He’d known about her even before that day? “Why didn’t you leave me alone?”
“I couldn’t.”
Those two words made her ache. She knew how it felt. How it felt to be pulled toward someone like a magnet, unable to stop. Because that was how she felt the moment they met. “You said there was a way? What if we just stay away from each other?”
“It’s not that simple,” he said. “In my brother’s vision, he says you’re there because of me. He was specific about that.”
“So, what do we do? We can’t reverse time. We can’t make it so you and I never met.” The serious expression on his face made her heart stop. “Is there?”
Sabrina sucked in a breath as the memories flooded back into her head. It was a strange sensation, like she was empty and then suddenly filled. She remembered all of it. Well, most of it anyway. Not the exact events, but she could already guess at this point. “The forgetting potion.”
“Yes,” Cross confirmed. “It wasn’t just any forgetting potion. While most forgetting potions only erase recent memories, this potion could make you forget one significant aspect in your life. My grandmother knew how to make it. She never told anyone. But I was learning potion and spell craft from her, and she told me how and made me promise to never tell anyone.”
There might be one way. You could forget about me. Forget you ever met me. Forget I ever existed.
The words echoed in her head, but it wasn’t her voice. It was Cross’s.
Then we need to do it. If that’s the only way.
It was strange hearing her own voice saying something she didn’t recall. But there it was, clear as a bell.
We don’t have a choice, Cross. If we don’t ever meet, then Gunnar’s vision will never come true. He said it. I’m there because of you.
But Sabrina … this potion … it will mean that it’s as if you and I never met.
I know … but do we have a choice? We’re talking about the fate of the world. Promise me, Cross. Promise me.
Tears burned at her throat. “Oh God … it was all … the accident … Dad?”
“You came up with it, and we concocted the cover story together,” Jonathan said. “I had a whole wing of that hospital blocked out just for you. You took the potion there and woke up a few hours later with no memory of the last twenty-four hours or of Cross.”
“I created the potion so that you would forget we ever met, while preserving everything else,” Cross explained.
She swallowed and closed her eyes. A searing pain knifed through her chest as she recalled that moment, when she was in that room and took the vial from him. There were words that had been stuck in her throat. Words she wanted to say, but couldn’t.
Goodbye, Cross.
“Aside from getting their regular payout from me, those men asked about you on a regular basis,” Jonathan explained. “They would check on you, to see if you still had the ring and who you’d been involved with. That’s why I kept bribing your boyfriends away. I didn’t want them hurt.”
“Why didn’t we all three take the potion?” she asked.
“It’s difficult to make. I could only make enough for one person at a time,” Cross said. “And we needed to remember in case there was a problem.”
“And my poker face has gotten me far in business,” Jonathan said, amused. “It was easy enough to lie to them and tell them half-truths about you.”
“But I remembered anyway,” she said. “I—I don’t think I truly forgot. Those paintings in my studio … they were all of you, Cross. Somehow, I could still remember you.”
He shook his head. “Maybe I made a mistake with the formula. I’m not sure.”
“Couldn’t you give her a stronger dose?” Jonathan asked. “We could try again.”
Fear rose up in her chest. “No! You can’t make me forget again!” She clutched Cross’s arm. “Please don’t make me do it. I don’t want to forget you. Besides, it didn’t work the first time. We tried to stop it by making me forget, but I still remembered. We’ll always find each other, I know it. Please, Cross,” she begged.
“I won’t,” he said solemnly. “I don’t want you to forget either.”
“Thank you.”
“Then what should we do now?” Jonathan asked. “How can we protect Sabrina?”
“Can’t we fight them?” she asked. “Erasing my memory obviously didn’t help. You’re so powerful, and you have others of your kind, right?”
His eyes darkened. “You’re right. But we can’t do it alone,” he admitted. “We will need help.” He stretched out his hand. “You should come with us, too, Jonathan. For your own protection.”
Sabrina tucked herself against Cross’s side. “Please, Dad?”
He hesitated but nodded anyway. “All right. We’ll try this your way.”
As she felt the comforting coldness wrap around her, she breathed in his scent and whispered something that she hoped he would hear. Words she had been wanting to say for a very long time.
Chapter Ten
Cross staggered forward as they landed rather ungracefully at their destination. Though he heard the words coming from her lips, he wasn’t sure if he understood them correctly. He looked down at her, cuddled up to his side. The smile on her lips, and the sparkle in her amethyst eyes told him he hadn’t imagined it. “Sabrina? You—”
She nodded. “And I meant it.”
He knew he had made the right decision. Never again. He would never lose her again. It had torn him apart having to stay away from her. “I—”
“Well, now,” a seemingly disembodied voice said. “I was wondering what time you’d drop in.”
He froze at the sound of the familiar voice. “Mom?”
Meredith Jonasson stood up from behind the sectional couch in the living room, hands on her hips. “Hello, Cross,”
