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 cleaning lady 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 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 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 claimed she was the woman from that

looking for

“And you believed her?”

wanted to believe her. God help

made you

her scent…” I shuddered slightly. “Anna smells like cheap perfume and desperation. The woman

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68 Chapter 68

was with had dark hair,” I said quietly, more to myself

between my fingers.”

your mystery woman,” Caleb said with

blonde for

woman,” Caleb said with certainty. “Trust

blonde for natural

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

consciously decided to call Lucas. The

sleep.

any

I said without preamble, my voice carrying the alpha authority that brooked no

to get someone to recover the security footage from the Moonlight

fifteenth, specifically.”

sharpened as he came fully awake. “Damien,

keep footage that long, and even

difficulties,” I interrupted, my grip tightening on the phone. “Use whatever resources

have. I need that footage, Lucas. All of it—lobby, hallways, elevators,

about the pendant again,

“I think I’ve been chasing the wrong person this

Lucas promised. “But Damien… even if we find something, after five years,

intact and useful are-”

do it,” I said firmly. “Whatever it

call and slumped back against the leather seat. Beside me, Caleb was watching me with

this woman you’ve been looking for,” Caleb said carefully, “what was she actually like?

to that night for what felt like the thousandth

beautiful,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. “The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had these incredible emerald

the dim

find Caleb watching me intently,

ache in my chest. “Delicate, but with this underlying

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