Only Once: He Lived Every Day Twice. She Only Needed One. pdf

He has never lost a single life. Not in the version that counts.

Chicago hostage negotiator Elias Ward is a legend. Two hundred call-outs. Rooftops, standoffs, frightened people with their fingers on triggers. He has talked every one of them down.

His secret is impossible. Since the summer he was nine, Elias has lived every day twice. The first time is a rehearsal that nobody else remembers. The second time is the one that stays. He has never been surprised, never been late, and never once let anyone see the man behind the perfect words.

Then he meets Noor Haddad, a bomb technician who lives by her late father's rule: you only touch a wire once. She is fearless, funny and completely unrehearsed, and for the first time in thirty years, Elias wants something he can't plan.

So he does what he has always done. He practices. The first date. The first kiss. The first night. Every moment perfected before she ever lives it.

But a bomber the city calls the Clockmaker is targeting the places where Chicago waits, and Noor is the one who walks toward every device. Elias begins rewriting her days to keep her alive, one careful change at a time, until he learns the cost no rehearsal can hide:

When you move someone out of danger, someone else is always standing in the space you cleared.

To truly love her, Elias may have to give up the only power that keeps her safe, and learn to live the way the rest of us do.

Only once.

Readers will find:

• A time-loop love story with the heart of a tearjerker and the pace of a thriller
• A hostage negotiator and a bomb technician whose love is tested by a bomber racing the clock
• Twists that turn on a single phone call, a single train, a single minute
• A bittersweet ending about grief, courage, and the beauty of a life you can't take back

Scroll up and start the story that happens only once.