survived by my husband, Aras.

I counted the envelopes.

There were forty-seven.

“You told me you lost me twice.”

Aras said nothing.

I held up the obituaries.

“How many times have I died?”

His face was pale from blood loss, but his eyes never left mine.

“Forty-seven that I can prove.”

“And how many times did you kill me?”

The silence between us lasted too long.

Then Aras looked at the obituary in my hand.

“Only once.”