An hour later, Donovan finally pulled off the road and onto an unpaved driveway lined with trees on each side. My stomach fluttered, throwing acid back up toward my throat. The tunnel of green that stretched ahead of us seemed miles long, and Clarissa's insistence on his guilt sent wild scenarios galloping through my mind. Wherever we were headed was set far enough back from the main road that no one would hear me if I needed to scream.

My hand tightened around the door handle before I could catch myself. With a furtive glance at Donovan, I forced my fingers to uncurl one by one. He concentrated out the windshield, slowing as we rounded a corner that gave way to a small wood-sided cabin.

I felt the weight of that tiny spy device like a brick against my thigh.

After he shut the car off, neither of us moved for a long moment. The silence and seclusion wound together in the closed space, stealing all the air.

Stay by his side.

I could do that. I waited for him to make the first move, shooting cautious glances at his hands to see if they'd moved any closer to the handle of his door.

Instead, he turned to me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said immediately, wishing I didn't sound so out of breath. Did I look guilty? I felt guilty, my pocket heavier than ever. I was half afraid that if I stood up, it would drag my skirt down with its weight.

"You've been weird ever since you said you wanted to stop," he pressed.

I bit my lips, watching the leaves shake in the breeze as my mind raced for a plausible lie. "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course." His hand settled on my thigh, close enough to my knee that I knew it wasn't a move. He tilted his head, so earnest and ready to listen that the words tumbled out before I was ready for them.

"I know this is where you proposed to her."

His eyes flickered as if a curtain somewhere deep behind them had drawn shut, changing the light ever so slightly.

"I found your Instagram. I couldn't help it, and I was just so curious about her life and I didn't even know she was engaged until I came here." The sentences tumbled over each other in their haste, and I bit my tongue at the slightly twisted version of the truth.

His hand tightened against my skin.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be." He offered me a tiny smile, and even though it didn't quite reach his eyes, it was enough to slow my hammering heart. "Let's not talk about it, okay? Let's not even think about it. All that is in the past. This is now."

He raised his eyebrows, a question. I nodded, and as he reached for his door, I breathed a tiny sigh of relief that he'd bought it.

Using his obsession with his dead fiancée didn't make me a bad person, did it? He had a blind spot. I knew that. He'd believe anything that came out of my mouth, not because it was plausible, but because he wanted to. I knew he saw me as his Tillie. If I was honest, I didn't even mind. I had been alone for too long, and I would let him call me whatever he wanted if it meant he wouldn't leave me like Mark had.

I stood awkwardly as he got two bags from the trunk, a plain black roller bag and a hideous flowered duffel stuffed to bursting. Then I tagged along as he stepped up the porch steps and unlocked the front door.

I hadn't expected such a contrast to his Charlestown home. The outside had looked small, but I'd assumed the rest of it was hidden back in the trees. As it was, there were only two rooms: A kitchen that melted into the living area, and, behind a closed door, what must have been a bedroom.

Oh, god. One bedroom.

He headed right for it. Setting the bags down on the floor just inside, he spun around to face me.

"Well," he said, "what do you want to do first?"

Eat. Sleep. Call Clarissa and panic. Run for the hills because I don't trust myself alone with you.

"Change," I said out loud.

He looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe he'd expected me to name a tourist destination off the top of my head.

"I mean...these clothes...." I gestured down my own front.

"What's wrong with them?"

"They're from yesterday." I tried to ignore the way his eyes lingered on the bare strip of skin Tilda's crop top didn't quite cover, but heat rose to my face anyway.

I turned away, stepping further into the room, waiting for the soft tread of his feet to tell me I had my privacy.

It never came.

Clasping my hands together to still their trembling, I glanced in the full-length mirror that hung on the closet door. He hovered behind me, eyes half-lidded, waiting.

The air turned solid between us, something thick and heavy with unsaid words. I half-turned toward him, one word on the tip of my tongue. Stay? Go?

It wouldn't have mattered. With his arms loose and forgotten at his sides, his chest heaving like he was containing something monumental inside—he wasn't going to leave.

My dead sister's fiancé. I'd kissed him, twice. Once in their bed. I had no self-respect left, but I still turned my back on him like I did. I grabbed the hem of Tilda's shirt, watching him in the mirror over my shoulder until he disappeared behind the fabric, and when he reappeared again, his closeness startled me.

Slowly, as if giving me time to protest, he settled his hands on either side of my neck, ghosting his fingers all the way out to my shoulders, where they curled around the balls of the joints.

I let him pull me back into him, let his touch soothe the ache that had made itself at home under my breastbone for the last five years. The sear of his fingers against my skin burned the loneliness away until it evaporated, barely even a memory.

I reached for my skirt.

He caught my wrists, his hands like cuffs of fire arresting me. "Let me."

With shallow breaths, I stared into the reflections of his eyes as he slipped his thumbs under the waistband and gently slid it over the curve of my thighs. Then he pressed his lips to my right shoulder, tracing its line all the way to the crook of my neck as his hands settled around my hips with aching tightness.

His trail of kisses turned softer as he sucked at the skin of my neck, then nuzzled into the space just behind my ear. He never looked away from my face in the mirror, and I couldn't tear my gaze from his. We were two starving souls, living only off the fumes of each other's existence.

Fumes. My face heated.

"I need a shower," I whispered reluctantly, unable to let go of the moment quite so easily.

"Me, too."

Even an idiot couldn't miss that invitation. My skin lifted in chilly goosebumps, but shivering next to the blazing heat of his body felt wrong.

I spun around, but before I could sort out my intentions, his hands closed gently around both sides of my face, his thumb pressing over my lips to silence me.

"Who am I to you?" he asked.

No one had touched me like he did in years—with such care, such need. It burned cerulean in his eyes, like the kind of sky that was too clear and perfect to be true. Part of me would have told him anything he wanted to hear to make him continue. Another part wondered the exact same thing. And a final, steadily shrinking piece would have asked the question right back.

Who am I to you?

Maisye? Or Tilda?

He lifted his thumb as I parted my lips.

"Donovan..."

I hadn't formed the words that were meant to follow. It didn't matter. It was enough. His mouth stole whatever came next, chasing away the uncertainty and shaky dread like the sun breaking through the clouds on a rainy day. I kissed him back out of reflex, like our lips were made to lock and release, a gentle rhythm that matched my heartbeats.

Or were they his? Mine...his. Maybe they were one and the same.

He groaned into my mouth as I arched my back, bringing every part of me flush with as much of him as I could. I wanted to touch him, all of him. I recognized part of my desire as desperation, years of deprivation and need for human contact. The other part, just as familiar, came from that place where Tilda hid away.

As if I'd willed her into existence, she rose from the ashes of the past, a phoenix with the heat to match Donovan's. They really were perfect for each other, in every way.

I couldn't ever replace that. She was his Mark, the thing he wished he could have again but never really would. Not quite.

But he'd get close. Maybe never closer than this, and that was all I had going for me because he was the closest I might ever have to Mark again, too.

He wanted Tilda. Tillie. I was the only one who could give him that.

His lips were on my throat now, my hands slipping under his shirt because there were too many layers between us.

I tugged it over his head, something monstrous and singleminded taking over me as the white cotton fell away, ruffling his hair on the way. I dove for his jugular, rolling my tongue over his collarbone, losing myself in the give of his skin as I gently sank my teeth into it.

His tiny gasp ignited me. I knew it wasn't my body that had this effect on him; it was hers. But right then, I didn't care, because the intoxicating rush of power that came with it belonged to both of us.

He tasted familiar, salt and burning electricity bursting to life on my tongue. His hands crawled higher, up my waist, then my ribs, pressing harder with every inch until they found the clasp of my bra.

As the elastic sprang apart, his fingers tightened, squeezing what was left of me from my lungs until I didn't recognize myself anymore.

The last thing I felt before her smoke clouded my eyes was the backs of my knees hitting the bed and buckling, giving in.