“Okay,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. While she loved Damien, if he didn’t want a relationship, she wasn’t going to pursue him. She was too old and too pregnant for that kind of futile and desperate effort. “Why were you in Chicago, Damien?”

“I needed to take care of a few things.”

He paused and she waited. The one thing she wasn’t going to do was settle for cryptic, not now, when he’d woken her up in the middle of a REM cycle. He did at least owe her some answers, about why he was there and how he felt about her.

“I needed to talk to a Realtor about selling the house I had with Jess. I saw my parents. I gave Jess’s parents some of her things.” He put his hand over his forearm. “And I got my tattoo…redone.”

It wasn’t smart to feel hope, but she did, a bright burst of hope that took her breath away and made her heart pound. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t there at two A.M. to deliver the break-up speech. She reached out and touched his cheek, ran her finger across his lip. “Why, Damien? Why do all those things now?”

“It’s time…I’m trying.” He drew a shuddering breath. “I need to try and let it go, move forward somehow. I want…people back in my life.”

Mandy watched him for a moment, wishing the light was on so she could see into his blue eyes, read in them what he was really trying to say. She stroked across his skin, felt him lean toward her into the touch, his thigh pressing against her hip as he sat on her bed.

There was so much he had shown her, given her, yet so much she still didn’t know. “Tell me how she died,” she whispered. That was really what it was all about. There was something about Jessica that still held him captive, his emotions strained and contained, his heart unreachable.

Damien shuddered. He dropped his head so that her hand fell away. “She was murdered.” His voice was raw and hoarse, nothing more than a whisper, but loud in the quiet room.

Mandy froze with her fingers on the sheet she was bunching about her waist. That was not what she’d expected to hear, and his words arrested her. “Oh, Damien! That’s awful. God, how did it happen?”

His head lifted and went slowly back and forth. “You don’t want to know.”

Tears sprung to her eyes. “I do. I want to know what you’ve been through.”

There was hesitation, but only for a second or two. Then Damien started to speak.