“Really tired. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?”

I hesitate. Actually, it was. “How’d you know that? Hunter prowess?”

“It’s what you always say.”

I open my mouth, but before I can say anything else his phone chimes, startling us both. Luka holds it up, shows me the text.

Café Abbazia, Opatija. 16:00 Wednesday.

I don’t recognize the number except for the first digits of the country code. Croatia.

Ivan.

When Luka puts down the phone and takes my hand, there is no word for how disconcerted I feel.

No, I know how I feel. And I know what I feel like doing right this minute. And even though in all this time I haven’t once tried to match his ear to an egg or overanalyze the angle of his nose (106 degrees), some rational part of my brain is yelling at me that I also chose to trust Rolan—to jump in a car and drive all the way to Indiana with him—and look how that panned out.

I study Luka in the darkness, see his face again in the Greenville grocery, eyes locked on mine. Is that the gaze of someone searching for an ancient diary and ten million euros . . . or the recognition he once saw in my eyes?

Girls like me don’t get European guys who look like they should be dating models named Gisele. There is nothing desirable about me. I am not rich, I am smart. A nerd who watched Firefly’s lone season three times with friends whose names have been erased from my memory. But he and I? Unless I managed to glamour him with my Progeny supercharisma, I don’t see it. And I wonder if he’s working the plain-girl-lack-of-self-esteem angle on me. Because I agree it’s the best play—and far preferable to getting strangled with my shirt.

“So, obviously . . . you and I . . .”

He looks down.

“And you were okay with me forgetting you.”

“No.” He looks up, gaze intense. “I was not okay with that. But I was less okay with you being hunted by whoever stepped in after me.”

“Luka, I don’t know what—”

“I don’t expect anything,” he says and lets me go.

“I was going to say I don’t know where you’re from,” I lie.

“Oh.” He laughs softly. “Slovakia.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Audra Ellison,” I say with a lame smile.

“From Sioux City, Iowa,” he adds.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

We sit in awkward silence until he says something about getting an hour’s sleep and I agree. But my mind is racing.

How many conversations have we shared, he and I? Were we . . . involved involved . . . or just kind of involved? I’ve studied his face in my mind more times in the last hour than I care to admit. The curve of his lower lip, the hair teasing his jawline. And, okay, his ears. Once.