I should have told her the truth. That I wasn't her Alex. That I was from another dimension. That I was in love with a version of her sister who was still alive in my world.
Instead, I kissed her back.
Because for one moment, I could pretend. Pretend that Nina hadn't sent me away. Pretend that this was my life. Pretend that the woman in my arms was the woman I loved.
It was wrong. It was a betrayal of everyone — my Nina, this Mira, even myself.
But God, it felt like coming home.
Two months passed.
I stopped looking for a way back.
The device didn't exist in this world. Nina's research here was conventional — no quantum tunnels, no parallel dimensions. I had no resources, no knowledge, no hope of recreating the technology.