Willow wasn't sure what she was expecting to find in the lone corner of the grand gardens of Ronin's property, but the last person she thought she would find was the man who had forgotten her so easily.
Dan.
But she would be lying if seeing him hadn't given her hopes she didn't have right having. Her heart thumped towards him and for a second her eyes begged him to stop pretending and torturing her with his obliviousness.
But then she got a better hold on herself and rolled her shoulders. There was no point in wasting emotions where they wouldn't be appreciated. And right now, as much as it hurt her to admit, Dan was the last person to understand how she truly felt on the inside.
"Well, aren't you a huge hypocrite?" she taunted, aware of his presence across the small field of freshly cut grass. He stood against a tall tree, leaning his shoulder against it, ankles crossed almost lazily. The area was shrouded in thick darkness, making it hard to see his expression. However, the way his dark eyes glinted against the faint light of the moon streaming through the branches and leaves suggested he was looking at her—perhaps trying to gauge her reaction.
"I wonder what makes you come to that conclusion."
Willow couldn't help but roll her eyes. "You told me not to trespass on your property, and now you're trespassing on my family's? If that's not hypocrisy at its finest, I don't know what is."
There was a beat of silence before he tipped his head to the side. "I'm not trespassing."
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Of course, you aren't."
"Ronin invited me."
Of course, he did. She had forgotten they could have been on good terms after the fire. Ronin was alive now, and as far as she knew her brother, he would have done his best to show his gratitude for all the help. "That doesn't explain why you had to be so rude to me earlier."
"I was rude to you?" he asked, as if he hadn't seen that accusation coming.
Willow frowned. "Nah, your hospitality was off the charts, dude. I was just messing with you."
For the first time in a long time, she watched his shoulders shake with a low, deep chuckle. It was more like a scoff, but she had known him long enough to tell the difference. "You're one of those, aren't you?"
She had no way of knowing what he was talking about. "Like who?"
"The one with a grudge."
"It's more like reciprocating what others give me. I don't like to be biased."
"So, if I'm right, you plan to reciprocate my rudeness by being rude to me?"
"Exactly!"
"Figured."
She shrugged.
"Why did you come to find me this morning?"
His question caught her off guard, and although she could sense a random lie on the tip of her tongue almost instantly, she took a moment to rethink. "I told you why."
"That thing about Eric?" he asked with a scoff. "We both know that was a fucking lie."
She raised a brow, realizing he was the one who brought up Eric during their exchange earlier. She merely used that information for an easy escape. But seemed like she had only trapped herself more. The trap he had laid very cunningly. "Why did you let me go if you did not believe me?"
He shrugged, and to her mild surprise, peeled his back off the tree, taking a slow step closer. "Why do you think?"
She held his gaze for a moment, trying to decipher the underlying meaning of his question. Was it a challenge, a taunt, or something else entirely? She couldn't quite grasp it.
Finally, she replied, her voice steady despite the uncertainty swirling within her. "Maybe because you wanted to see what I'd do next?"
"Maybe."
"That's not much of an answer."
He was moving closer and all she could do was push her back more into the tree behind her. A beam of moonlight illuminated his face, highlighting his rugged features and deep, mysterious eyes. He wore snug denim jeans and a black leather jacket over a black t-shirt, hands stuffed deep into the jacket.
Willow had almost forgotten the kind of effect he had on her, how he always kept her on her toes. His short dark hair jigged with the soft breeze of the night, his skin clean and bright under the moonlight.
"Perhaps I don't intend to give you any."
She swallowed deep in her throat, narrowing her eyes. "What does that—"
She was saying but he cut her off by stepping in front of her and propping an arm on the tree behind her. He was so close, for a long minute neither of them spoke a word.
"There's one thing that I have not been able to understand."
"What?
"You were in a coma for a very long time."
"Yes, I was."
"Even at the night of the fire."
"Yup!"
He leaned in closer, as if not wanting to miss a single detail from thereon. "Then how come I saw you that night?"
Willow swallowed, feeling trapped once again. He had cornered her for a reason. He wanted answers. A mystery he probably couldn't solve.
She shrugged, trying to be clueless. "Saw me where?"
His eyes darkened even more. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Trying to be smart."
"What makes you think I'm trying?" She tilted her head to the other side, looking up at him. "For your kind information, I have always been smart."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "You were there that night," he said with more conviction, leaning closer. "At least, it was you that I saw. I know I'm right."
Willow struggled to understand what the hell was going on. She had time-traveled in the past to save Ronin. And while she had no intention but to do just that, she ended up making the blunder of coming face-to-face with him. Dan had not only seen her but also caught her and looked her in the eye when he tried to stop her from jumping into the fire.
Now that she was back in the present, it made sense that he remembered that incident. She thought it was funny in a way. Their whole romance was wiped out from her present probably because of that one stupid confrontation.
But the truth was, she couldn't simply admit to bumping into him that night just because it was the only truth. In reality, she was supposed to be in a coma during that time and miles away from where that incident happened. In reality, she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near that place, or him. In reality, it never happened because one person couldn't be in two places, especially one in a prolonged state of unconsciousness.
Suddenly, she was nervous. She averted her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about."
But he was determined to prove her wrong.
He grabbed her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. "I have been trying to understand this mystery for as long as I can remember. You were there that night. I saw you with my own eyes. I touched you. You were real. But that's where it gets tricky. Ronin's sister had been in a coma for years. I saw the video footage myself. Even on the night of the fire, she was there, asleep. But not you. I've tried every possible explanation, but nothing adds up. It's been driving me insane. I've tried asking you about it after you woke up from the coma, but you looked at me like you had no clue. It was like you were a whole different person. And that just made it all the more confusing."
He loosened his grip on her chin and put his other hand on the tree as well, gazing at her with the narrowness of his deep, dark eyes.
"But when you came this morning, you had the same look in your eyes. The look I saw that night. And as if that wasn't enough, you knew my name."
"I don't think knowing your name is a big deal—" she started to say, but stopped when she saw the intensity in his expression.
"It is to me. Because in my line of work, people like me don't have names. Even Ronin doesn't know. Not yet. But you do. And that makes me wonder, Ms Logan, that makes me wonder big time."
A/N: Oops, looks like Dan is not about to let go :P