68 Chapter 68
68 Chapter 68
Damien’s POV 1
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 me. Anna hadn’t been my mystery woman- she’d been a desperate hotel cleaningdy trying to sell stolen goods.
“Tell me 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 remember.”
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 me 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 someone like Anna as your assistant? I mean, 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 me. “You’re right. Under normal
circumstances, I wouldn’t let Anna within a hundred feet of mypany, let alone give her ess 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
exin five years of desperate searching and mounting frustration.
“Because she had something that belonged to me,” 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 some kind of trophy. She imed she was the woman from that
night, that she’d been looking for me all this time.”
“And you believed her?”
The skepticism in Caleb’s voice made me wince. “I wanted to believe her. God help me, 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 memories. And her scent…” I shuddered slightly. “Anna smells like cheap perfume and desperation. The woman from that night smelled like spring flowers and something uniquely her own that I’ve never been able to forget.”
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“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 me, there’s no way someone could mistake that
chemical blonde for natural brte.”
“Then Anna definitely wasn’t your mystery woman,” Caleb said with certainty. “Trust me, there’s no way someone could mistake that
chemical blonde for natural brte.”
The weight of realization crashed over me 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. 1
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 time it is?”
“Lucas, I need you to do something for me,” I said without preamble, my voice carrying the alpha authority that brooked no argument. “I
need you to get someone 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 came fully awake. “Damien, that’s from five years ago. You have checked that many
times. 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 came out raw, stripped of any pretense. “I think I’ve been chasing the wrong person this entire time.”
“I’ll make some calls tonight,” Lucas promised. “But Damien… even if we find something, 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 me, Caleb was watching me 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 time. But now, instead of the bitter disappointment that usually apanied these memories, I felt something 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 emerald green eyes-not just green, but this deep, vibrant shade that reminded me of forests and precious stones. Her hair was long and
dark, almost ck in the dim light, and it smelled likevender.”
I opened my eyes to find Caleb watching me 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
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could sense even through the alcohol and the excitement of the moment. Her skin was so soft, like silk, and when sheughed…” I trailed off, lost in the memory of that melodic sound that had haunted my dreams for years.
“What was she wearing?” Caleb asked, his voice strangely quiet.
“A dress,” I said immediately. “Emerald green, the same color as her eyes. It was elegant but not overly formal, and it fit her perfectly. She
looked like some kind of fairy tale princess who had wandered into a modern hotel.” Iughed 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 measured, 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 women 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 me,” Caleb said more urgently, turning in his seat to face me fully. “You described someone 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
mentioned. And Adrian is exactly the right age.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Sera?”
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