his parents, corroborated his story. They used Jim’s Jeep to move his things home.
“By the time I became a police officer and could get my hands on Maya’s files to learn where he lived, Lewis’s family had already moved. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to track them down, but I’ve never found them.”
“They just vanished?”
“They moved to Texas and then Washington. After that, they left the country, and I lost them. I interviewed Jim and Tom multiple times over the years; they threatened to file a complaint against me while I was on the force, but their stories never changed.”
“Did you ever try to compel them before asking, so you knew they were telling the truth.”
He smiled grimly. “The last time I interviewed them a few months after I was changed. I decided to try one more time to get the truth out of them. Their stories remained the same.”
So it was another wall for him, she realized.
“And, after a while, with no new leads, some people, including some police, started to believe she took off. There were those at college, and on the police force, who wanted the case closed so everything could go back to normal. It was easier to claim she took off with a secret boyfriend her family wouldn’t approve of than to believe pretty, young college girls could vanish into thin air.”
“And what did you do afterward?”
“I quit college before the end of the semester. My parents needed me home, and I couldn’t stay there after everything. I kept looking for her, and thinking I saw her everywhere I went, on campus. I was scaring girls because I kept thinking they were her and chasing them down.”
Cassidy gulped down the lump in her throat as tears burned her eyes. She could picture his frantic desperation to believe strangers were her. She yearned to cry for Maya, but more, she wanted to weep for the man standing across from her—a man who was mostly still a boy when tragedy tore his world apart.
“Instead of continuing to study prelaw, I joined the police force to bring home as many people as I could. I also wanted a look at Maya’s files; eventually, I got it. I was hoping to discover some magic, hidden secret in their pages that everyone else overlooked, but I didn’t discover anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I haven’t given up looking for her, and I never will.”
She did not doubt that. “You wanted to be a lawyer?”
His gaze came back to her; the small smile he gave her didn’t ease the sorrow from his eyes. “Maya and I both did. Our parents were lawyers. They practiced family law and did a lot of pro bono cases for abused women trying to escape their husbands. Maya and I planned to work with them and one day take over the family business.”
“What an amazing dream,” she murmured. And how sad the beautiful family in that picture never got the chance to live it.
“It was, but not all dreams come true, and when they don’t, you have to readjust and find a new dream or the loss of the old one will eat you alive. Becoming a bitter man was not how I intended to live my life. I loved being on the force, and I did a lot of good. And I continue to do a lot of good.”
“Yes, you do,” Cassidy agreed.
Dante found himself lost in the beauty of her midnight eyes as they scanned his face. He didn’t want to think about Maya or Julie or the many lost souls out there. He didn’t want to think at all.
Closing the distance between them, he took the book from her hands and set it on the shelf. When he stepped closer to Cassidy, he was afraid she’d move away from him. Instead, she tilted her head back to gaze at him.
“You are so beautiful,” he said as he clasped her cheek with his palms and bent to kiss her.
Chapter Seventeen
The second his lips touched hers, she felt like she was falling apart and coming together all at the same time. His kiss broke her down to the smallest, most minuscule pieces of herself and rearranged them into someone completely different. Someone who was coming alive in ways she never dreamed possible.
Her senses, always honed, felt sharper and more acute as his scent flooded her. The taste of him was unlike anything she ever experienced before. He was sweet and so addictive she didn’t think she’d ever