Chapter 3
The Crawford estate looked like something ripped out of an architecture magazine.
Glass. Stone. Clean lines. Money in every direction.
Tyler’s parents were warmer than I expected. Kind, even. His mother fussed over whether I was cold. His father asked about school. They acted like I was welcome there.
For a second, I almost felt bad.
Almost.
Everything changed right before dinner.
The front doors opened, and Tyler instantly lost all his swagger.
He straightened like a kid caught doing something wrong.
“Hey, Ethan,” he said.
And then I heard the voice.
That voice.
Cool. Smooth. Deep enough to make my scalp prickle.
“Long trip?”
I turned my head.
And froze.
It was him.
The man from my dreams.
The same cold, beautiful face. The same clean, distant eyes. The same impossible presence that made every room bend around him. Even the loosened tie at his throat looked familiar. I’d seen that collar open in my dreams more times than I cared to admit.
Tyler gestured awkwardly. “This is my girlfriend. Claire Bennett.”
Ethan Crawford’s gaze skimmed over my face.
“Welcome.”
That was all.
But it hit like a thunderclap.
He pulled at his tie, took a sip of water, and a drop slid down the line of his throat and disappeared beneath his shirt. My eyes followed it before I could stop myself. I hated that I noticed. I hated even more that I remembered exactly what it felt like to trace that same path with my lips in dreams that were apparently not imaginative enough to leave me alone.
Everyone grew quieter when he sat down.
Tyler became almost absurdly well-behaved.
During dinner, Tyler’s mother smiled at me and said, “Tyler tells us you’ve never dated anyone before him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“He’s your first boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s rare these days. A pretty girl like you.”
I swallowed and answered with a smile I had perfected through necessity. “I’ve just been focused on school. I feel really lucky to have met Tyler.”
Across the table, Ethan kept cutting his steak as if he hadn’t heard a word.
Which, honestly, made sense.
Why would he know me?
The dreams were mine. Just mine. Maybe I’d once seen his face in a business article, some finance interview, some photo online. Maybe my brain had stolen the image and built the rest out of stress and loneliness and late-night exhaustion.
That had to be it.
So I adjusted. Smiled. Played my part.
Tyler’s mother beamed. “Claire, I hear you’re top of your class. You’ll have to look after our Tyler.”
“Of course.” I lowered my lashes. “I really do like him.”
No.
What I liked was the red envelope I assumed would eventually come with meeting the family.
Still, I said all the right things.
And for one terrifying second, I felt someone looking at me.
I glanced up.
Ethan was on his phone, replying to messages, not even facing me.
Maybe I imagined it.
The next few days passed quietly.
Ethan was rarely home. When we crossed paths, he gave me a polite nod and little else. No sign of recognition. No strange tension. No hint that anything about this was unusual.
Which only confirmed what I’d already decided.
The dreams were one-sided madness.
Mine.
Tyler, meanwhile, was busy preparing for some inevitable reunion with his ex.
Ava.
The girl he still couldn’t get over, no matter how many people he used trying to prove otherwise.
The day before they were supposed to meet, he decided the clothes he’d originally bought me weren’t good enough. He had someone rush over a tiny slip dress that belonged in July, not December.
He made me put it on and pose for photos with him around the estate.
The dress was so thin I was shaking, even with the heat on inside.
Tyler didn’t notice.
Or maybe he did and just didn’t care.
All he cared about was getting the perfect photo to make Ava jealous.
The next morning, I woke up sick.
Fever. Chills. A throat like broken glass.
Tyler barely looked at me.
He was too busy leaving for drinks with his friends.
On his way out, I heard him on the phone saying, “She better not look like hell when Ava sees her. Do you guys know any other girls I can bring if this one falls apart?”
By then the fever had me floating in and out of awareness.
Reality and dreams had started to blur.
And that was when I made the mistake.