Dom woke up to his biggest fear: that he'd imagined it all.

But he hadn't, had he? The pillow next to his was flattened and the sheet on that side bunched into him.

He squinted at the sun pushing up his eyelids and looked around. Clara's suitcase was gone, as were her toiletries from the bathroom and her clothes from the ground. He spotted something shiny under the curtain on his side of the bed and pulled up the light-pink slip she'd left behind. It still smelled like her.

He pulled on his pants with one hand and grabbed the phone with the other, dialing Clara and getting her voicemail. With a frustrated sigh, he moved onto the next best option and kept ringing and ringing and ringing until his call was answered. He had a bad feeling about this.

"Dominic?" Sophie answered groggily on the eleventh attempt. She was probably somewhere between hungover and jetlagged, so it was a miracle she'd picked up at all.

"Did Clara leave already?"

"Don't think so? You can call her—"

"She's not answering. Sophie, check her calendar," he said. Remembering his manners, he added, "please."

Sophie groaned on her end and for a while, all Dom could hear was her breathing. He worried she might have rolled over and fallen back asleep. "Uh, yeah... looks like she got on an earlier flight."

"To New York?"

"Yeah," she croaked. "Looks like, um, she should already be there."

"Where can I find her?"

"Uh...In New York?"

"Sophie, keep up. Where in New York will she be?"

"Wewl, sheyaahh..." Sophie yawned, and for a moment Dominic thought he'd lost her again. "She's flying to the Maldives tonight with Owen, so probably home to pack, and then airport." Her next question sounded more awake. "Dom, what is this about?"

"Send me her flight info, please."

"To New York?"

He hit the phone against his head before answering. Patience. "To Maldives." She started saying something, but he cut her off. "Thank you, Sophie. I'll explain later," he said and hung up, reaching for his shirt.

His soulmate was going on a romantic island trip with the wrong man. Dom would be damned if he let her slip right through his fingers and end up with a ring on hers that wasn't by him.

The next call he made was to Cary, who also answered the phone half-asleep. It would have been funny if it wasn't urgent. "Cary, listen to me carefully, it's urgent. I need to borrow your plane. No, the jet. New York. When? I'm heading out now, so in an hour. Thanks, mate. I owe you a big one."