“So what happens now?”

“You remain protected.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

He stopped.

Then, as casually as if discussing dry cleaning, he said, “Your student loans have been cleared.”

I stared.

“What?”

“And your father’s remaining medical debt.”

The room seemed to tilt.

My father had died nineteen months earlier after two years of treatments, hospital rooms, insurance calls, experimental medications, and bills that arrived long after the funeral.

I still had thirty-seven thousand dollars left.

“You paid them?”

“Yes.”

“You had no right.”

Dominic lifted one eyebrow.

“You preferred the debt?”

“That isn’t the point.”

“Then explain the point.”

“I can’t.”

That infuriated me even more.

Because how could I explain that no one had ever simply removed a burden from my shoulders?

How could I explain the strange grief of logging into an account every month and sending money toward the cost of failing to save your father?

“How did you even know?”

“I know everything relevant to your security.”

“My father’s oncology bills are relevant to security?”

“They were relevant to you.”

The anger went out of me too quickly.

I looked away.

“Why?”

“They were inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient to whom?”

His answer came immediately.

“To my wife.”

My wife.

Two ordinary words.

They should have meant nothing.

But something inside my chest tightened.

So I asked the question I had been avoiding.

“When the people looking for me are gone, what happens?”

“You remain protected.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Dominic became very still.

“Do we stay married?”

His silence lasted too long.

“If it remains useful.”

Useful.

I rotated the diamond around my finger.

“And if it doesn’t?”

“We arrange a quiet divorce.”

I swallowed.

“Did you ever want to get married?”

His hand settled on the doorknob.

He looked over his shoulder.

His expression gave me nothing.

“No.”

And he walked away.

I stood alone in my wedding dress wondering why an answer I had already known hurt so much.

The next morning, we flew to Maine.

Apparently, even marriages arranged to keep witnesses alive required believable honeymoons.

Dominic owned a house above Penobscot Bay.

Calling it a house felt ridiculous.

It was an enormous gray-stone structure tucked among pine trees, with slate roofs, tall windows, and a private path down to the water.

The ocean below was iron blue.

Cold wind carried salt through the trees.

Everything was beautiful.

Everything felt temporary.

My bedroom was across the hall from Dominic’s.

I noticed that immediately.

He noticed me noticing.

“You have your own room.”

“Thank you for clarifying.”

“I thought you might be concerned.”

“I married a stranger because assassins may be looking for me. I’ve moved beyond concern.”

Again, that almost-smile.

I was beginning to resent it.

Then I opened a door on the second floor.

And stopped.

It was an art studio.

Not a decorative room.

A real one.

North-facing windows.

Heavy cotton paper.

Watercolors.

Oil paints.

Charcoal.

Professional brushes.

Canvases in every size.

A drafting table facing the sea.

Supplies I hadn’t bought in years because groceries came first.

Then rent.

Then Dad.

Then loans.

Dominic stood behind me.

“You did this?”

“You teach art.”

“This must have cost thousands.”

“I don’t know.”

I turned.

“Of course you don’t.”

For one second, the corner of his mouth lifted.

There it was.

A real smile trying not to exist.

That became the problem with Dominic Moretti.

His words were cold.

His actions weren’t.

He never entered my room without knocking.

Never touched me without asking.

The second morning, coffee appeared beside my sketchbook with one teaspoon of sugar and exactly enough milk.

I had never told him how I drank it.

When I stayed painting until midnight, the fireplace somehow remained lit.

When I mentioned once that the Maine wind made the studio cold, a wool blanket appeared over my chair the next afternoon.

When I cut my finger opening a new tube of paint, Dominic looked at the tiny line of blood as though someone had stabbed me.

“It’s a paper cut.”

“Technically aluminum.”

“Dominic.”

“Let me see.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He disinfected it anyway.

His hands were large and surprisingly careful.

I watched his face while he wrapped a bandage around my finger.

A faint scar ran beneath his jaw.

Another crossed his knuckle.

“You do this with all your useful arrangements?”

His fingers paused.

“No.”

“Just the wives?”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“I’ve only had one.”

Something changed in the air.

I looked away first.

That night, I dreamed of Richard Vale.

He was standing behind the school, holding the flash drive.

But instead of fear, he was crying.

When I woke, the house was dark.

I heard breathing.

Not mine.

Dominic.

His bedroom door was partly open.

I don’t know why I went inside.

Maybe because I heard pain.

Maybe because I had spent nineteen months after Dad’s death wishing someone had recognized mine.

Dominic lay on his back.

His fists were clenched.

Sweat dampened his hair.

His breathing came fast and uneven.

Then he whispered one word.

“No.”

I stopped beside the bed.

“Dominic?”

Nothing.

His face tightened.

“No. Please.”

Please.

That word frightened me more than anything.

Dominic Moretti did not sound like a man who said please.

I touched his shoulder.

His hand snapped around my wrist.

Hard.

His eyes opened.

For one terrifying second, he looked directly at me without recognizing me.

Then awareness returned.

He released me instantly.

“Emily.”

“It’s okay.”

He sat up.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

He stared at the floor.

I rubbed my wrist.

His gaze caught the movement.

“I hurt you.”

“No.”

“You’re rubbing it.”

“You startled me.”

He stood.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were quiet.

Raw.

I had never heard him sound ashamed before.

I stepped closer.

“Who were you dreaming about?”

His shoulders tightened.

“Go back to bed.”

“Dominic.”

“Emily.”

“Who?”

His eyes met mine.

For a moment, he looked exhausted enough to tell me.

Then glass shattered downstairs.

Everything in him changed.

The softness vanished.

His posture hardened.

Then came a sound I had only heard in movies.

A gunshot.

My blood went cold.

A second shot followed.

Dominic was already moving.

He stepped directly in front of me.

“Stay here.”

“What’s happening?”

“Emily.”

The way he said my name silenced me.

He reached for the bedroom door.

It burst open.

A man stood on the other side.

For half a second, nobody moved.

I saw the weapon.

I saw Dominic turn.

I saw the stranger’s arm lift.

But he wasn’t aiming at Dominic.

He was aiming at me.

The barrel settled directly over my heart.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t scream.

Dominic looked at the gun.

Then at me.

And in that single frozen second, I saw something on his face that made no sense.

Not calculation.

Not obligation.

Fear.

Fear for me.

The gunman’s finger tightened.

Dominic moved.

So fast I barely saw him step between us.

A deafening crack filled the bedroom.

His body jerked.

Something warm struck my hand.

Dominic fell against me.