Carter Sullivan in the flesh. More devastating than she remembered. Taller somehow, his shoulders broader, his presence more commanding.
He was surrounded by people in expensive suits, talking rapid‑fire about numbers and projections and quarterly reports.
He looked nothing like the man who’d laughed at her terrible jokes and kissed her like she was oxygen and he was drowning.
Natalie tried to move forward, tried to call out his name, but her legs had other ideas. Her vision was going black, and the last thing she registered before the world tilted sideways was the sound of someone shouting.
Then nothing.
Carter Sullivan had been in the middle of explaining why the Henderson merger needed to close by Friday when Marcus, his head of security, made a sound like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Sir—someone just collapsed right in front of the building.”
Carter’s first instinct was to keep walking. He had seventeen more items on today’s agenda, a video call with Tokyo in twenty minutes, and a headache that felt like someone was using his skull for percussion practice.
But something in Marcus’s voice—alarm, urgency, something else—made him stop.
“Where?” Carter demanded.
“There. By the east entrance. A woman—”
Carter didn’t hear the rest. He was already running, his expensive Italian shoes slapping against the pavement, his entourage scrambling to keep up.
A small crowd had gathered, but they parted when they saw him coming, probably recognizing the six‑foot‑three frame and the expression that made grown executives panic in board meetings.
And then he saw her.
The world stopped.
Every sound faded to white noise. Every person disappeared.
There was only her.
Crumpled on the concrete like a broken doll. Dark hair spilling across the gray stone. Face so pale it was almost translucent.
“No. No, no, no.”
“Natalie,” he breathed, and the name tore out of him like a prayer.
