London—September 1816

Devon stumbled through the gardens, his heart pounding as he struggled to catch his breath. The muted sounds of laughter and fireworks that blossomed in the sky overhead were all too familiar.

“I’m…home…” The words escaped his lips in a ragged whisper. He was home, but he wasn’t with Rebecca.

“Aphrodite?” He didn’t shout her name, but rather it came out as a soft plea.

A woman in a dark-red evening gown appeared. He fell to his knees, clutching at her skirts.

“Take me back, please. Take me back to her.” His eyes stung with tears. He would beg. He would grovel. He would do anything to be back with the woman he loved.

Aphrodite gave him a cold smile. “You have been granted all the mercy I am willing to give. I returned you to your time, at her request.”

She asked that he be returned to his time and not to her? His heart seized. It couldn’t be true. Surely she felt the same for him as he did for her.

“You have your life back—that is all that matters. You’re free to return to your former life.” Aphrodite waved her hand around the gardens and smiled. “We were in the midst of a celebration when this all began, don’t you remember? And I feel you’ve learned your lesson, perhaps even enough to please me now as you should have before. Care to try again?” She stroked her fingertips down his cheek, an affectionate, lust-filled gaze in her eyes.

Devon lowered his head. His heart sank toward the ground, as if to bury itself in the soil, never to beat again. He let go of her fine silk skirts and touched the ground, palms flat on the earth.

“I’m sorry, my goddess. But I cannot.”

She reached down to lift his head to face hers again. “Such an offer is not lightly made. You dare risk angering me a second time?”

“I beg your forgiveness, but I cannot give you what you want, because my heart belongs to another. I will love no one but her. If you cannot send me back, then I beg of you one final request.”

The goddess said nothing, but she waited for him to continue.

“Please find it in your heart to send her a man who will care for her in all the ways I wish I could.” His voice was hoarse, but he got the words out past the icy grief stealing through his soul.

Aphrodite’s blue eyes widened. “Why?”

“She has lived a life without proper love, and I cannot bear to think of her going on without it. I want her to be happy, to be loved. It is my only wish.” And he meant it from the depths of his soul and beyond.

Aphrodite leaned down and cupped his face in her hands. She kissed him softly, not as a lover but as a queen to her subject. “Then you truly have learned to put someone before yourself. In three days, I shall meet you here and ask you if you wish to return. Be certain of your decision, for I will never offer it again.”

Three days…he could see his family, say his farewells, and go home to Rebecca.

“Yes, I accept.”

“Very well.” A small smile curved her lips.

He had but a moment to see a constellation of stars winking in her eyes before everything went dark.

* * *

It had been three weeks since Rebecca had lost Devon. Three long weeks without dancing, without laughter, without love. But she’d rallied and forced herself to get out of bed each morning and go to work. She had to. She didn’t know what else to do.

It seemed Aphrodite didn’t like to leave loose ends. A replacement statue had magically appeared the night before the big exhibit launch with her boss none the wiser. She’d gone into the gallery several times to see it, hoping against hope she’d find it missing again and instead have her living, breathing lover before her once more. But it never happened. The statue remained there on its pedestal, stoic and sightless…merely sand and stone.

She reminded herself that somewhere in the distant past Devon was living his life. Had lived his life. He was long gone, and all that remained were faint echoes of their time together. Evan sat on the couch, sighing heavily each night when she went to bed as though he missed the man who’d become a part of his life just the way Devon had become a part of hers.

After the first day of him being gone, she’d checked the ancestry site, and when she hadn’t seen him appear on his tree, she’d been worried. Perhaps he’d never married and didn’t show up as a possible connection to later descendants. She’d found his death date as September 1816, but she hadn’t been able to stomach the thought that he really had died then. Surely Aphrodite wouldn’t have let that happen. If she had…Rebecca’s stomach churned again. Would she ever know Devon’s fate?

Rebecca came home from work, her feet aching from wearing heels again, but she’d stood up to her boss today and told him that his dress code requirements were not only uncomfortable, but unfair—this was the twenty-first century, dammit. She’d also said in no uncertain terms that his OCD issues were counterproductive to the smooth operation of the museum and that if he kept it up, she was going to quit.

He’d actually backed off. She couldn’t believe it. She’d figured out how to handle him and had finally been given more freedom with the exhibits and her responsibilities—not to mention free drinks for life from her female coworkers.

She unlocked her front door and kicked off her shoes, happy to see Evan prancing excitedly by the front door. He clearly needed to be let out.

“Hey, big guy.” She ruffled his fur and kissed his head. She buried her nose in his coat, inhaling the scent, surprised that he smelled like the outdoors. A Wheaton Terrier’s fur often carried the aromas of whatever they’d been nearest. She breathed in the scent of trees and fresh mown grass, puzzled. He hadn’t been outside in hours. Mystified, she released Evan and he nuzzled his mouth against her hands and face before he sat back on his haunches and barked at her twice.

His tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, and he started bouncing toward the living room. That was when she smelled the most divine aroma. Had she left something in the oven when she’d come home for lunch? Worried, she rushed into the kitchen and froze when she saw a man bending down over the oven, lifting out a glass dish with baked chicken.

“Just in time.” That familiar, wonderful accent was like the strains of a favorite melody she hadn’t listened in ages.

“Devon…” She choked down a sob as he turned to face her, removing his oven mitts.

He opened his arms, and she flung herself into his embrace. “Rebecca.”

This is a dream; maybe I died driving my car home from the museum. It can’t be him, it can’t be…

“Don’t cry. I promised I would never let you cry again because of me. I would hate to be caught in a lie.” His lips brushed her ear, and she blinked away the rush of tears and sniffled. She nuzzled against his chest, as though she’d been missing a piece of herself for so long and now she was…whole. She kissed him hard even as she tried to convince herself this was real, that she wasn’t dreaming.

“She… Aphrodite said she wouldn’t let you come back to me,” Rebecca confessed between sniffles and kisses. “It was either the stone or sending you to back to your life in the past. I begged her to send you back home so you could live.”

“I begged her to send you a man who would love you as I wished to. She said I had learned my lesson and sent me back to you.”

“But why did she wait three weeks?”

He hesitated. “She gave me three days to say my farewells to my family and sort out my affairs, and I spent the last two and a half weeks seeking employment and settling in here. I’ve been living in Mrs. Lesley’s spare bedroom.”

Rebecca stared at him. This whole time when she’d been picking up the pieces of her heart and trying to get her life back together, he’d been next door?

She smacked him across the cheek and then immediately started to cry. He held her tight, whispering in her ear.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to come to you more than anything. But I felt I had to find employment and a decent wage before I could come back. You deserve a man who can provide for you and your home.” When he said the word home, it rocked her to her core because it was true. This was his home.

And he’s my home.

“I’m sorry, I just… Three weeks, Devon. My heart… I can’t take that again.”

“You’ll never have to be without me again, I promise.”

He lowered his head to hers, and their lips brushed in a melting fire of passion. The glowing pulse of love that sparked between them could never be extinguished. The will of an angry goddess had brought them together. Rebecca was never going to let Devon go. And by the way he looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes, he wasn’t going to let go of her either.

He chuckled. “Who knew it would be such a blessing to be cursed?”

“Who indeed?” Rebecca laughed, but they both shivered when they heard that bell-like sound of a goddess’s laughter ringing in the air all around them.

Who indeed…