Escape. There was no reality with him. No death, no vampires, no ghouls, no buried bodies of close friends who had trusted me to protect them. I could be Cristine, the research and field analyst who was utterly human and just worked odd hours.

"Come in."

Drowning hands grasp at anything, and Noah was my final gasp of oxygen before taking that lethal plunge. I shut the door behind him and didn't object when he folded me in his arms.

"I've reconsidered what I told you before, Cristine. I don't think I love you. I know I do. I don't care if this is moving too fast, I've been crazy all week without you. You can throw me out afterward if you want, but I'm going to say this anyway. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, no matter how many times your job interrupts us. Marry me, Cristine. You don't have to say anything now, but give me a chance to prove that I can make you happy."

My head whirled with thoughts too fleeting to cling to. Above them all was a warning: Don't do it. Dave's blood splashing my hands as I tried to stem the flow... Don't do it. ... Bones's last words to me. "Don't fret, luv, I'll be back before you know it." ... Don't do it. ... My old house littered with new body parts... Don't do it. ... My mother's face when she called me a whore for sleeping with a vampire... Don't do it. ... Don's smile when he forced me to come work for him... Don't do it. ... The headstone I'd glimpsed before leaving Ohio, engraved with the name Catherine Crawfield and dated six years ago...

"Yes, Noah. I will marry you."

"You what?"

Don's voice was almost comical in its incredulity. He was my second call after my mother. She'd cried with happiness.

I repeated the sentence slowly and clearly. "I got engaged to Noah and took off to Niagara Falls to celebrate that."

Nothing but silence as he digested the news. I could just imagine him tugging madly at his eyebrow. "I see," he replied at last. "Congratulations, I suppose, although you took my advice to start living a bit literally, didn't you?"

Asshole. "You always tell me to pay attention, Don."

Another pause. "Are you sure about this?"

"I'll tell Noah you offered your congratulations," I cut him off, then hung up. For once, it had been nicer talking to my mother. That was scary.

"Was that your boss?" Noah inquired in a careful tone.

I leaned back. "Yeah, it was."

"Will I ever meet him?" Again, he sounded like he was choosing his words.

"Not if you're lucky," I murmured and flipped over to kiss him.

Sex with Noah still didn't excite me, but he didn't know that. I told myself that one day I might feel Noah inside me and not wish it was someone else. How easily the lies came.

I'd developed a neat self-defense mechanism since Dave had been murdered. Think about nothing. React blindly. Fuck the consequences. We'd see how it worked. Noah certainly wasn't complaining. He was too busy moaning and arching his back.

I looked down at him and knew I didn't have to worry about my eyes changing color. My vampire nature hadn't flared up once. See, there were some advantages to not being satisfied by my new fiance. I just had to look at the bright side.

The hotel-room phone rang thirty minutes later. I answered it, which was a good thing since Tate's first words were, "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

"Didn't take long for Don to trace the call, huh?" No surprise that he'd scrambled to find what hotel I was in.

"You don't love him," Tate went on as if I hadn't spoken. "You don't even know him! I doubt you even know his middle fucking name. And he sure as hell doesn't know you. He'd shit his pants if he knew the real you. Look, we're all upset about Dave, but do you think Dave would want you to go and do something as stupid as get engaged to some chump who wouldn't know the dangerous end of a gun if it were shoved up his-"

I hung up. Okay, so maybe this had been hasty, but I was going to see it through. After all, it couldn't be the worst mistake I'd ever made. My life was a glorious account of one bad decision after another, and usually those decisions ended with someone dead, like my grandparents. Or Dave. What was a quickie engagement compared to that?

Next to me, Noah began to stir. Sex was like a sedative to him. I didn't know whether to be flattered or offended. Since I was trying to think positive, I picked flattered.

"Who was that? Did the phone ring?" he asked me drowsily.

"Just Tate, wishing us all the best." How easily the lies came.

Noah kissed me and got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. Moments later, the shower turned on and I heard him whistling as he stepped inside. I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to me. Please, I prayed, please let me have done the right thing by agreeing to marry him.

"I love you, future Mrs. Rose," Noah called out.

"I love you too, Mr. Rose," I replied immediately.

How easily the lies came.

Chapter Thirteen.

Alternate Version of Cat and Bones's Reunion

Author's Note: Cat's "greatest mistake" had a ripple effect in other places in the book, such as the scene where she and Bones finally see each other again at Denise's wedding. The original version below differs from the published one because in this, Cat is engaged to Noah instead of merely dating him. And Bones is not happy about that, as you can imagine. As I've had to do before in some places, I included some parts of the published version with this alternate version. Otherwise this section would consist of a lot of new sentences without any context.

Felicity was delighted at having Bones as her wedding partner for the pictures. She managed to squeeze herself indecently close to him in every shot. My jaw ached from how hard I had to grit my teeth to keep from backhanding her. To make matters worse, he was being charming, and she ate it up.

When I could stand it no longer, I turned my head away to face a wall and spoke under my breath so only he could hear me. "Keep it up and she'll need a new pair of panties."

"Jealous, luv?" he said, covering the words with a fake cough.

Hell yes. Even though my fiance waited for me, my feelings had no sense of fairness. So I took the offensive, as I usually did when upset.

"Not at all. Why don't you take her around back and fuck her real quick? Then maybe she'll simmer down and stop acting like such a whore."

"Ah, Kitten," he said while he refit the rose in his lapel so no one would see his lips move. "You know how I like to take my time..."

"Just the wedding party," the photographer said and ushered us to stand together.

I stomped over gracelessly.

"Move in closer, that's right, a little closer. Now smile and think about the one you love."

Just as the flash went off, I glanced up and saw Bones staring at me. He wasn't smiling, and neither was I. But we looked at each other and no one else.

I made a beeline for the bar right after the last click of the camera. There was only one thing that could help me tonight, and that was gin. Lots of gin. I downed the first glass without budging from in front of the bartender.

"Another one."

The bartender made an inquiring face but poured another gin and tonic.

I eyed the level he selected and gave him a dirty look. "More alcohol," I said succinctly.

"Whiskey neat when you're done with the lady," a familiar voice behind me directed. "Drowning your sorrows, Kitten?"

"Follow me," I replied, fed up. One way or another I had to find out what he wanted. I passed by my mother's table to whisper to her. "Keep Noah busy. I'm going to have a chat."

"Don't do it, Catherine," she pleaded, calling me by the wrong name again.

I walked off to the patio before she could say more.

The country club was surrounded by trees with low-hanging branches. Light turned into shadows as the sun set. I heard Bones approach but kept looking at the dying rays of the sun.

"Tell me straight out, why are you here? Is it because you... you still have feelings for me?"

He let out a harsh grunt. "I think you should answer that first. After all, you're the one who let me come back to an empty house and a bloody Dear John note."

I couldn't look at him, because I hated myself for what I'd done. "It was the only way," I murmured.

"Bollocks," he snapped back.

"They knew what I was, Bones." Now I faced him and tried to my keep composure. "The men who came to the hospital that day, they knew everything from my pathology reports. And they knew about vampires. The one in charge-"

"Don?" he supplied.

Oh, so he'd done his homework. "Yes, Don. He said he'd looked his whole life for someone who was strong enough to fight vampires but who wasn't one of them. And my darling mother informed them I'd been sleeping with one, so they knew about you too. Don offered me a deal. He would relocate us, and I would lead his team. In return, he promised to leave you alone. Then you caught us on our way to the airport and demolished ten square miles of highway. You put five agents in a coma, Bones! If I hadn't taken the deal, we would have been hunted like animals, and you know my mother would rather die than be sheltered by you. She'd also rather see me killed than changed into a vampire, and let's face it, that's what you would have eventually wanted me to do!"

Bones ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Is that what this whole bleedin' thing was about? Your mum telling you I'd turn you into a vampire? Bloody hell, Kitten, when did I ever force you to do anything you didn't want to do? You should have trusted me. I trusted you. I never saw it coming when you ran away without a word."

I had to look away at that.

He began to pace in short, angry strides. "Did you truly believe I couldn't handle whatever it was your government tried to do?" he went on. "Blokes like that have chased me most of my undead life, yet I'm still here while they're not. But no, you had to be a hero and take the fall. Do I still love you? You don't deserve to know, but I will tell you this." Suddenly he was so close that the breath from his words fell onto my lips. "I still want you, Kitten. When I look at you... all I want to do is rip your clothes off and hear you scream while I'm inside you."

"I'm engaged," I blurted out to cover my skyrocketing pulse. I couldn't stop looking at the chiseled planes of his cheekbones or how close his mouth was to mine. That mouth twisted at my reply.

"Yeah, I know. Threw me good one, it did. Is that why you didn't come to Chicago back in April? Because of that pet vet?"

The derisive way he spoke about Noah stiffened my spine. "You mean when you kidnapped and murdered Danny Milton? You swore to me that you would never touch Danny, but I don't suppose he's off in Mexico sipping margaritas, is he?"

Bones straightened. "You made me swear not to kill, cripple, maim, dismember, blind, torture, bleed, or otherwise inflict any injury on Danny Milton. Or stand by while someone else did. You should save your sorrow for someone worthy. Danny gave you up like a bad habit straightaway. You know that brainwashing rot doesn't hold up under a Master vampire's eyes. At least the bugger was finally useful. He told me where you lived. Virginia. I had you narrowed down to three states, and he saved me some time. That's why I told Rodney to kill him fast and painless-and I didn't stay to watch."

"You bastard," I managed.

He shrugged. "Takes one to know one, luv."

I lowered my head and rubbed it, thinking of Dave. How needlessly he had died. How absolutely it was my fault, first by my rescuing Danny instead of killing Lazarus, then by my shouting at them not to fire. I might as well have ripped Dave's throat open myself.

Bones stared at me. "You're actually grieving over that wanker? That sod would have gotten you killed one day, make no mistake about it. I couldn't let him live. Your boss might have done a bang-up job hiding you away, but I found him in three days."

"It's not grief over him." My voice was thick with self-recrimination. "I lost a friend that day. And for the record, I didn't know about Chicago until a month ago. Don had given me some time off to deal with my guilt, so he sent someone else to Chicago when Danny went missing. He only told me about it when Ian got away." I gave a dry, humorless laugh and looked at him. "When I heard, I demanded to see all the evidence from the hospital. I found the watch and knew it was from you. I'll say this; I didn't worry about Danny after that."

Bones held my gaze, and I shivered even though the outside air was warm. There was a sense of unreality to standing here and talking to him. Some part of me thought I'd wake up and this would all be a dream.

"Would you have come?" he asked softly.

That was a dangerous question, but he deserved a little honesty, even if I couldn't tell him most of what I was feeling.

"The state of mind I was in, chewed up with grief and looking for any source of comfort, yes. I would have come to you. It would have been a mistake, of course, because nothing about our situation has changed and everything would have gone to shit, but yes. After I got engaged to Noah, no. I made a commitment, Bones. That means something, despite..."

"Despite the fact that you don't love him?" he finished brutally.

"That's not true! Anyhow, it doesn't matter. You and I are over." The words tasted vile, but I said them. The next ones positively choked me, but they had to be uttered too. "I..." I looked away. "I don't love you anymore."

"There you are!" Noah called from across the patio. "Darling, people were wondering where you were. What are you doing out here?"

The lies came quickly. "My ankle was bothering me from my slip down the aisle. I was just stretching it out, didn't want to make a fuss."

"We haven't met," Bones said, and held out a hand to Noah. I glared at him, remembering how he'd crippled Danny's hand this same way. "My name is Cris. Cris Pin."

Cris. Pin. Why hadn't I clearly looked at the invitations when I helped mail them?

"Noah Rose," my fiance replied, shaking Bones's hand. I breathed a sigh of relief when he let go and no bones were broken. "This is my wife-to-be, Cristine, in case you haven't met."

"We've met before," Bones said with a knowing look my way. "In fact, she was just telling me the history behind her last name."

I groaned inwardly. Noah frowned. "Russell? I didn't know there was a history behind your last name, Cristine. What is it?"

Well, what did I expect? I had practically named myself after Bones when I switched identities. Did I think he wouldn't mention it?

"Um, er... Cris's mother's maiden name was also Russell, that's all. You said people were looking for me? Let's get back to the party. My ankle feels better."

I walked away so fast that Noah had to trot to keep up. Even still, Bones's voice chased after me, too low for Noah to hear.

"Kitten, when you said you didn't love me anymore... you were lying."

Dinner was a living hell. Felicity kept up a stream of suggestive chatter with Bones that had me digging my nails into my palms until I drew blood. Worse, her hand kept finding its way onto his thigh whenever she leaned in to whisper to him. And he did nothing to stop her.