I pull away, my lips reluctantly leaving his as I gaze into his eyes—the same eyes I've gazed into for four hundred years. Though no matter how hard I try, I can't summon our past. Only Damen, who's stayed the same for the last six hundred years—neither dying nor reincarnating—holds the key.

"What're you thinking?" he asks, his fingers smoothing the curve of my cheek, leaving a trail of warmth in their path.

I take a deep breath, knowing how committed he is to staying in the present, but determined to know more of my history—our history. "I was thinking about when we first met," I say, watching his brow lift as he shakes his head.

"Were you? And what exactly do you remember from that time?"

"Nothing." I shrug. "Absolutely nothing. Which is why I'm hoping you'll fill me in. You don't have to tell me everything—I mean, I know how you hate looking back. I'm just really curious about how it all started—how we first met."

He pulls away and rolls onto his back, his body still, his lips unmoving, and I fear this is the only response that I'll get.

"Please?" I murmur, inching toward him and curling my body around his. "It's not fair that you get all the details while I'm left out here in the dark. Just give me something to go on. Where did we live? What did I look like? How did we meet? Was it love at first sight?"

He shifts ever so slightly, then rolls onto his side, burying his hand in my hair as he says, "It was France, 1608."

I gulp, taking a quick intake of breath as I wait to hear more.

"Paris, actually."

Paris! I immediately picture elaborate gowns, stolen kisses on the Pont Neuf, gossiping with Marie Antoinette...

"I attended a dinner at a friend's house—" He pauses,his gaze moving past mine, centuries away now. "And you were working as a servant."

A servant?

"One of their servants. They were very wealthy. They had many." I lie there, stunned. This is not what I expected.

"You weren't like the others," he says, his voice lowered to almost a whisper. "You were beautiful. Extraordinarily beautiful. You looked a lot like you do now." He smiles, gathering a chunk of my hair and rubbing it between his two fingers. "And also like now, you were orphaned, having lost your family in a fire. And so, left penniless, with no one to support you, you were employed by my friends."

I swallow hard, not sure how I feel about this. I mean, what's the point of reincarnating if you're forced to relive the same kind of painful moments all overagain?

"And yes, just so you know, it was love at first sight. I fell completely and irreversibly in love with you. The very moment I saw you I knew that my life would never be the same." He looks at me, his fingers on my temples, his gazeluring me in, presenting the moment in all itsintensity, unfolding the scene as though I'm right there.

My blond hair is hidden under a cap, my blue eyes are shy and afraid to make contact, and with clothes so drab and fingers so calloused, my beauty is wasted, easily missed. But Damen sees it The moment I enter the room his eyes find mine. Looking past my scruffy exterior to the soul that refuses to hide. And he's so dark, so striking, so refined, so handsome—I turn away. Knowing the buttons on his coat alone are worth more than I'll make in a year. Knowing without looking twice that he's out of my league...

"Still, I had to move cautiously because—"

"Because you were already married to Drina!" I whisper, watching the scene in my head and overhearing one of the dinner guests inquire about her, our eyes meeting briefly as Damen says: "Drina is in Hungary. We have gone our separate ways.''

Knowing he'll be the source of scandal, but wanting me to hear it more than caring what they'll think...

"She and I were already living apart, so it wasn't an issue. The reason I had to tread cautiously is because fraternizing outside of one's class was severely frowned upon back then. And because you were so innocent, so vulnerable in so many ways, I didn't want to cause you any trouble, especially if you didn't feel the same way."

"But I did feel the same way!" I say, watching as we move past that night, and how every time I went into town, I'd manage to run into him.

"I'm afraid I resorted to following you." He looks at me, his face chagrined. "Until we finally bumped into each other so often, you began to trust me. And then... And then we met in secret—stolen kisses just outside the servant's entrance, a passionate embrace in a dark alleyway or inside his carriage...

"Only now I know that it wasn't nearly as secret as I'd thought..." He sighs. "Drina was never in Hungary, she was there all along. Watching, planning, determined to win me back—no matter the cost." He takes a deep breath, the regret of four centuries displayed on his face. "I wanted to take care of you, Ever. I wanted to give you anything and everything your heart desired. I wanted to treat you like the princess you were born to be. And when I finally convinced you to come away with me, I'd never felt so happy and alive. We were to meet at midnight—"

"But I never showed," I say, seeing him pacing, worried, distressed, convinced I'd changed my mind.

"It wasn't until the next day that I learned you'd been killed in an accident, run over by a coach on your way to meet me." And when he looks at me, he shows me his grief—his unbearable, all-consuming, soul-crushing grief. "At the time, it never occurred to me that Drina was responsible, I had no idea until she confessed it to you. It seemed like an accident, a horrible, unfortunate accident. And I guess I was too numb with grief to suspect anything else—"