Isla Moon had sworn she would make him beg. Two years of planning, and she still didn't know where to find him. She stood at the top of the market steps, braid over one shoulder, scanning faces she didn't recognize. Her rival had vanished the night he humiliated her, and every lead she chased went cold. Without him, her plan was nothing but spite with nowhere to point. She worked the crowd anyway. She flirted with a spice seller, traded a smile for gossip, asked the same question in six different ways. Nobody knew the man in black who once ran these streets with her. The sun dropped behind the old cathedral, and Isla cursed under her breath. Another wasted day. Then a kitten crashed into her boots. It was no ordinary cat. Small, orange, with thin wings that caught the last light like stained glass. It mewed and clawed at her laces. Isla crouched and scooped it up. A folded ribbon circled its neck, tied through a pale white blossom gone soft at the edges. "That's mine," a voice said behind her. She knew it before she turned. Kai Blackwood. Black hair, blue eyes, the same tattoos crawling up both arms. The man who had shamed her in front of everyone, then disappeared. He stood ten feet away, hands loose at his sides, looking at her the way a starving man looks at bread. Isla's heart slammed. She made it a smirk instead. "You're hard to find, Blackwood." "I wasn't hiding from the city." He stepped closer. The kitten purred and leaned toward him. "I was hiding from you." "Coward," she said. She stood, cradling the kitten against her chest. "You humiliated me and ran." "I ran because I couldn't look at you without wanting to fix it." His voice cracked on the last word. "Two years, Isla. I kept the stupid cat because the blossom was yours. From the cathedral garden. I couldn't throw it out." She stared. This was not the arrogant man who had cut her down. This was something softer, and far more dangerous to her plan. She had come to crush a rival. Instead he was already halfway to his knees. "You're in love with me," she said. It wasn't a question. Kai didn't deny it. He looked away, jaw tight, and that silence told her everything. Isla smiled slowly. Her goal snapped back into focus, sharper now. He loved her. That made him easy to find and harder to control. If she wanted him begging for her hand, she couldn't just wound him. She had to let him hope. "Keep the cat," she said, pressing it into his arms. Her fingers brushed his. "But you'll walk me home first." He followed without a word. The hunt was over. The real game had just begun.