Unable to refuse, my face lifts to his. This close, the changes in him are more apparent in the harder lines around his mouth, a fresh scar near his right eyebrow, and a shadow in his eyes that time and loss etched over the past year.
My memory has dulled him to pastels, softening his edges and muting his colors. The real Ezra burns vibrant and scorching as clay fresh from the kiln. Too bright to touch, too magnetic to pull away.
His hand rises, his fingers brushing my cheek, and my breath catches at the contact.
He trails a line down to the collar of my server’s uniform. “This is a new appearance for you. The service industry suits you less than academia did.” Amusement quirks his lips. “Though, I must say, you wear everything well.”
His fingertip traces the edge of my name badge, and I suppress a shiver at the casual intimacy of his touch.
“Nico Duran.” He tests the name on his tongue. “Another fiction. Not as elaborate as Professor Knox, perhaps, but effective to gain access to places you shouldn’t be.”
His hand rises to my head, fingers threading through the short blond strands of my wig. The touch is gentle, almost reverent. “It’s good work. Professional grade. But I prefer the rich brown of your real hair, that catches red in the sunlight.” His hand slides down to cup my cheek. “And those green irises you’re hiding.”
I swallow hard, my pulse a frantic drum beneath my skin. “How?”
Satisfaction gleams in Ezra’s eyes as if breaking my silence was all he needed. “How did I know it was you? Despite all this?” His finger sweeps across my face, indicating the makeup, the contacts, the wig. “You can change everything about you, and I’ll still recognize you, my beautiful Omega.”
His hand captures mine, raising it between us, and his thumb traces the crescent-shaped scar on my index finger, where a razor blade slipped my grasp when I was ten. “I studied you every night while you slept in my bed. Every morning, while you sketched by the window. I memorized you, Knox. Or whatever your real name is.”
His grip on my hand tightens, not painful but inescapable. “How many names have you used since you left me? How many identities have you slipped into and out of like clothing? How many others have you seduced into bed?”
The question hangs between us, loaded with accusation and hurt. I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. What can I say? That Knox was just one in a long string of characters I’ve played? That Nico is just the latest? That the man he knew never existed at all?
But there’s another truth, one I’ve avoided facing. Somewhere in those thirty-one days, the line betweenperformance and reality had blurred, and I stopped pretending. Even if I tell him he’s the last man I’ve let hold me, would he believe the words? Or take them for another lie?
Ezra searches my face for answers I can’t give him. “Tell me your real name, if you even remember it.”
I gather the scattered pieces of my composure, forcing my breathing to steady despite the thundering of my heart. Ezra stands too close, his presence overwhelming my senses, and I need to regain control before I drown in him.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” I begin, seeking calm by adopting Nico’s higher pitch. “But?—”
“Don’t lie to me. Not again.” Ezra’s words slice through mine, sharp as a blade and just as dangerous. “I searched for you.”
The raw emotion in those four words knocks the air from my lungs. His eyes burn into mine, golden-hazel irises ringed with darkness, pupils dilated with rage or desire or both.
“You vanished.” He drops my hand. “Left nothing behind. No trail. No goodbye. I hired private investigators. Bribed art dealers and professors. Threatened gallery owners. I tore my life apart searching for a ghost.”
His hands hang at his sides, but the tension in his fingers betrays the control it takes him not to grab me again. I press back against the bookshelf, hardbound volumes digging into my spine, but there’s nowhere to retreat.
In a desperate gambit to change the subject and create distance between us, I blurt out, “Did Aaiden tell you about the money?”
Ezra’s laugh comes out bitter. “The fifty thousand? Of course, he did. After I’d spent three months searching for you. After I’d threatened to burn down his precious reputation if he didn’t tell me where you’d gone.”
My stomach twists. So Aaiden had told him after all. I’d always wondered.
“Then that’s your answer. You should have stopped searching.” I forced out the lie, “It was never real between us. I was playing a role.”
Warning flashes across Ezra’s face. “We both know that’s not true.”
His hands come up to frame my face, his grip firm but not painful, thumbs resting at the corners of my mouth, fingers splayed along my jawline.
I gasp at the contact, electricity shooting through my nerve endings.
“Ezra—” His name slips out in my real voice, not Nico’s, and victory flashes across his face at the sound.
“There you are.” He leans in, his face so close his breath flutters across my skin.
Before I can process what’s happening, his tongue darts out, dragging a wet line up my cheek. The sensation is so unexpected, so intimate, that I freeze in shock.
