Did you save him, Alice, the way you saved us?
Oren climbed out, and then he turned and reached back down into the hole from which he’d climbed and then—
And then—
Like the sun and the moon…
Until death…
He left you the fortune, Heiress. And all he left us is…
“You,” Jameson whispered, as the vision of Avery in his memory—tangled hair, ratty pajamas—gave way to reality.Tangled hair, tattered ballgown.For Jameson, her eyes were the beginning and the end of the world. They were everything.
And then he was holding her, and she was looking up at him, and Jameson pressed his lips gently, desperately to her forehead, her temple, her lips.
“Heads or tails, Heiress,” Jameson whispered, unable to believe she was real.
“Hide and Seek.” Avery’s voice was beyond hoarse. “You found me.”
PART FOUR
No Regrets.
Chapter 97
ROHAN
Dark water.Trapped in the darkness, in a pool too deep for him to stand, Rohan marked the passing of time with the coming and going of high tide, during which he could hear the crashing of waves against the mountain of rock that had once been the mouth of a cave.
He’d almost made it all the way out. He’d leapt from the tunnelasthe passageway behind him had caved in. Miraculously, the roof of the cave directly over the water he’d landed in had held.
The mouth of the cave had not.
Rohan had gotten nowhere trying to dig or claw his way out. He couldn’t even pull himself out of the water. He’d managed to keep himself from sinking for what he calculated to be nearly a day, but eventually, even Rohan’s strength would fail.
Dark water.The irony that this might be his end didn’t escape Rohan. Surrounded byrocksand submersed indark water—fate really was a bitch. And the worst of it was that if Rohan died here, he’d die alone. And Rohan found, in darkness and silence, much to his surprise, that he did not want to die alone.
And that was ridiculous, because what did it matter, really? If you were going to die, what did it matter if you died alone?
But again and again in the darkness, Rohan’s mind went to far more pleasant ways to die, to a winter girl who’d washed her hands of him and to Toby Hawthorne’s parting words.
Rohan didn’t want to think about Toby Hawthorne.
Dark water.
Alone.
Treading to stay afloat, Rohan threw his head back and roared—and then he heard something. Through the remains of the cave, through all that rock and stone, he heard something.
A rescue?Then he heard it again.A moan.
“Who’s there?” Rohan’s voice echoed off the pitch-black water all around him.
Through the rubble, Rohan heard a by now familiar voice. “So you did make it out. You’re welcome, by the way.” The Icelandic accent was a dead giveaway.
“You have a strange definition of the wordout,” Rohan told Nora. Her voice was distant enough that he had to raise his to reply. “Are you—”
“I’m not dead yet. Just trapped beneath a little stone.”