Rafe wouldn’t kiss me, and he never touched me like he used to—with demanding hands that didn’t seek permission, with fiery passion that scorched me. I craved that side of him like a starved junkie, but I didn’t know how to tell him, and he didn’t remember the days we’d spent together, so I settled for what I could get. Stolen hours with him on the sofa each night before we went our separate ways to sleep. He cooked for me, worried about me, but always kept a distance that seemed insurmountable.

“You keep looking out the windows,” he said at my continued silence. “Wanna talk about it?”

“I’m worried he’s watching.”

“He can’t see in here, Alex.”

“Logically, I know that.” I untangled from his arms and walked right up to the glass. Peering into the blackness, I willed my heartbeat to slow. He wasn’t out there. If I kept telling myself that, maybe I’d believe it. “You think the police are looking for him?” I asked.

“Yeah. I called the detective in Portland today.” His footsteps vibrated the hardwood beneath my bare feet, and his body warmed my back. “They’re on it, Alex. Lyle might be an ass wipe, but he did his job.”

“Do you think Zach got spooked? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t shown up.” I was scared to hope for it.

“Or maybe he knows better. I won’t let him hurt you again.”

I turned around. “Have you remembered anything yet?”

“No.” He settled his hands on my shoulders, dipped his head, and his lips lingered near mine. “Nothing’s coming back.”

“You’re so different this way,” I whispered. He was more like…the guy I remembered from eight years ago.

“Am I really?” He pulled away. “Because when I think of you down in that cellar, I’m ashamed of myself.”

The memory of that place called, like a siren’s seductive song. Did he feel it too? The allure of the cellar had been silently summoning me since I’d first arrived on the island. So far, I’d been too much of a wuss to go down there, to soak up the place where Rafe first showed me his darkness…the place where he helped me embrace mine. Our twisted romance began down there.

A shiver went through me. On one hand, I’d been through hell in that dank, cold space, but on the other, experiencing his touch for the first time as a woman had been intoxicating.

“You’ve thought of me down there?”

“I’ve tried to remember,” he said, though he avoided my eyes.

The uncertainty in his mannerisms unnerved me. He seemed so lost, as if a huge part of him had gone missing, and in a way it had. “Do you want to remember?”