T here are birds in central park. Children everywhere, whooping and screaming. Across the city, Thalia is being buried. Her parents have returned from Corsica to see their only child interred into the earth. Paxton was buried days ago, a sea of people turned out to mourn his loss, not really believing the stories being whispered about him behind hands and into ears in polite social circles. There was a very prestigious obituary posted in T he New York Times about him, a full quarter of a page; it spoke of his highly respected career, his charitable works in the community, his academic accolades and his humanitarian works overseas. It was Raphael and Thalia that worked together in Africa, of course. Paxton did nothing but pay them a visit. He stayed in a three star hotel and drank gin and tonics at the bar while they got their hands dirty, digging wells and building schools. The people who attended Trinity Church and then followed on to Paxton’s parents’ luxury penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side know nothing of that, though. The man was very good at presenting a saintly front. His family lawyers have already managed to spin Thalia’s death as a suicide. Technically it was. She did jump from the balcony of her apartment, after all, but I will always hold him responsible. There is a burden of responsibility with things like this. If she hadn’t carried the guilt of Chloe’s death around with her for so long, she might not have been so traumatized when she learned of Paxton’s actual involvement in the accident. If he hadn’t had admitted his feelings for Raphael in such a dramatic, angry way, after years letting her believe there was still hope for them, she might not have felt that death was her only way out.

As it stands, the media have been playing the whole incident out as a double suicide, a lovers’ argument gone wrong. Thalia and Paxton argued, and after he watched the woman he loved swan dive from the seventeenth floor of her building, he couldn’t bear the pain and slit his own throat.

It feels wrong to let the lie stand. So hideously wrong that I wake up in the middle of the night, covered in a cold sweat, my own cries dying on my lips, and I want to pick up the phone. I want to call someone—one of the thousands of news reporters who hounded me for so long, wanting to pay me for my sordid tales of Raphael North—and I want to tell them the truth of it. The black and the white, from start to finish. What would it accomplish, though? Thalia is dead. Paxton is dead. There will come a time when I’ll clear away the cobwebs and the full story will come out. But now? Life is still too crazy to even contemplate such a thing. It wouldn’t be easy. It would be messy and painful, and Thalia’s parents are already suffering enough. They’re private people, and they’re already dealing with the shame of a daughter who ended her life in such a public way.

They were true New York socialites. Thalia was raised from birth with a nanny and a tutor. She spent very little time with her eccentric parents. They seemed far more occupied with their business meetings and their world travels to concern themselves with their daughter’s education or her upbringing, but for all that, they now seem genuinely harrowed and hollowed out in their loss.

Raphael, Paxton and Thalia were the true darlings of New York. Now, with two of them gone, only Raphael remains. Raphael North, a man who once featured heavily in my dreams. An unobtainable fiction of a man, richer than a person’s wildest dreams, more handsome than any Calvin Klein model, a ghost who somehow owned the streets of this bustling city without trying. Now, my Raphael North, the man I wake up to every day. The man who cooks for me, who reads to me. Who kisses the back of my neck as I study. A completely different entity altogether.

The man I love.

I find myself wondering how many people turned up to Thalia’s funeral as I sit on the bench in the park, watching joggers and families pass by. Maybe I should have gone to the funeral. I definitely should have gone to the funeral, but a part of me just couldn’t face it. She lied to me for so long. She hid so much. I could never have imagined hiding so much from her, she was my closest friend, and now…it feels as if I never really knew her at all. The chasms of hurt that exist within me are going to take a long time to heal. There will come a day when I won’t think of all the lies when I remember her. At some point, I’ll be able to remember her fondly. Gradually, piece-by-piece, a small rope bridge will appear over those chasms, and I’ll gingerly be able to navigate the gap without feeling like I’ll fall, myself. I’m looking forward to that day. Until then, all I can do is try not to be angry with her.

“Excuse me? Is this seat taken?”

I look up, and there’s a man standing before me. A beautiful man with piercing green eyes. He’s wearing a formal black suit with a black shirt and black tie. His dark hair is slicked back, a fashionable hipster cut, buzzed at the sides. He is a midnight man, a creature of shade and shadow. He smiles at me, his mouth quirking up a little at the corners, and my heart nearly skips out of my chest.

I return his smile, looking at the empty spot on the bench beside me. “Well…I am waiting for my boyfriend, but he appears to be late. I suppose I wouldn’t mind if you sat here for a while.”

The man with the green eyes frowns ever so slightly. “He must be a crazy fool to keep a beautiful woman like you waiting. His loss is my gain, though. I’ll gladly keep his seat warm.” He sits next to me, crossing his legs at the ankle, stacking his hands on top of one another over his stomach—a relaxed, laid back pose. Weird. New.

“I’ve just been at a funeral,” he says absently, looking out over the park.

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Mmm.” He shrugs, lifting just one shoulder. “It was sad. Really sad. In a lot of ways, it was kind of happy, though. It was full of music and laughter. People shared a lot of happy stories.”

I have no idea how he can talk like this. He took the fall for her for so long. He was trapped inside his own apartment for two years because of her. He did it willingly, though, to save her from suffering a far worse fate. He loved her with all his heart, as much as any friend can love another. I just…I don’t know if I could have done it. I sit for a long time, wondering how he’s managed to come to this point in the healing process so quickly. In the end, I can’t take it any longer. I have to say something.

“You’re the best man I know, Raphael. I just…I couldn’t… I don’t know how you can…” The words don’t come easily. The words don’t really come at all. Raphael knows what I’m trying to say, though. He sighs heavily, his head rolling on his shoulders as he slowly stretches.

“The accident was bad, Beth. I was so angry at Thalia for putting me in that position. I didn’t want to cut her away from my life altogether, though. Seeing her…seeing her brought it all flooding back. Each and every time. But I was hopeful that one day I’d be able to forgive her enough to invite her back in.”

“You should never have convinced yourself that you were to blame for Chloe, though. You knew you weren’t. Carrying that burden around on your shoulders must have been crippling.”

He smiles sadly. “She came out with me that night. She was in that car because of me. If she hadn’t agreed to go out with me, she would have been on a date with someone else that night. She would have gone to dinner and had a great time. She would have gone home and had great sex with some easy, happy, safe guy. She might have fallen in love with him. Gotten married. Had children with him. Instead, she was with me . Instead, she ended up dead. That’s all there is to it.” He sounds so matter of fact about it that I don’t want to argue with him. It’s not that simple. It’s still not his fault. Now isn’t the time to hash that out, though. There’s still so much we need to talk about, but I’m confident we will get there one day. For now, it’s enough that he’s outside, sitting next to me on a park bench, enjoying the feel of the sun on his skin. Not too long ago, this would have been impossible. Raphael closes his eyes, humming, a small smile still playing over his face.

“I’m angry at Thalia for taking her own life. If she’d talked to me, things would have been so different,” he muses. “Aside from that, any anger I harbored toward her died a while back. And at the end there, I was eternally grateful to her.”

“Grateful ? Why?” My mind can’t even begin to bend around the concept.

Raphael turns his head, so that he’s facing me. He opens his eyes, and his smile, slightly sad though it is, broadens.

“If I’d severed all ties with her, I never would have met you, would I? Our paths would never have crossed. And you are the most important thing in my world, Elizabeth Dreymon. You are the sun and the moon in my sky. When I look out over this city, I don’t see a thousand streets all intersecting anymore, millions and millions of people all going about their daily lives. I see a maze, and in it somewhere…you. You’re on my mind twenty-four hours a day. I’m constantly wondering where you are. Who you’re with. What you’re doing. If you’re happy. Sad. Safe. I’m constantly waiting until we can be together. I never thought I’d get to be this happy again. I never thought for one goddamn second I’d find a woman as remarkable and special as you. I love you.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but…you’re Raphael North, aren’t you?” a female voice asks. Both Raphael and I have been so caught up in each other that we haven’t noticed the woman approaching us. She’s tall and waspy, with a pinched look to her face. In other words, she looks mean. I recognize the fierce hunger in her eyes, and I already know she’s a member of the press. If nothing else, her ugly pant suit gives her away. Raphael must see who and what she is immediately too, but he doesn’t snap at her. He smiles benevolently.

“I am,” he says. “Right now, I’m very proud to be him, too.”

The woman smiles, but the gesture doesn’t reach her eyes. She takes a step forward, reaching into her pocket, pulling out a notepad and pen. “I’m Tracey Wick, from the Enquirer. I was wondering if you might have anything to say about the recent sex tape scandal that took place with…” Her eyes skitter toward me. “With Ms. Dreymon here?”

“Actually I don’t have anything to say about that,” Raphael says mildly. “But if you’d like to give me your card, perhaps I might provide you with a statement at a later date. Right now, I’m enjoying spending some time with my fiancée.”

Tracey from the Enquirer’s eyes almost bug out of her head. The promise of an exclusive statement is obviously way more than she was expecting. My eyes are bugging out of my head for entirely different reasons.

The reporter quickly rifles through her purse, then whips out a business card, almost flinging it at Raphael. “Thank you so much,” she says, excitement tingeing her voice. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you soon, Mr. North.”

He says nothing. Just smiles as she walks away. He reclines back against the bench and twists his head again, returning to his pervious pose. “What?” he says, laughing softly under his breath.

“Your fiancée ?” There’s no way I can keep my tone even. “That’s news to me.”

Raph grins broadly. His laughter is no longer under his breath, but loud and infectious. “Oh. Yes. Well,” he says softly, “I have been meaning to talk to you about that.”