The Meridian Building's security system was state-of-the-art, which meant exactly nothing when the people running it were idiots.

I stood in the observation room on the forty-second floor, watching three guards clustered around a coffee station instead of their monitors, and felt my eye twitch. This was what I got for taking a consultation job at nine in the morning on a Monday. The coffee was still hot, which meant they'd abandoned their posts less than five minutes ago.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I muttered.

Marcus appeared in the doorway with two cups of actual decent coffee—he'd learned long ago that my mood directly correlated with caffeine quality—and surveyed the scene with the practiced patience of someone who'd worked with me for five years.

"That bad?" he asked, handing me a cup.

"They have a quarter-million-dollar system and the attention span of golden retrievers." I took a sip. The coffee was good. Marcus was a saint. "I'm going to recommend they gut the entire operation and start fresh. Which means we're billing for a full system redesign."

"See? Silver lining." Marcus settled against the wall beside me, his cedar-and-vanilla scent mixing with the coffee's bitter warmth. Comforting. Safe. Everything I'd trained myself to appreciate after years of learning that comfort was a luxury I couldn't afford.

The three guards suddenly snapped to attention, abandoning their cups like they'd been caught with their hands in the till. I didn't even look up from my notes. Whatever had spooked them—probably a supervisor—wasn't my problem.

Except it was about to be.

The elevator chimed.

I felt it before I saw him. That peculiar prickling sensation at the base of my skull, the same instinct that had kept me alive when instinct was all I had. My head came up, and every muscle in my body locked into a state of controlled readiness.

The man who stepped out of the elevator moved like he owned the air around him.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dark auburn hair that caught the fluorescent lights like they were burning just for him. And his eyes—Christ, his eyes were the color of deep water at midnight, the kind of black that looked like it held entire universes.

He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent, and he wore it like it was nothing. Like clothing was just a formality he tolerated.

But it was the scent that hit me hardest.

Sandalwood and smoke. Ancient and intoxicating. The kind of scent that made your brain stop working and your body start making very stupid decisions.

I did not make stupid decisions. I'd spent the last seven years making only the smart ones, the calculated ones, the ones that kept me alive and in control. I'd built myself into someone who didn't get rattled.

Yet here I was, rattled.

"Iris," Marcus said, his voice carrying a note of concern. "You okay? You just went pale."

"Fine," I lied, my eyes tracking the man as he moved across the observation room floor. He wasn't looking at me. Not yet. He was speaking to the building's security director, Mr. Chen, who'd suddenly materialized from wherever middle management hid when actual work needed doing.

"—appreciate you making time for me," the man was saying, his voice smooth and dark as the scent rolling off him. "I know this is short notice."

Chen was nodding, practically vibrating with the kind of nervous energy that came from dealing with someone important. Someone with power.

"Of course, Mr. Thorne. Always happy to accommodate. Miss Blackwood is our top consultant—she'll make sure everything is handled discreetly."

Thorne.

The name meant nothing to me. And yet my body was reacting like it meant everything.

He turned then, and his eyes found me across the room with the precision of a missile finding its target.

The floor tilted.

Not metaphorically. Literally, the entire room seemed to shift on its axis, and I had to grip the edge of the desk to keep from staggering. My heart was hammering so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

He smiled.

It was a slow smile, the kind that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing to me and found it absolutely fascinating. There was recognition in that smile. Not the kind that came from having met someone before, but something deeper. Something that suggested he was seeing me. Really seeing me. All the way through to the parts I kept locked away.

"Ms. Blackwood," he said, crossing the room toward me with that same liquid grace. "I was hoping we'd get a chance to meet."

I forced myself to stand. To breathe. To remember that I was a professional, that I'd survived worse than a man with an unfair face and a scent that made my nervous system short-circuit.

"Mr. Thorne." I kept my voice level, my expression professionally neutral. "I wasn't aware you'd be joining us for the consultation."

"Last-minute decision." He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body, and I realized I'd made a tactical error. The observation room suddenly felt very small. "I wanted to see the security measures for myself."

He extended his hand.

Every instinct I possessed screamed at me not to touch him. The same instincts that had kept me alive when I was nineteen and alone and broken had learned to read danger like other people read books. And this man was danger. The kind that didn't announce itself, the kind that smiled and smelled like sandalwood and smoke and made you forget why you'd ever needed to protect yourself in the first place.

I took his hand anyway.

The memory hit like a physical blow.

Candlelight. Shadows dancing across pale skin. His hands in my hair, his mouth against my throat, and a feeling so intense it bordered on pain—love so consuming it felt like drowning. The scent of sandalwood and smoke surrounding me, anchoring me, claiming me. His voice in the darkness: I will find you. In every lifetime, I will find you.

His eyes, those obsidian eyes, looking at me like I was the only real thing in the universe.

I yanked my hand back like I'd touched fire.

My vision swam. The room tilted again, and Marcus was suddenly there, his hand on my elbow, his voice coming from very far away: "Iris? Jesus, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." The word came out rough. I forced myself to focus on his face, on the genuine concern in his hazel eyes, on his cedar-and-vanilla scent that was safe and real and didn't make my brain feel like it was fragmenting. "I'm fine. Just—blood sugar. Skipped breakfast."

It was a lie. I never skipped breakfast. I was too much of a control freak to skip meals, to let my body get weak or unpredictable.

But Thorne was watching me with an expression that suggested he knew it was a lie. That he knew something had just happened between us that I didn't have a framework for understanding.

"Perhaps we should reschedule," he said, and his voice was gentle. Careful. Like I was something precious that might break. "I wouldn't want to keep you if you're unwell."

"I'm fine," I repeated, and this time I managed to sound like I meant it. I even managed to pull my arm out of Marcus's grip without making it obvious that I needed the support. "Let's walk the perimeter. I want to show you the vulnerabilities in the east-facing windows."

I didn't wait for a response. I just turned and headed for the door, my movements controlled and economical, my mind racing through possibilities and rejecting all of them.

Stress hallucination. That was the only explanation. I'd been working too hard, sleeping too little. The human brain was capable of generating incredibly vivid false memories when pushed to its limits. It didn't mean anything. It didn't mean he'd touched me and sent seven years of careful emotional distance crashing down like a house of cards.

Behind me, I heard Marcus say something to Thorne, heard the man's low, amused response. I didn't catch the words. I was too busy trying to convince my body that the trembling in my hands was just adrenaline, that the way my skin felt electrified had nothing to do with the ghost of his touch, that I hadn't just seen something that couldn't possibly exist.

A memory that wasn't mine.

The elevator ride down was torture.

Thorne stood beside me, maintaining a careful distance that was somehow worse than if he'd pressed against me. I could feel the heat radiating off his body. I could smell sandalwood and smoke, and it made my chest tight in a way that had nothing to do with the recycled air in the elevator car.

Marcus was on my other side, his presence a anchor. But even his steadying presence couldn't quite keep me from noticing the way Thorne's fingers flexed at his sides, like he was fighting the urge to reach for me.

"How long have you been doing security consulting?" he asked, his voice casual. Like he hadn't just sent my entire world sideways.

"Seven years," I said, keeping my eyes on the descending numbers above the door. "Started my own firm with Marcus five years ago."

"Impressive." There was something in his tone that suggested he meant it. "You must be very good at what you do."

"I am."

"I'd expect nothing less."

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open on the lobby. I stepped out without looking at him, my jaw clenched so tight I was surprised my teeth didn't crack.

But his voice stopped me.

"Iris."

Just my name. But he said it like it was a question and a prayer and a confession all at once. Like it meant something. Like it meant everything.

I turned, and he was standing in the elevator doorway, backlit by the fluorescent light, and for just a moment—just a fraction of a second—I saw something flicker behind his eyes. Something ancient and desperate and so full of longing it made my chest ache.

"Have we met before?" I asked, and I hated how uncertain I sounded. "Before today, I mean."

He studied me for a long moment, and I watched him make a decision. I could see it happen, see the moment he chose what to say.

"No," he said finally. "But I feel like I've been waiting for you my entire life."

The elevator doors slid shut between us.

I stood there in the lobby, my heart pounding, my hands shaking, while Marcus appeared at my elbow with an expression that suggested he was about two seconds away from dragging me to a hospital.

"That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen," he said quietly. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know," I whispered.

But that was a lie, and I knew it.

Because deep in the part of me that I'd spent seven years trying to bury, the part that had survived things that should have destroyed me, I recognized him.

I just didn't know how.