Every man I kiss dies

she hated that she noticed something so small at a funeral. She hated that her mind kept reaching for details that didn't matter, the

Seven days afte

k her to come stand with the family. She didn't deserve to stand with the family. She was the reason there was a family

Mara whispered beside her.

uld h

olding on for three years now, through David, through Marcus, through the string of names Elena

en, exactly seven days later, weren't. Elena had stopped believing in coincidence somewhere arou

n she felt i

behind her, off to the left, where the cemetery's old o

tu

eady looki

that made age feel like the wrong question to ask, and something in the way he held himself, still and unhurried, made him look like he belonged to a different centu

ard the rumors about the girl whose men kept dying. This wasn't that. This man wasn't looking at her like s

hat?" she

"No idea. I don't think he's with

otic

oward black cars, and Elena lost him in the crowd for one panicked second b

na V

She stiffened.

ried, the kind of calm that didn't

s familiar. Vale International Security. Billionaire. The kind of man whose face show

ould be at Daniel Whitmore's funeral," she

His eyes didn't move off he

rough her, and it wasn'

Ethan. Now Daniel." He said the names like he'd memorized them a long time ago,

e cracked on the last word, a

e been looking for y

ane. I don'

ike a fact rather than a promise. "What's happening

, Mara's voice was calling her name, distant, like

ree line, where the shadows under the old oaks had gone a shade too

e time for th

wha

turn

rned a

Elena thought she saw the shape of a woman inside it, tall, still, watching her the exact way Adrian had been watching her, except there was nothing pa

gray afternoon closed back over the

came fast. "W

a man who had decided something and would not be argued out of it. "Someth

d me fro

at someone standing at the edge of a

ago," he said, "though you

st her ribs, and by the time Mara reached her, calling her name for the third time, Adrian Vale was already walking away

rs ago. And somewhere past midnight, staring at her bedroom ceiling

of her, buried and imp