My father—who has not made one single attempt, with all the resources he possesses, to contact me in five years. Who wasn’t even at the event to honor my mother, and where I last saw Michael. I hate how much his actions still twist me into knots. I hate how much I ridiculously yearn for a parent who never gave a damn about me, who never gave a damn about my mother, who loved him with all of her heart.

My lips tighten. “We both know my father didn’t send you here.”

“Actually, he did. See, we keep tabs on you, Sara. We always have. That means we keep tabs on the people you include in your life. Which brings me to the here and now and your recent choice in companions.”

Heat floods my face and my heart races wildly. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Chris Merit has some interesting diversions, don’t you think?”

My heart explodes in my chest. Chris. He’s using Chris against me. He knows about the club. That has to be what he means. This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening.

He continues, “We’d hoped you’d realize his destructive nature and walk away, but now that you’re going public with him, getting your picture snapped and slapped in the newspapers, we can’t stay out of what could be damaging to you and us.”

“Us?” I demand. “You’re not a part of any ‘us’ I am a part of.”

“Wrong again. See, as your father’s new VP, what hurts him hurts me, and vice versa. And I’m quite certain a children’s charity would be more than a little disturbed by Chris’s interests. Don’t you think?”

He’s obsessed and sick. “You just want me so I can inherit and you can take my money.”

He leans closer and it’s all I can do not to jerk back, to show weakness. “I just want the woman I love to come home, Sara.” There is no love in his voice, only possessiveness, ownership. “I’m at the Marriott airport hotel. I expect to see you soon.” He steps around me and he is gone, leaving me in the quicksand of his threats.

I stand there frozen, eroding inside. The room falls away and there is nothing but what happened two years before, and the black hole of my torment. And the certainty that I brought this on myself and Chris, with my actions, my foolishness. My weakness. I’d just been so damn alone, so lost, and Michael had been the one connection I had to my mother, and the father who seemed to want nothing to do with me. And he’d seemed different. Or maybe I just wanted him to be different. Deep down, I’d craved an excuse to go home, to have a home. Michael had been warm and charming, and I’d felt like I was meeting him all over again, that I’d judged him harshly in the past. But I’d been wrong, so very wrong.

I can feel myself spiraling down into the hell of that night. I’m starting to crumble and I know I have to get somewhere private and pull myself together, to think and find a way out of this. My gaze lifts, seeking an escape route, and collides with Chris’s from across the room. I see the worry in his face, feel it from a distance. That’s how powerful our connection is, and the vise around my chest tightens. Oh, God. I love this man, and I’m about to destroy him. I turn away from him and weave through the crowd. I cannot face him until I pull myself together, to get through tonight without a public meltdown.

Darting away, I weave through the crowd, worried Chris will catch up to me before I gain my composure, before I figure out how to fix this mess, but I have no idea where I’m going. I’m just walking, weaving, blindingly seeking escape.

I grab a passing waiter. “Ladies’ room?”

He points to a sign and I rush away, turning a corner, close to escape, when I bump right into Gina. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

She grabs my arms to steady me and casts me a concerned look. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes. I ate something that didn’t sit well. I need a bathroom.” It’s a horrible excuse but it’s all I have.

“Okay.” She steps aside and calls, “Do you want me to get Chris?”

“No!” I exclaim, whirling around. “Please no. I don’t want him to see me like this.” I push open the door and walk past the woman at the sink, and I don’t dare look at her. I head inside the handicapped stall directly in front of me and lock the door. On wobbly legs, I fall against the wall opposite the toilet. This is what everything in my life has collided together and become. Me, staring at a toilet, trying not to fall apart. Somehow it’s perfectly appropriate.

A flashback of two years ago overtakes me. Of Michael driving me back to my hotel and walking me to my door. Of how gentle and sweet he’d seemed. I’d invited him in to talk. Just talk, I’d told him.

The instant the door had shut, everything had changed. He’d been angry, damning me for leaving, for making him look bad. I can almost feel the moment he slammed me against the wall and his body covered mine. And his hands were everywhere, all over me. I start to shake again. I can’t stop shaking. I hug myself and will away the memories. My eyes prickle and I will away the tears. I will not give Michael the satisfaction of making me cry. I have to go back to the party and look presentable. I have to smile. I have to get through this night without ruining it for Chris.

“Sara!”

It’s Chris’s voice, and I can’t believe he’s in the bathroom. He never does what I expect or what is normally considered acceptable. And he is always there at my worst moments. Always. The only person who ever has been.

“She’s in the back stall,” the woman at the sink instructs.

“Can you give us a minute?” he asks.

“I’ll watch the door,” she tells him, clearly knowing him. Great. Already someone to tell the world about some incident Chris’s date had tonight.

“Sara.” His voice is a soft caress, a promise he is here for me, maybe for the last time.

“You can’t be in here, Chris.” And damn it, my voice cracks.

“Open the door, baby. I need to see you.”

“I can’t. I can’t open the door.”

“Why?”

“Because if I do I’ll cry and mess up my makeup.”

“Let me in, Sara.” His voice is gentle but insistent.

“Please, Chris. I’ll be out in a minute and I’ll be fine.” But I don’t sound fine. My voice is strained, barely recognizable.

“You know me. I’m not going to leave without you opening up.”

You know me. I do know him and I know how much trust and privacy means to him. Not only did I lie to him, but he let me inside his world, and Michael is about to make it public.

“Sara.” There is a push to the way he says my name, a gentle command, but still a command.

He isn’t going away. He’s too ridiculously stubborn. I unlock the door and step back to the wall, telling myself to make up yet another lie to get him past this evening, to protect him. Once we are back at the hotel, then I’ll tell him everything. That’s my plan but I fail miserably. The instant I see Chris, my brilliant, damaged, amazing artist who’s let me into his life, and who I am about to lose, I lose it. My legs give out and I sink to the floor, tears bursting from some deep hidden place I’ve never visited but I knew existed.

Chris squats down in front of me and his hands are on my shoulders, strong and sure, and I cry harder. I can’t stop the waterfall. He shifts to lean against the wall and pulls me against him. “This isn’t how this is supposed to happen.”

“This isn’t how what was supposed to happen?” he asks, stroking my hair and urging me to look at him with a finger under my chin. “This is about the man I saw you talking to, isn’t it?”

“Michael.” My stomach knots just saying his name. “That was Michael. I . . .” I draw a deep breath of courage and rush into my confession. “There are things I haven’t told you. I meant to. I wanted to. I knew I had to but I just . . . I just wanted to forget and . . .” I bury my hands in my face. I can’t look at him. I can’t. My body shakes and I will away the tears I can’t seem to escape.

Chris slides his hands to my head and forces my gaze back to his, his green eyes searching mine, and he sees too much, he sees what I don’t want him to, what I can’t hide from. He sees the demons I’m battling and how easily they have owned me.

“We all have things we want to forget. No one knows that better than me, but you can tell me anything. You have to know that by now.”

“You’re going to hate me, Chris.”

“I can’t hate you, baby.” His thumbs stroke away my tears and his eyes soften, warm. “I love you way too much for that.”

I feel as if a clamp has just slammed down around my heart. He loves me. Chris loves me, and while it’s exactly what I’ve burned to hear, I can’t accept it now. He doesn’t know me well enough to love me. I shake my head. “No. No, don’t say that until I know you mean it.”

“I already mean it.”

“I lied to you, Chris,” I blurt out. “I didn’t want you to know something about me so I just . . . I lied. I . . . told you I hadn’t had sex in five years but that wasn’t true.” His hands go to my knees, and I feel him withdrawing already, preparing for whatever I’m about to say. I press my fingers to my temples and they tremble. “Two years ago—no—that’s not true, either. Nineteen months and four days ago, I flew back to Vegas for a charity event honoring my mother. My father was a no-show and that hurt. It hurt so damn bad. Michael was there and I was alone and vulnerable and he acted like he cared, and I—”

“Wait,” Chris says, his voice sharp, biting. He rotates me to press me against the wall, his hands on my arms. “You know exactly how many days it is since you fucked him last?”

I flinch. “No. I mean yes. But it wasn’t like that, it was—”

“Do you still love him? Is that what this is about?”

“No—God, no! I love you, not him. I never loved Michael. He . . . he came to my room and I made the mistake of letting him in.” Memories rip through me, and I tilt my head down. I can barely breathe with another flashback of Michael touching me, his hand on my breast. “I let him in.” I force my gaze to Chris’s and whisper, “I let him in, Chris.”

Chris’s hands go to my face, his gaze searching mine. “Are you telling me he raped you?”

“I just . . . I did what he wanted.”

“Did you want him to touch you, Sara?”

“No,” I whisper, and the tears have faded. The cold seeps into my limbs, slithering down my spine and settling deep in my soul, settling into the space where it’s lived for two years.

“Did you tell him no?”

“Yes. Over and over I told him, but he didn’t listen.” My voice is calmer now, but strained. I still don’t sound like me but then, who the hell am I? I don’t know anymore. “And then, I don’t know what happened. I just . . . gave up.”

“Then he raped you.”

“I gave up, Chris. He told me to do things and I did them. I did them. I was pathetic and weak, and I gave up. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell you it had been two years. I just . . . If I don’t block it out, I unravel. We’d just met and I didn’t think you were . . . that we were . . .”

He strokes my cheek. “I know, baby.”

“You don’t know,” I say vehemently as I push to my feet.

Chris is there in an instant, his hand on the wall by my head, and he repeats what I’d said to him earlier in the evening. “I know all I need to know, Sara.”

I shake my head again. “No. You don’t see how bad it was. I woke up with that man in my bed and I have no one to blame but me. I let him put a ring back on my finger and order me back to Vegas.”

“But you didn’t go.”

“No.” My skin crawls just thinking about that morning, how Michael was touching me, acting like he owned me.

“Tell me,” he prods. “What happened?”

I drop my gaze to his chest and draw a breath, trying to calm down, but it seems to lodge in my throat, and I barely get it out.

Chris’s fingers slide under my chin. “What happened next, Sara?”

“I convinced him I was returning to California to pack. Then I waited until I landed in San Francisco, and I called him and threatened him with a restraining order.”

“And?”

“He laughed and told me I’d practically begged him to fuck me, and that’s what he’d tell the cops. I told him I’d go public and he said he’d paint me as the disinherited daughter looking for revenge.”

“And you said?”

“Bring it on. I didn’t care about my reputation, but he did his.”

“And he stayed away.”

“Until tonight.”

Chris frames my face with his hands and he kisses me, just lips to lips, but it’s not just a kiss. It is fire and ice, and passion and heat, and love. There is love in this kiss and I lean into him, my hands going to his wrist, and I don’t want this moment to end. His lips linger against mine, and just for these few moments there is nothing else but us, no Michael, no past, no future to worry over.