I collide with someone just as I round the corner of the block, my forehead knocking into what feels like a concrete ledge but is more likely the other person’s jaw, followed by their hard sternum jamming my sore shoulder. I hiss in pain as I stumble back.

A hand wraps around my other arm to steady me, and its warmth seeps through my jacket. I glance up, assessing if I’m under threat, but we’re caught in a shadowy patch of the sidewalk, late-evening darkness swallowing up our features.

Before I can panic, the strength of their grip eases, as if they’ve sensed I stopped wobbling. As if whoever this is understands something about me that I don’t feel anyone ever has: that while I am fiercely independent, sometimes I want nothing more than a caring hand to catch me when I falter and just as freely let me go when I’m steady once more.

The rumble of a voice dances across my skin, making every hair on my body stand on end. I yank off my headphones so I can hear them clearly.

“ . . . so sorry,” is what I catch.

Two words. That’s all it takes. Even if they’re two words I’ve never heard him say before, they’re all I need to recognize a voice that I know as well as my own.

Fiery anger blazes through me. Not because my shoulder’s throbbing, though it is. Not because my head feels like a bell that’s been rung, though it does. But because the person who I’ve been trying to outrun is the very person I just ran into:

Christopher Petruchio.

“What the hell, Christopher?” I wrench my arm out of his grip, stepping back and stumbling into the reach of the streetlamp’s glow.

“Kate?” His eyes widen, wind whipping his dark hair, sending his scent my way, a scent I’d give anything to forget. Some criminally expensive cologne evoking the woodsy warmth of a fireside nap, the spiced smoke of just-blown-out candles. Resentment twists my stomach.

Every time I see him, it’s a fresh, terrible kick to the gut. All the specifics that have blurred, carved once again into vivid detail. The striking planes of his face—strong nose, chiseled jaw, sharp cheekbones, that mouth that’s genetically designed to make knees weak.

Not mine, of course. And strictly objectively speaking, merely from a professional standpoint. As a photographer, I spend a lot of time analyzing photogenic faces, and Christopher’s is unfortunately the epitome. Slightly asymmetrical, the roughness of his severe features smoothed by thick-lashed amber eyes, the lazy sensuality of that dark hair always falling into his face.

God, just looking at him makes my blood boil. “What are you doing here?” I snap.

He rubs a hand along the side of his face, eyes narrowed. “Thank you for asking, Katerina. My jaw is fine, despite your hard head—”