Damien’s POV
The silence in the car stretched between us like a taut wire, heavy with implications I wasn’t ready to fully acknowledge. My hands clenched and unclenched on my knees as I struggled to process what Caleb had just told . Anna hadn’t been my mystery woman—she’d been a desperate hotel cleaning lady trying to sell stolen goods.
"Tell more about what she looked like that morning," I said, my voice hoarse with barely controlled emotion. "Her hair color, her build—anything you can rember."
Caleb’s brow furrowed in concentration as he stared out at the passing streetlights. "Her hair... it was definitely blonde, just like it is now. That awful brassy blonde that screams ’cheap dye job.’ As for her build..." He shrugged apologetically. "I’m sorry, but I honestly can’t say for certain. That cleaning uniform was so baggy and shapeless, and she was hunched over, clutching that pendant like her life depended on it."
My heart sank even as a terrible hope began to bloom in my chest. Blonde hair. Anna had always been blonde, even five years ago. But the woman from that night...
Caleb was staring at with undisguised confusion, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together what he’d witnessed tonight.
"Damien, I have to ask," he said carefully, "why would you hire soone like Anna as your assistant? I an, from what I saw tonight, she doesn’t exactly seem... qualified for a position in a major corporation."
I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly feeling the weight of my mistakes pressing down on . "You’re right. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t let Anna within a hundred feet of my company, let alone give her access to sensitive corporate information."
"Then why did you?"
The question hung in the air between us, and I found myself staring out at the passing city lights as I struggled to find the words to explain five years of desperate searching and mounting frustration.
"Because she had sothing that belonged to ," I said finally. “That pendant."
I leaned back against the seat, the familiar ache of longing settling into my chest. “A few weeks ago, Anna showed up at my office lobby, screaming about being my lover and waving my pendant around like so kind of trophy. She claid she was the woman from that night, that she’d been looking for all this ti."
"And you believed her?"
The skepticism in Caleb’s voice made wince. "I wanted to believe her. God help , I was so desperate to find that woman."
"What made you doubt her?"
"Everything," I said with bitter honesty. "Her story kept changing. The details she gave about that night didn’t match my mories. And her scent..." I shuddered slightly. "Anna slls like cheap perfu and desperation. The woman from that night slled like spring flowers and sothing uniquely her own that I’ve never been able to forget."
"The woman I was with had dark hair," I said quietly, more to myself than to Caleb. "Beautiful chestnut brown hair that felt like silk between my fingers."
"Then Anna definitely wasn’t your mystery woman," Caleb said with certainty. "Trust , there’s no way soone could mistake that chemical blonde for natural brunette."
"Then Anna definitely wasn’t your mystery woman," Caleb said with certainty. "Trust , there’s no way soone could mistake that chemical blonde for natural brunette."
The weight of realization crashed over like a tidal wave. I’d been wrong. Completely, utterly wrong. For weeks, I’d believed Anna was the woman from that magical night, my potential mate. I’d given her a job, based on a lie.
My phone was in my hand before I’d even consciously decided to call Lucas. The beta answered on the second ring, his voice heavy with sleep.
"Damien? Do you have any idea what ti it is?"
"Lucas, I need you to do sothing for ," I said without preamble, my voice carrying the alpha authority that brooked no argunt. "I need you to get soone to recover the security footage from the Moonlight Grand Hotel from five years ago. The night of August fifteenth, specifically."
"August fifteenth..." Lucas’s voice sharpened as he ca fully awake. "Damien, that’s from five years ago. You have checked that many tis. Most hotels don’t keep footage that long, and even if they do, the quality might be—"
"I don’t care about the difficulties," I interrupted, my grip tightening on the phone. "Use whatever resources you need to use, pay whatever you need to pay, call in whatever favors we have. I need that footage, Lucas. All of it—lobby, hallways, elevators, everything."
"This is about the pendant again, isn’t it?" Lucas asked quietly.
"Yes." The word ca out raw, stripped of any pretense. "I think I’ve been chasing the wrong person this entire ti."
"I’ll make so calls tonight," Lucas promised. "But Damien... even if we find sothing, after five years, the chances of the footage being intact and useful are—"
"Just do it," I said firmly. "Whatever it takes."
I ended the call and slumped back against the leather seat. Beside , Caleb was watching with a mixture of curiosity and concern.
"So this woman you’ve been looking for," Caleb said carefully, "what was she actually like? What did she look like?"
I closed my eyes, letting myself drift back to that night for what felt like the thousandth ti. But now, instead of the bitter disappointnt that usually accompanied these mories, I felt sothing different.
"She was beautiful," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had these incredible erald green eyes—not just green, but this deep, vibrant shade that reminded of forests and precious stones. Her hair was long and dark, almost black in the dim light, and it slled like lavender."
I opened my eyes to find Caleb watching intently, his expression unreadable.
"She was petite," I continued, warming to the subject despite the ache in my chest. "Delicate, but with this underlying strength that I could sense even through the alcohol and the excitent of the mont. Her skin was so soft, like silk, and when she laughed..." I trailed off, lost in the mory of that lodic sound that had haunted my dreams for years.
"What was she wearing?" Caleb asked, his voice strangely quiet.
"A dress," I said imdiately. "Erald green, the sa color as her eyes. It was elegant but not overly formal, and it fit her perfectly. She looked like so kind of fairy tale princess who had wandered into a modern hotel." I laughed bitterly. "God, I sound like a lovesick teenager, don’t I?"
Caleb was quiet for so long that I began to wonder if he’d dozed off. When he finally spoke, his voice was asured, careful.
"Damien," he said slowly, "you just described a woman with dark hair, green eyes, petite build, around the right age to have a five-year-old child."
"I know there are probably thousands of won who fit that description," I said wearily. "That’s why I was so desperate to find the pendant. It was my only real clue."
"No, you’re not understanding ," Caleb said more urgently, turning in his seat to face fully. "You described soone who sounds exactly like Sera. Everything you just said—the hair, the eyes, the build, even the way she moves with that underlying strength you ntioned. And Adrian is exactly the right age."
My breath caught in my throat. "Sera?"
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