"Alright, Miss Forbes, do you have any questions for us?" The man across the table asked Tessa who sat with shoulder length wavy hair and black skinny jeans paired with a white blouse under a black blazer.

"Yes, sir," She nodded with a friendly smile. "Do you have any questions regarding my resume?"

"As a matter of fact, I do not," He informed. "I personally believe that you are the right for this position, however, I would have to take this up with the rest of the board and we shall get back to you on it,"

"Alright," Tessa smiled in acknowledgment before standing up from her place, her interviewer doing the same as they shook hand and she walked out of the room.

Heaving a heavy breath, she put a hand to her chest, trying to calm the nervousness inside her before fixing her appearance and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder. Grabbing her phone from inside, she made her way out of the building, smiling at the text she had received.

Stepping out of the revolving doors, she shielded her eyes from the sun.

"Hey, baby," A voice called out as she looked up to see a guy standing before her in a grey t-shirt with dark wash denim jeans and a leather jacket, his dark brown hair windswept and all over the place

"Hey, Ryle," She made her way over to him, hugging him before giving him a quick peck on the lips. "How are you?"

"I'm good," He nodded with his hands grasping her waist. "How did it go?"

"Surprisingly well," Tessa laughed incredulously as they both intertwined their fingers and began walking down the sidewalk, chatting and laughing with each other.

"I can bet you my life that you'll get this job," Ryle boasted. "Because my girl is the best," He exclaimed and pulled her into his side as she laughed and thanked him for his compliments.

They spent their time walking around and taking a subway before coming out at their station, both Tessa and Ryle making their way to her apartment, but were momentarily taken aback by the rush blocking their way.

"What's going on?" Tessa looked up at Ryle in confusion who shrugged and took hold of her hand.

"Come on,"

He led the way through the crowd, Tessa apologizing and excusing them but came to a sudden halt when a police officer stopped them behind the yellow line.

"You can't get through," He stated and gestured for them to take a step back. Just then Tessa looked around and saw the ambulance standing with police cars and black Range Rovers.

"What's going on?" She found herself asking again before she caught sight of the paramedics bringing out a stretcher with a black bag on it, instantly knowing there was a dead body inside, her breath stuttering to see it.

Instantly she grabbed hold of Ryle's hand as they both stared on.

"Are you sure that no one saw him?" An all too familiar voice drifted to her ear, her eyes instantly searching the uniformed men around her. "This is his 3rd kill in this month alone,"

"I'm sorry, agent, but there was nothing, our cameras had stopped working last night due to a bug and we were supposed to get them fixed today and I was at work and my wife was here to oversee the matter," A man spoke in a thick voice as Tessa found a man sitting on the steps with his head held in his hands and a taller, much leaner man crouching before him in a black suit.

"Fred!" The man called out, another suit-clad man looking up from his exchange with the police.

"Yeah?"

"Get neighbors' statements," He gestured to all around them. "See if these street camera's caught anything and have forensics run fingerprints over the body,"

"This is a crime scene," Ryle spoke beside Tessa who ignored his words, staring at the crouching man, having this eerie feeling that she should know him. "A murder crime scene, Tessa,"

The man stood up to his towering height and her breath caught in her throat as he turned, bringing the side of his face into view, her words getting stuck in her throat.

"Daniel," Another voice called out before she could and he turned around, bringing his full figure into view as he shielded his eyes from the sun before pulling on his sunglasses and made his way over to the police car, the agent walking right past her.

"Yeah?" He asked, and ducked his head to allow the man to whisper into his ear as he nodded and told him something, pointing to the notepad in his hand and gestured vaguely. Once they both talked, she watched Daniel turn his back to the car and look out at the crowd before him, his eyes seemingly looking at her as she had to prevent herself from squirming.

"Hey, Ace!" He called out from his place, the police officer before them looking back at him. "Wrap it up, we're done here," Daniel informed and slipped his hand into his slacks pocket, and took out a sleek square, clicking it open and taking out a cigarette, lighting it just as another man made his way to him, and took the silver case from his hand.

Tessa watched him walk across the street and towards the Range Rover, not even looking back as he talked to the man beside him and got into the car.

"Tessa," Ryle's voice called out to her as she jumped back to reality.

"Yeah?"

"Let's go," He gestured to the clearing space as she blinked for a minute, swallowing the lump in her throat, realizing she still harbored guilt over all that happened.

Nodding to him, she allowed him to lead the way to her apartment and he talked about how exciting it was to see a crime scene in person for the first time and chattered about that for a while before they finally arrived at her apartment complex.

Taking the stairs up, they stopped at her door, Tessa taking a step forward to unlock it and stepped inside. Taking off her shoes and blazer, she hung the jacket to her right with her shoes in the wrack beneath. Stepping in, she walked into her kitchen. 

Her entire apartment had dark wood flooring with a round dining table to her left beside the window and her stove and cabinets to her right, her fridge against the wall to her left; Ryle instantly opening it as she walked ahead and beneath the arch into her lounge.

There, a grey 7-seater was rested beneath the windows to her left, grey, blue, and white pillows decorating the sofa with a square coffee table before it and a portrait on the wall above it. To the right of the sofa was a white bookshelf installed into the wall, housing various articles with a brown cabinet door beside it and stairs leading up to her loft bed.

Sighing, Tessa made her way up the stairs and settled on her platform bed, falling back onto the mattress and staring up at the weight ceiling in despondency; feeling the weight of it all like a tidal wave, tears welling up inside her eyes as she choked back the sob, rubbing her trembling fingers against her wrist.

"Hey, I was thinking we should go out-" Ryle spoke on his way up the stairs, his words stopping short to see the tears leaking down her eyes. "Tessa, what's wrong?" He asked her in confusion, only getting a broken sob in response as she turned over onto her side and cried into her pillow, her boyfriend wincing at the sudden breakdown.

"Hey," He murmured quietly, and shuffled in behind her, holding her against his chest as she cried. "You'll get the job, you don't have to worry about any of that,"

Little did he know that she was crying all over again for what happened two years ago.

She could recall the events like it all happened yesterday.

She had lost her best friend, Daniel Robertson, to the fear of not being worthy of him.

He had told her he was in love with her, and that he wanted her to be his, and Tessa was the happiest girl after Delilah on that day, but then she let the doubt creep in. She wasn't that in love with him, not really, but it took her losing him to realize that she was actually was. And who wouldn't be after everything he had done for her, after all that, it was inevitable that she would fall in love with him.

But she told him, she couldn't love him, all because her mind told her she wasn't worthy of a man like him, that she was poisonous and would simply sabotage the good life that he led.

Tessa had cried her heart out that night, feeling a burning in her chest, and it never left her in the past 2 years either. Every day, she missed him, every day she thought of him, every day she wanted to call him and ask to meet up with him, but the day she mustered her courage to call, she found out his number had been changed. In these two years, Charlotte and the girls never let their contact die, she had tried to distance herself from them but it only ended up in the mother showing up to her dorms, demanding an explanation.

She had developed a habit of visiting the three brothers in turn as much as she could, and more often than not, their wives would greet her with wide open arms. When she asked why they told her that she was just as much part of the family as them and that it would all work out in the end. She had marveled at their optimism and allowed it to brighten up her day as well, but it all came crashing down the day she was at Lucas's place and she asked him if he would like to join them for dinner.

"You're a nice girl and all, Tessa," He had told her. "But I don't quite fancy you since you made my baby brother cry," He shrugged and walked away, allowing Tessa to feel that pain to a whole new level to know that Daniel had cried after she broke his heart.

They would meet outside the house after that at least once a month to check in on her and see how she was doing, and Tessa sometimes even managed to go to Virginia to visit Andrew and Charlotte.

She didn't ask about Daniel – no matter how tempted she was – and they didn't say anything about him either. But it appears that he was now an FBI agent, operating in and out of Brooklyn.

And seeing him today, tore open the wound in her heart, the wound which never healed and she supposed would never heal either.

After Nathan and Delilah's wedding, Tessa found herself searching for Daniel in the people she met, working through five boys in a month alone. Her friends even staged an intervention to get her to stop. She had been mad at them, telling them to leave her alone but Jeremy didn't back down. He made a deal with her that the next boy she dates, she just give him a month, and if she likes him she continued the relationship, and if she doesn't she can break up with him, she just gives him a chance. And now Tessa had been with Ryle for six months now. She was convinced that he was the one for her – not because she felt that he was, but because he was the closest thing to Daniel she could find in two years, and now he was back, and he was here.

He was here, in Brooklyn, right under her nose, and Tessa just wanted to go to him and hug him, ask him for his forgiveness and make things right between them.

After all, he was her Casanova and she, his Bambi.

"Tessa," Ryle's voice jolted her out of her thoughts as she sniffled and turned around to face him. "What's wrong?"

That was what was wrong, the fact that he wasn't Daniel because that man knew what was bothering her before she could even formulate her thoughts about it.

"I'm just stressed," She lied through her teeth, having become increasingly good at it over the past two years, and wiped her eyes. "I mean, graduation is just months away, and it's my last semester at University and I'm getting a job. It's all just happening so fast,"

"It is," He laughed and Tessa gave him a bittersweet smile, his response forcing the realization to hit harder:

This man wasn't Daniel.