I knew it was her the moment I heard the music. It made me stop midstep on the threshold, not inside and not outside, the icy cold of the street still at my back. The sound trickled from within, twisting something deep inside me. Something that had lain dormant for years. A memory. For some, it’s a smell that triggers a time long ago, transporting you for an instant to that lost moment. For me, it was this melody.

I stepped down the three stairs from the street and went through the nondescript door of Club Carmen. The ordinary exterior gave way to the most opulent interior. But I had no time to take anything in. The music made it difficult to walk, to think—piano playing the darkest tune I had ever heard.

It was the sound of hopelessness.

A heartbreak.

It trapped me between worlds. Between the past and the present. Behind the heavy, deep-purple velvet curtains hanging just inside the door to keep the cold gusts of wind from entering this strange, almost otherworldly place.

A woman giggled, stumbled through the curtain, and knocked her shoulder into me on her way out. I caught her before she fell and righted her. She turned big, drunk eyes up to mine, opened her mouth to apologize, and, at the urging of her friend, slipped past.

“Damon?”

Stephanie, the woman I’d come with, called my name. She’d been here before. Obviously. She waited at the coat check, watching me, while all I could do was stand there and listen to the sound of the piano, note after melodic note, trying to make sense of something my brain couldn’t make sense of.

I smiled and turned to her, wondering what the hell I was doing. Why I’d agreed to bring her here after a business dinner that had already lasted way too long. Gavin, my dean at seminary, had arranged the meeting. We needed the funding, and it was my job to ensure we received it.

I walked over to her and helped her with her coat before sliding mine off and handing both to the girl behind the counter. Taking our ticket, I led Stephanie to the next room, a richly decorated space that would fit better in a centuries-old palace in France than in the basement level of a much younger building in Manhattan. Silk hung from every wall and even billowed over the ceiling, cinched by a too large, too beautiful chandelier at the center. The color red liberally accented the dimly lit space, and sofas and lushly upholstered chairs in the most outrageously ornate patterns made up small, semiprivate seating areas. Along the far wall stood a bar with glass shelves containing a vast amount of liquor stacked high. They had all the name brands I knew and more.

“Let’s get a drink,” Stephanie said.

She walked toward the bar. I followed beside her, but then her words suddenly blurred, became background noise. I tried not to let my gaze wander to the room where the piano music came from but found it impossible. That sound—it felt familiar. I couldn’t place it, but I knew it. Not the piece itself, but the pianist. Didn’t every musician have their own signature sound? Or had I just subconsciously become so very aware of hers?

I shook my head to clear it. It wasn’t possible it was her. She wasn’t here. Not in New York City. Not in this club.

“Why don’t we get a table instead,” I said, steering Stephanie away from the bar and toward the next room. Club Carmen seemed to be made up of a series of them off one central, larger space. We entered the main room where the grand piano stood beneath the frescoed ceiling and ornate walls, protected by two Greek gods who stood on either side of it. It looked as though those gods held up the walls of the building itself. As though without them, they could come crashing down at any moment.

She sat beneath those gods behind the piano, illuminated by a soft spotlight, her gaze on the keys. My attention was immediately drawn to her. A strange sensation made its way through me as I looked at her. It hypnotized me. Seduced me.

“You’re going to love this place.”

Stephanie’s speaking finally broke through whatever was holding me spellbound, whatever was happening inside me.

It took me a moment to process her words, and her deep sigh told me of her annoyance at my lack of attention.

“I already do.” I gestured toward a table another couple had vacated.

It felt surreal, like the music and the lights and maybe the bottle of wine we’d consumed with dinner had been laced with something more, something illicit. Like they were evoking memories, wrapping them in a cloak of something erotic and forbidden.

Forbidden to me.

As Stephanie looked around for a waitress, I watched the woman behind the piano unobserved. It couldn’t be her, though. She was in Chicago. Studying. She couldn’t be playing piano at Club Carmen on a Friday night.

“Finally.”

I heard Stephanie mutter as a waitress approached and forced my gaze away from the girl with the long dark waves falling down her back and over one shoulder, her fingers working over the keyboard, her concentration furious. Tattoos covered the whole of one arm, shoulder, and back—decorating every inch of skin exposed by the little black dress she wore.

“Can I get you a drink?” the waitress asked.

“A vodka martini, please,” Stephanie replied.

“I’ll have a whiskey neat. Thank you.”

“Be right back.”

I met Stephanie’s seductive gaze, her smile flirtatious. She had expectations for tonight. Expectations I thought I’d checked over the last three days I’d had to spend with her. I felt irritated by her and her assumption. She should know better.

A few moments later, when the waitress returned with our drinks, I asked her if she knew the pianist’s name. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

“She is.”

“Kat something. I don’t know her last name. I can ask if you like?”

Stephanie shifted her gaze from me to the girl behind the piano and back, taking the measure of what I assumed she considered her competition. But it wasn’t like that.

Not really.

Although, wasn’t that the reason I’d been banished to this city? To figure out what I wanted, where I belonged? Who the hell I was?

I shook my head. Not the time for those thoughts.

“No,” I said to the waitress. “That’s not necessary. I thought it was someone else.”

I thought it was Lina.

The music, the tones, and the mood of the piece she played—it all felt familiar. And in profile, her face was Lina’s. I’d listened to her play countless times when she’d lived with Raphael and Sofia. But I hadn’t heard from her in the last two years. She’d disappeared from my life as effectively as I’d disappeared from hers.

As soon as the waitress left, Stephanie spoke. “Do you know her or something?”

I turned to her, studied her face, her annoyance obvious. An edge had sharpened her tone. Stephanie Marcola’s father had been a great supporter of St. Mark’s Seminary. He’d attended it in his younger years, and even though he’d chosen a life outside the church, he’d always given generously to help keep it running. As his only child, Stephanie had inherited the Marcola fortune. I had been sent to ensure those donations would keep coming. Well, that was one of the reasons. Gavin, the dean, had another reason as well.

“No. I thought she looked familiar, but I was mistaken.”

“The way you were asking, I thought you did.”

I struggled to focus on Stephanie while the music playing in the background haunted me. “I guess we’re both wrong, then,” I said, finishing my drink, finished with Stephanie. I set my glass down. “This isn’t going to happen,” I said bluntly.

“I don’t know what you mean, Damon.”

“You are aware, Stephanie, that I haven’t left the seminary. I’m here as a representative of it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No?” I asked, leaning toward her.

She placed her elbows on the table, encouraged, perhaps. Her gaze roamed over my face, lingering at my mouth before returning to my eyes.

“When Father Gavin set up this meeting, I was expecting to meet a very…different…man.”

“Different?” I raised my eyebrows.

She shrugged a shoulder. “Please, Damon, you’re not stupid. And you forget, I know Gavin. I know how he works. He exiled you to this city of all cities? For what, exactly?”

She was finished playing coy? It was about time. I let my gaze sweep over her face, and one side of my mouth curled upward.

In response, she leaned back in her seat, too sure of herself.

“Perhaps he knows you better than you know yourself. Perhaps he is…”

She let her words hang in the air and reached a hand underneath the table. I felt her touch on my knee, her fingers trailing along my thigh.

“Testing you?” she finished.

I cleared my throat. I’d underestimated her. Her attempt at seduction was laughable, that I expected. But I hadn’t realized she understood the reason I’d been sent. The true reason.

She leaned in. “Maybe you should just give in.”

She was so close, I felt her breath on my cheek.

I let silence hang between us, and a victorious smile spread across her face. At least, it did until I spoke. “So you lied a moment ago. You knew exactly what I meant.”

She blinked fast, caught, not expecting that. A moment later, she narrowed her eyes, her mind calculating her next move.

But I was one step ahead, and I was done with this game.

“Did you think he sent me to bed you, Stephanie?”

She choked on the sip of martini she’d just taken.

“Is that how little you think of him? He’d be disappointed to know it. He was a close friend of your fathers. Baptized you when you were a baby, isn’t that right?”

“I—”

I leaned back in my seat and checked my watch. “It’s late.” I rose to my feet.

She cleared her throat, looking around, obviously not expecting things to take this turn.

“I’ll get you a taxi.”

She stood, and I placed a hand at her back to guide her to the coat check. Once there, I helped her with her coat and led her outside. A taxi had just pulled up to the curb.

She turned to me just before entering the vehicle. “You misunderstood,” she said, looking embarrassed.

“I’m sure I did. Good night, Stephanie.”

I handed the driver some bills to take care of her fare to her house, then reentered Club Carmen, resuming my seat at the table. I watched Kat play for another hour before, finally, she finished and stood, glancing around the room for the first time.

No one stopped their conversation, no one applauded. But I guessed that wasn’t the point. She was background, to set the mood. But how could anyone think of that music as mere backdrop?

When her gaze fell in my direction, I stopped breathing.

Those eyes. It was her. It had to be.

With the spotlight on her, she didn’t see me, and I studied her from the anonymity of my seat. Last I’d seen her was two years ago. She’d be twenty now. The features of her face had sharpened—high cheekbones and a defined jaw softened by lush pink lips I remembered well. Her hair had grown longer, and she’d dyed it darker than its natural chocolate brown. The contrast between it and her smooth olive skin and mossy-green eyes was striking.

When she turned to leave, I waved the waitress over and closed out my tab, then walked to the coat check. Not wanting to miss her, I didn’t take the time to button up my coat as I walked out and around to the back of the building where I guessed the staff entrance to be. By the time I got there, though, Lina—or Kat—was already halfway down the street, moving quickly through the rain that felt like ice crystals against my face.

I don’t know why I didn’t call out to her. Instead, I followed her like some stalker, matching her step for step as she walked three blocks then turned left and headed to the subway.

Shit. I needed to buy a ticket. She had a pass, so she swiped and went through.

Finally, I had my ticket and made my way down, lucky there was only one direction she could go, not thinking about why I was in such a panic to follow her. I took the stairs fast, and by the time I hit the platform, a train arrived and the doors slid open. I looked right and left, but I didn’t see her. A few passengers disembarked, but no one boarded.

Confused, I walked right.

The train doors closed, and I watched it go. Had I missed her? Maybe I was too late after all. But then I heard it. The sound of a struggle.

I rushed toward the noise. It came from behind a construction blockade. I heard a man’s voice say to be quiet. I slowed my steps, but when I heard her scream, I broke into a run and found two men had cornered her against a blockade. I guessed them to be homeless from the looks of them. One brandished a knife.

I only saw Lina in my peripheral vision, my gaze on the men. They were drunk. I could see it as well as smell it, but they had a weapon, and I had nothing.

“I’ve called the police. You’d better get out of here before they get here,” I warned.

“Fuck you, man.”

He looked uncertainly at his partner who held the knife. He jittered from one foot to the other like he was more than just drunk.

I moved closer. “Lina.” I stretched my arm out between the men and her, steering her behind me, shielding her from them with my body.

“The bag,” the man brandishing the knife said. “Give me the bag.”

Footsteps sounded at the top of the stairs.

“Fuck, that’s the cops. Let’s go!”

His friend bolted, leaving the other man to look around, confused and unsure.

“Go!” I yelled.

He ran, as if obeying an order. I exhaled and stood with my back to Lina, safeguarding her until the men disappeared.

Lina made a sound behind me, a shaky, audible exhale. I slowly turned.

“That’s never happened before.”

She stood just a foot from me, and no matter what the waitress had said her name was, it was Lina. I had no doubt. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

She sucked in a choppy breath, straightening, her eyes reddening even as she shook her head. “I’m okay.”

She stared up at me. I could see her slowly processing who I was.

I stood watching her, unable to move, to speak, to think.

“Damon?” she finally asked, breaking the spell.

I ran a hand through my hair. “You’re supposed to be in Chicago.”

She looked at me, at my black coat. No collar. Not what she expected, I guessed.

“You’re supposed to be a priest.”

I had no response to that. She was right. I was supposed to have been ordained two years ago.

I bent to pick up the things that had fallen out of her bag during her struggle. “You shouldn’t be down here alone this late at night.”

“I always take this train.”

Straightening, I handed her the things. She took them and shoved them into her bag.

“Let’s go.” I gestured to the stairs.

“Where?”

“We’ll get a taxi.”

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I didn’t find you. I just happened to come to Club Carmen. Lina, your sister thinks you’re at school in Chicago.”

Her eyes widened, and pink flushed her cheeks. The sound of people singing at the top of the stairs interrupted. More drunks.

“Let’s go. You can explain when I get you home.”