The lobby of Hale Holdings was half-dark. Rain streaked the glass. Sebastian loosened his tie as he stepped out of the lift.
Daniel waited by the door with an umbrella already open. “Car’s right outside, sir.”
“I’ll walk. Give me twenty minutes to think.”
Daniel handed him the umbrella without argument.
The street was the same one. The same hour. The same rain. Qinn stood under the identical narrow awning, temporary black hair wet at the edges, thin grey raincoat, no umbrella of her own.
Same street. Same time of night. Same rain. Two years ago he didn’t know my name, he just knew I was cold. I need to know if that was him, or if it was just an accident of timing.
Sebastian stopped when he saw her. A flicker of recognition crossed his face and left again.
“This is oddly familiar.”
Her chest tightened. “Sorry?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. You’ll catch cold standing there.”
The exact words from two years earlier. She kept her face still.
They walked under the single umbrella. He angled the canopy toward her until his own shoulder darkened with rain.
“You’re getting soaked on my account.”
“I’m aware.”
“And you’re not going to fix it?”
A short pause. “No.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. She turned her face away.
Two years ago he walked away before I could even say thank you. Tonight he’s choosing to get wet rather than pull the umbrella back to himself. That’s not an accident twice.
They stopped under a brighter streetlamp.
“Can I ask you something strange?”
“Go on.”
“Do you ever feel like you’ve lived a moment before? Not déjà vu exactly. More like your body remembers something your mind hasn’t caught up to yet.”
Her fingers curled inside the raincoat pocket. “All the time.”
He looked at her as if the answer had confirmed something he was not ready to name. “Sorry. Long week.”
His hand on the umbrella handle shifted closer to hers.
A black SUV tore past, throwing a wall of dirty water. Sebastian dropped the handle, caught her around the waist and pulled her hard against the brick wall. In the space between one heartbeat and the next she saw the umbrella cartwheel into the gutter, his mouth crashing onto hers, rain running from his hair into the kiss, her hands buried in the wet strands, his palm sliding down her spine under the thin coat.
Reality reasserted itself. The umbrella was still open. He was braced with one hand on the wall beside her head, the other still holding the canopy over both of them. His back and side were soaked. She was dry. Their faces were centimetres apart. His eyes were fixed on her mouth. Both of them were breathing hard.
His phone vibrated three times in his coat. He closed his eyes, forced himself to straighten, and stepped back.
At the junction where their paths split he pushed the umbrella into her hands.
“Keep it. I know the way home in the rain.”
Their fingers overlapped on the handle for a moment.
“Thank you. Again.”
He frowned at the word again, but the phone was still ringing. He answered as he walked away into the rain without cover.
In the Rolls later, hair and shoulders dripping, he answered Daniel’s look.
“You’re soaked, sir. Where’s the umbrella?”
“Gave it away.”
He opened the notes app. ELENA. IVY. He added a third line: RAIN GIRL, again.
Then he opened the calendar and scrolled back exactly two years. The entry from that night was still there.
Rain girl. Didn’t ask her name. Should have.
He stared at his own handwriting from two years earlier and did not blink.