Sammy POV
For a horrible second the old panic rode me like a wave, and I was collapsing into the memory of being abandoned again and again until abandonment had become a truism in my life. I sat up so fast my head spun, and my eyes darted across the room searching for him like a hand for a light switch.
He wasn’t there.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and padded into the bathroom on bare feet. The tiles were cool, almost unfriendly, and the air still smelled faintly of lavender soap. Of course it was empty too. Just like my soul. Where love should have been, there was an ache. A void.
Silly me had hoped Darian would be different.
I had believed—no, more than that, I had trusted, for a handful of hours—that he wouldn’t disappear the way the others would. That he wouldn’t see
