CHAPTER 2

Dublin, Ireland

The jet touched down in Dublin beneath a sky heavy with rain.

I watched the droplets slide across the small window, tracing crooked paths through the darkness. Somewhere beyond the glass lay a city I had apparently once called home. A place where people knew my name, where I had lived a life I couldn't remember, and where a little girl might be waiting for a mother she believed had simply disappeared.

If Declan was telling the truth.

That remained the question I couldn't escape.

“You're quiet,” he observed.

I turned away from the window. “Would you prefer that I scream?”

His expression didn't change. “I'd prefer you asked questions.”

“I have questions. You just haven't given me a single reason to trust your answers.”

For a moment, he said nothing. Then he rose and offered me his hand.

I ignored it and stood on my own.

The journey from the jet to the waiting SUV was brief, but the cold rain soaked the edges of my coat. Two men stood beside the vehicle, their attention fixed on Declan. Neither seemed surprised to see him return with a woman who looked ready to run.

That realization unsettled me more than it should have.

How many times had I stood in this exact place?

How many times had I left beside him?

I had no answers.

The SUV pulled away from the private airfield, carrying us through streets that gradually became unfamiliar in a different way. The buildings, the road signs, the gray sky—none of it stirred recognition. I searched my mind for even the smallest detail, a fragment of memory that might prove Declan wasn't lying.

Nothing came.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Home.”

The word felt like a door closing.

“Your home?”

“Our home.”

I looked at him sharply. “Stop saying things as if repeating them will make me believe you.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn't argue.

Instead, he turned toward the window, leaving me alone with the silence and the growing certainty that whatever waited at the end of this journey would change everything.

The gates appeared several minutes later.

Black iron. Stone pillars. Security cameras positioned along the walls.

Beyond them stood an enormous old mansion, its dark stone facade partly covered in ivy. Warm lights glowed behind tall windows, offering a strange contrast to the cold, imposing structure.

The gates opened before the SUV reached them.

I watched the guards straighten as we passed.

This wasn't simply a house.

It was a fortress.

And Declan moved through it as though every stone belonged to him.

The vehicle stopped beneath the entrance canopy. Before I could open my door, Declan stepped outside and came around to my side.

“I can manage,” I told him when he offered his hand again.

“I know.”

“Then stop acting as if I can't do anything for myself.”

He lowered his hand.

That small concession surprised me. I had expected another argument, another order disguised as concern.

Instead, he waited until I stepped out before leading the way inside.

The moment I crossed the threshold, my attention caught on the walls.

Photographs covered almost every available space.

Declan stood in the first one, dressed in a dark suit, his expression serious even as he held a small blond girl in his arms. The child was laughing, her head thrown back, one hand gripping his collar.

In another photograph, the same girl sat between us on a garden bench. My arm was around her shoulders. My head leaned toward hers, and my smile looked so natural that it frightened me.

I stepped closer.

The woman in the photographs had my face.

My eyes. My mouth. The same small mark near my left eyebrow.

But her expression was different from the one I saw reflected in every mirror. She looked comfortable here. Certain of herself. She looked like someone who belonged.

I wasn't sure I recognized her at all.

“Who is she?” I whispered.

Declan stopped beside me.

“You.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Evie—”

“No.” My voice rose. “That woman is not me. I don't remember this house. I don't remember you. And I certainly don't remember having a child.”

Pain crossed his face so quickly that I almost missed it.

Almost.

“Her name is Claire,” he said. “She's ten years old.”

Ten.

The number settled heavily in my mind.

A decade of birthdays, scraped knees, school mornings, bedtime stories. Ten years of memories that should have belonged to me.

And I had none of them.

I stared at the photograph again, searching the woman's face for something familiar.

Nothing.

“Why would I forget my own daughter?”

“I don't know.”

It was the first answer he had given me that sounded entirely honest.

I turned toward him. “Then stop pretending you understand what's happening.”

“I never said I understood it.”

“You keep telling me who I am.”

“Because I know who you were.”

“Were?” I repeated. “What does that mean?”

His eyes held mine.

“It means something happened to you. Something that took you away from us. And until we understand what it was, I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers.”

For the first time since meeting him, I had no immediate response.

It didn't mean I trusted him.

It meant I was beginning to understand that he might be just as desperate for answers as I was.

A sound from somewhere deeper in the house interrupted us. Footsteps crossed the corridor, followed by a quiet exchange between two people.

Declan glanced toward the staircase.

“Come with me. You need somewhere to rest.”

“I want to see Claire.”

He looked back at me.

The silence that followed told me more than his expression did.

“She knows you're here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Does she know I don't remember her?”

His face hardened, not with anger but with something that looked dangerously close to grief.

“Not yet.”

“Then she deserves the truth.”

“She deserves a chance to see you without being frightened by everything that's happened.”

I folded my arms. “You don't get to decide what I can handle.”

“No,” he said quietly. “But I have to think about what she can handle.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then he gestured toward the stairs.

“Please.”

The word was unexpected coming from a man who seemed accustomed to being obeyed.

I followed him upstairs, keeping enough distance between us to make it clear that I hadn't forgiven him for anything.

The bedroom he showed me was larger than some apartments I had seen. Tall windows overlooked the grounds, and a fire burned in the fireplace. Books lined one wall. A dressing table stood beneath a mirror, and the wardrobe was filled with women's clothing.

On the bedside table sat a framed photograph of Declan and me.

Wedding clothes.

A ring on my finger.

A life I couldn't remember.

I approached the photograph slowly.

“Were we happy?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Declan remained near the doorway.

“Sometimes.”

I glanced at him, surprised by the answer.

He didn't offer a comforting lie or insist that everything had been perfect. He simply stood there, looking at the photograph as though it belonged to someone he had lost.

“And the other times?”

His gaze returned to me.

“The other times were complicated.”

I almost laughed. “That's one way to describe this.”

“I know.”

He placed a glass of water on the table and stepped away.

“You can lock the door if that makes you feel safer. No one will enter without your permission.”

I studied him, looking for the catch.

“And if I want to leave?”

“I won't pretend you can walk out of here without consequences. There are people who would use your situation against you, and I won't allow them near you.”

“That's not an answer.”

“No,” he admitted. “It isn't.”

He took a small step toward the corridor.

“I'll give you some time. When you're ready, we can talk again.”

I looked at the photographs scattered around the room.

“And Claire?”

“She wants to see you.”

My chest tightened.

“Does she know what happened?”

“She knows you've been away. She knows you're home now.”

“Home,” I repeated, still unable to make the word fit.

Declan paused.

“She has waited a long time for you, Evie.”

Then he left, closing the door behind him.

I stood alone in a room full of evidence that my life had once belonged here.

For several minutes, I didn't move.

Then a soft vibration came from the phone on the bedside table.

I stared at it before picking it up. A message waited on the screen, accompanied by a photograph.

The little blond girl from the hallway smiled at the camera, holding a worn teddy bear against her chest. Her blue eyes were bright, and a gap between her front teeth gave her smile an unmistakably childish charm.

Beneath the picture were five words.

Can I see Mommy now?

My throat tightened.

I read the message again, then a third time.

I didn't remember her.

I didn't remember carrying her as a baby, teaching her to walk, or hearing her call me Mommy for the first time. I didn't remember comforting her after a nightmare or watching her grow into the girl in that photograph.

But she was real.

And whatever had happened to me, she hadn't chosen to lose her mother.

The bedroom door opened after a quiet knock.

Declan remained on the other side, waiting for permission before entering.

“Claire is downstairs,” he said. “She's nervous. She doesn't know how you'll react.”

I looked at the photograph on my phone.

“How am I supposed to react to a child who believes I'm her mother?”

“You don't have to pretend to remember her.”

His answer caught me off guard.

“You can tell her the truth,” he continued. “That you don't remember yet. That you're trying to understand. She may not know how to make sense of it, but she deserves honesty.”

I studied him, searching for the manipulation I had come to expect.

“Will you stay with us?”

“If you want me to.”

I hated that the question made my eyes sting.

I hated even more that, despite everything, I was afraid to face that little girl alone.

“Yes,” I whispered. “But you let me speak for myself.”

Declan nodded.

“Agreed.”

I slipped the phone into my pocket and followed him toward the stairs.

Each step felt like walking into a memory that belonged to someone else.

At the bottom, a small figure waited near the living room doorway, clutching the same teddy bear from the photograph.

The moment she saw me, she went completely still.

Her eyes searched my face.

“Mommy?”

The word barely made it past her lips.

I stopped several feet away, suddenly unable to breathe normally.

I wanted to say something reassuring. Something a mother should know how to say without thinking.

But I didn't know what a mother would say to a daughter she couldn't remember.

So I chose the only truth I had.

“Hi, Claire.”

Her lower lip trembled.

“Do you remember me?”

The question broke something inside me.

I knelt slowly, giving her room to decide whether she wanted to come closer.

“Not yet,” I admitted, fighting to keep my voice steady. “But I'd like to get to know you. If you'll let me.”

Claire stared at me for another moment.

Then she took one cautious step forward.

And for the first time since waking up in a world that insisted I belonged to someone else, I understood that my missing memories weren't the only things at stake.

There was a little girl standing in front of me who had already lost too much.

I couldn't promise to be the mother she remembered.

But I could promise not to lie to her.

It was a beginning.

And right now, a beginning was all I had.