Kildare looked the same from the water. The same docks, the same sun-bleached roofs, the same careless wealth sprawled along the shoreline. But it didn't feel the same.

It felt like coming home to a house that wasn't yours anymore.

Sarah had given you the address without asking questions. Just a text — here — followed by a pin drop and nothing else. No explanation. No warning. Maybe she'd known you'd need to see it for yourself.

The house sat at the end of a gravel drive, all sharp angles and glass, the kind of place that screamed money without trying. You'd been here before. Years ago, when it had been full of noise and chaos and Rafe's voice echoing off the walls.

Now it was quiet. Too quiet.

You sat in the rental car, engine off, fingers wrapped around the steering wheel until your knuckles went white. Ten minutes passed. Maybe fifteen. Long enough for the sun to start thinking about setting, long enough for you to almost talk yourself out of it.

But you'd come this far.

The gravel crunched under your shoes as you walked up to the door. The air smelled like salt and freshly cut grass. A bike leaned against the porch railing — a woman's bike, you noted, pale pink, basket on the front.

You knocked before you could think better of it.

The door swung open.

Your stomach dropped.

You glanced past her shoulder, trying to find something familiar. The hallway was different — new paint, new furniture, a framed photo on the wall that hadn't been there before. Everything had changed.

The girl was still waiting, head tilted, smile softening into something more curious.

Rafe appeared behind her, broad shoulders filling the doorway, one hand coming up to rest on her waist out of habit. He was mid-sentence — something about dinner, a question about whether she wanted to eat out or stay in — and then he stopped.

Completely.

His hand went still on her hip. His jaw went tight. And for one long, stretched-out moment, the world narrowed to just the space between the two of you.

His eyes — those blue eyes you'd dreamed about for two years — locked onto yours like a man seeing a ghost.

He didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Didn't say a word.

The girl felt the shift before she understood it. She turned, looking up at Rafe, brow furrowing.

She came back.

She actually came back.

The girl's gaze slid from Rafe's frozen face back to you standing in the doorway. And though no one had said a word, though neither of them had explained anything, she knew. Somehow, she knew.