Come Back To Me - Kathy Coopmans

Table of Contents Prologue Epilogue ADRIANA- One year later Adriana BLAKE- Six months later Blake Acknowledgments

COME BACK TO ME

KATHY COOPMANS

CONTENTS Prologue 1.

ADRIANA- One year later

2.

Adriana

3.

BLAKE- Six months later

4.

Blake

5.

Adriana

6.

Adriana

7.

Blake

8.

Adriana

9.

Blake

10. Adriana 11. Blake 12. Adriana 13. Blake 14. Adriana 15. Blake 16. Adriana 17. Blake 18. Adriana 19. Blake 20. Adriana 21. Blake 22. Adriana 23. Blake Epilogue Acknowledgments

Come Back To Me

Copyright © 2017 by Kathy Coopmans Edited by: Julia Goda Proofreader: Cat Parisi/Cat’s iProofing & Promos Cover Designer: Perfect Pear Creative Photographer: Battershell Photography/Eric Battershell Model: Chase Bergner

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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DedicationTo True Love

PROLOGUE

ADRIANA “Damn it, Alexis.” I throw my car into park, cut the engine, and listen to the rain pelt down against the windows. “I should go in there and kick her ass for parking in the garage once again.” But I won’t. She’s still too fragile. Much like a little bird with a broken wing. You have to handle them with care, or you’ll damage them beyond repair. That is indeed how I’m taking care of my sister. Warm blankets, food, shelter, and a soothing voice. Gentle hands and all the love she deserves. Even on the cold, hard days when she screams and pounds her fists on her chest as she hoarsely cries how much she doesn’t deserve it. Alexis is three years older than me, and she has lost her way in life. Stroke after stroke of bad luck has rained down on her far worse than the freezing drops of water falling from the gray-mattered sky. If I’m sitting here reminiscing, then I need to be honest; she’s had a rough life. We both have, actually. When we lost our parents, I chose to mourn the loss by becoming lost in school, my photography, and working at my grandmother’s store. Alexis lost herself in dozens of men, booze, and eventually a drug addiction that led her to jail and rehab. More times than I dare to count. I hope this time she’s learned her lesson. I’m too young to have my heart give out on me over worrying day and night about her. There’s barely anything left of it to give out as it is. A shred maybe, but I’m too stingy to let her have it. Dumb me is saving it for myself. For who or what is a question only God can answer. I should be more concerned about our grandmother and her deteriorating health. The stubborn woman won’t go to the doctor. She won’t listen to a word I say. Always coaxing me into believing she’s fine, telling me to work Alexis out of my system so I can live some sort of normal life. The sassy little old lady continues to work her fingers to the bone while popping antacids in her mouth. Daily. She worries me. It was hard enough on all of us nine years ago when our parents were both killed on impact when a drunk driver rammed into them from behind, causing our father to lose control of the wheel. They hit a tree head on. I was eighteen, getting ready to start college, and Alexis was barely twenty-one. My parents had returned home from a two-week vacation to help me move into my dorm. If anyone should have turned to losing it, it

should have been me. I was the one they demanded they were cutting their vacation short for. I begged them not to. Told them grandma and Alexis could help me. They had been planning the long trip across the country for two years. They never made it to all the places they’d wanted to see. I’ll never lose the blameworthiness over losing them. No matter where my life takes me. The one constant thing I can rely on in my life is guilt, and it’s crawling up my throat once again as I sit here and listen to the rain smack on the roof of my car. I shiver, not from the cold either. I miss our mom and dad so much I can barely stand to look at myself sometimes. When Alexis turned to drinking heavily a few years ago, I became irate. Yelled at her constantly. Nagged her continually and worried until I nearly drove myself crazy. Which I know is the wrong thing to do when dealing with an addict. I couldn’t help it anymore. All I’ve done since then is support, listen, and clean up mess after mess with her and yet, just like our grandmother, she won’t listen. “’A fact is a stubborn thing,’ John Adams once said, Adriana,” I sniffle out. Never were truer words spoken. More guilt. So much of it now that I nearly gag from choking back my sobs. My sister wouldn’t be a drug addict and an alcoholic if it weren’t for me. No, she would be the one constant in my life I would need, and no one knows better than my own broken heart how much I need her to be just that instead of her constantly saying she’s sorry all the time. Half of her ‘I’m sorry’s’ come out in words that make no sense at all and are barely coherent anyway. One day, she cries in the corner, rocking back and forth, telling me how sorry she is for ruining my life, for doing things she claims I would hate her more for if I knew what she had done. Crying her eyes out with wanting Mom and Dad, begging me to forgive her. Always telling me that my train-wrecked life is not my fault. And then the next time she’ll be up in my face. Spitting nails into the sockets in my head with every word full of vile and venom dispensing out of her mouth. It crushes me. I used to be the naïve woman who believed her. I haven’t believed a word she has told me in a long, long time. It will never stop me from loving her, though. Never stop me from helping her either. I can’t understand why she mixes her drugs with drinking, or why she even gets drunk in the first place when heavy drinking was the major contribution that killed our parents. It’s a deadly combination. I learned through my own therapy that a person doesn’t realize how much their actions can hurt someone else. Not until either they or you hit rock bottom or die. I cringe at the thought of losing her. I’ll drown in my guilt if I do. A little over two years ago, Alexis not only bottomed out, she literally landed face first on my kitchen floor in a convulsing mess of vomit and filth when she showed up here in the middle of the night. Drunk, coked out, and rattled things off about a part of my life I never talk about. I barely understood a word she said because all that mattered was getting her the help she needed. I was scared out of my mind that the time had come when I was going to lose her. I don’t know how many days I went without sleep. Sat by her side while she fought her demons. Sweating, puking, and clawing at me to let her go out. It broke me in more ways than I can talk about to anyone; and when I would try to

bring up the name of the man who my heart still aches for, the name she threw at me when she hit rock bottom, she would retreat back into herself, which was the beginning of losing her all over again. I’m so lost in her world right now that it scares me. I’m afraid I’ll never be the woman again I once was, but I can’t desert her. It’s funny how when a person tries to help someone else find themselves, they end up losing themselves in the process. “You sound pathetic, Adriana,” I think out loud, swipe angrily at my tears. “Yeah, well, you aren’t pathetic. She’s your sister. Everyone has given up on her but you.” That includes our grandmother. The second time Alexis hit rock bottom—the time that led her to live with me and the man from my past—my grandmother and I cracked. That was it for sweet little Elizabeth Monroe, the foundation to our family. “No more, Adriana. It breaks my heart to say it, but I’m done. I will always love her and you. I just don’t have the strength to watch her kill herself anymore. Not like you do.” If you only knew how weak I really am, Grandma. I can only pray Alexis never goes back to torturing herself, me, or grandma again. It was hell. She’s been sober for three months now. There’s no more booze, drugs, or men. She’s back to work as a part-time hairstylist. Bringing in new clientele at a rapid pace and living with me until she feels comfortable enough to be on her own. But she’s still weak, has days when she craves and angers the hell out of me at times. Which, if she continues to park in my spot in the garage on days when it’s pouring, she’s going to be out of here before she’s ready. All I want to do is take a long, hot bath and climb into bed. I worked through dinner to get this photo shoot set up for tomorrow afternoon. I’m hungry, exhausted, and now I’m furious. “I’m going to scream,” I decide as I climb out of my car. The rain starts pelting my skin on contact. The wind is howling as she becomes my evil nemesis. Frigid and chilly. I step into the garage, hit the button to close the door, and shake the water from my skin. By the time I slip off my shoes and dry off, my anger is boiling. My kitchen is a mess. There are dirty dishes everywhere. I suppose I should be thankful my best friend, Heidi, has helped turn Alexis’s addictive personality into learning how to cook and bake. For two weeks now, Alexis has become obsessed with mastering Heidi’s recipe for blueberry muffins. It won’t ever happen; Heidi’s are the best. Yet, I praise her for trying. At the moment, though, I’m standing here with my mouth hanging open at the sight before me. The backsplash is covered with a dark purple stain. Every dish I own is either piled up in the sink, on the table, or the counter. Blueberries are scattered all over the floor. “I’m done cleaning up after her. She’s going to get out of bed and make my kitchen shine. I’m not doing it anymore,” I murmur. I’m angry. I have every right to be, too. “Alexis,” I holler as I make my way down the short hall to her bedroom, the anger in my blood boiling over. It turns cold instantly, freezes up when I step into her bedroom. The scream I wanted to erupt a moment ago dislodges from the depths of my soul. I’m not screaming over her parking in the garage. I’m not angry over the lights being left on or about my dirty kitchen.

I’m not even angry over the fact the scene in front of me looks eerily familiar. It hits my nerves like a spark from a live wire. Splinters my hopes into irreparable pieces. In fact, I’m not angry at all. I’m shattered. Heartbroken. Defeated. My sister is lying in her bed with an empty bottle of vodka by her side, a mirror with traces of white powder, a needle stuck in her arm. I’m screaming out of an inconsolable pain that I’ll never get over. My sister, who I tried with everything in me to save, is dead. Her once vibrant blue eyes are glassed over in pain. I failed her the same way I did my parents, the same way I did my husband. I don’t know how much more of life I can take.

ONE

ADRIANA- ONE YEAR LATER

I’ve been to enough funerals in my twenty-eight years of living. I’m not a fan of them. I doubt anyone is. This particular funeral today, though, has not only shocked me, it’s obliterated the only piece of my heart that was left and has grounded it to the finest of dust. Over the past several days, I’ve said ‘thank you’ to hundreds of people paying their last respect, their pity for the tragedies that have turned me bitter flitting on the edge of their tongues. I’ve smiled respectfully when all I’ve really wanted to do was tell them to leave me alone. To take my misfortunes and go away. This past year has been one of the worst years of my life. I don’t want to be here saying good-bye to the woman who helped me survive all of the losses I’ve faced. It started with my parents, my sister; and, as horrible as it may sound, the worst loss I’ve experienced, well, that would be the sudden death of my husband four years ago. It’s a time of my life that will never go away. A time in my life that haunts me day and night. While my sweet grandma Elizabeth suffered as much as I did, she always put Alexis and me first. Tried to help me cope with the downward spiral. I’ll never feel her frail arms wrapping around me again. I blink. Exhaustedly. I don’t want to be standing here gawking at the giant hole in the ground when the open one in my chest is daring me to glance over at my sister’s and parents’ headstones. My entire family is gone. I feel the knife life has stabbed me in the back with sitting dangerously on my spine when they start to lower her casket into the ground. I stiffen. Life is enforcing its message loud and clear. I don’t have a single blood relative left. No husband to help me mourn, to hold me and tell me that someday everything will be alright. It wouldn’t matter, because nothing will ever be right again. Pain like this will never go away. My heart skids to a gripping halt. “Grandma, I love you so much. The saddest part about being the one left behind is having to live without you. Without all of you. I know I have to do it; I just don’t know how. You would tell me I haven’t really been living at all if you were here, wouldn’t you?” I reach up and wipe the tears away. A lot of good it’s going to do me when they don’t stop falling no matter how much I wish them away. I can’t seem to move. I’m freezing, shivering in the warm June weather, and every

time I try shifting to the left or right, my legs want to give out and let me drop to the solid ground. I’m hurting everywhere. I’m sick to my stomach over this. In not only the way one should be when someone you love passes away, but also because I’m angry. Violently so. I haven’t been back to the cemetery since Alexis’s funeral. I simply haven’t been able to do it. Hell, I haven’t been to visit my husband’s grave out of guilt that has me wrapped so tight I can barely breathe. I’m a horrible person. Breathing hurts. Especially when I’m surrounded by my family, who is no longer here to breathe with me. “Would you like to place a few flowers on their graves?” Heidi slings her arm around my shoulders and hands me four white roses. My shaky fingers take them, and without saying more, she steps back away from me. The comfort of her by my side is an effective dose of reality. I don’t want to be alone. Heidi is unlike me in every way. Where I keep things bottled up inside until I shatter, she’s a pusher. A live wire. A pull-your-blinds-wide-open kind of woman, grab-you-byyour-ankle-and-jerk-you-right-out-of-bed-until-you-land-on-the-floor type of girl. That’s what she did to me this morning when I refused to get up. My back is bruised, too. Bitch. “You’ll feel better if you do it.” Her voice sounds sincere from behind me. When I don’t move, she’s there beside me as her hand goes to my shoulder and gives me a delicate squeeze. No. I doubt I will feel better ever again. She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew how overflowing my bottle of guilt really is. However, if I want to get out of here, I should do what she says, or she’ll be grabbing hold of my ear and tugging me behind her. “I love you, Grandma; I promise I’ll do my best to try and smile. I’ll find a way to live like you wanted me to. I’m not sure how just yet. I’m guessing all of you are up there discussing what it is you think I should do.” I try to lift the corners of my mouth. They won’t budge. I hope I can stick to my promises one day, whether I want to or not. Right now, I don’t. The last couple of months of her life, she had a few meetings with her lawyer. I figured my grandmother went to talk to him about what to do with the money she had made from the sale of her business. I didn’t care about what she did with it. It was hers. So, I waved her out the door and went back to developing my pictures when she mentioned those meetings. I didn’t give it a second thought. Until now. Hunter Daly, her lawyer, is a name she hadn’t brought up to me in years. For good reason. He’s the godfather of the man who promised me he would be home for dinner. Only, that man never came home at all. His body left this earth, while his soul remains in my heart. I take a few deep breaths. I can’t think of him right now, or I’ll completely fall apart. I miss him all the time. And yet, here I am, and my mind can’t stop thinking about him no matter how hard I try. Blake was substantially the most attractive man I had ever met. His perfectly molded face was heightened with a strong, masculine jaw, perfectly angled nose, full lips, and the longest lashes on a man I had seen. His dark hair was constantly messy from me running

my hands through it. No one is perfect, but to me, he was. He barreled into my life at the right time. I had finally felt Lady Luck was on my side, and she was. He was impossibly beautiful, exceptionally kind, and blew every sexual fantasy I had out of this atmosphere. It all changed in the blink of an eye. The man I love, the man I married, is dead along with the rest of the people I love. There are days when I feel like there is no me without him, no life to live after I lost the love we shared. He was my all, and existing when he no longer is has destroyed my heart in a way it will never heal.

TWO

ADRIANA

“I’m standing here thinking of Blake when I should remember her,” I express shamefully as I stand by my grandmother’s graveside. “Adriana, it’s natural to think about all your losses when you’re hurting. Elizabeth knew how much you loved Blake. Let your heart take your mind where it has to go. Don’t fight what you’re feeling. Don’t deny the sensitivity of your heart.” God, if I weren’t in a state of denial, I would ask Heidi how she all of a sudden became so smart. She’s right, though. Blake and I had a wonderful kind of love. The kind of love I will hold close to my broken heart for the rest of my life. I miss the feel of his muscular arms that I dream are wrapped around me as much as I miss the smell of him. I miss his smile, his face, and the dirty things that used to come out of his mouth. I miss everything about him. When the ache in my chest overpowers me with a cursed vengeance, it stays for a long time. When it goes, it’s never gone for long. Always teasing, taunting, and waiting to strike me down. The silence that rings in my ears is constantly loud, reminding me of what I lost; it never leaves. It’s always there to remind me of the guilt I’ll possess, of the blame I’ve casted upon myself for the rest of my days. I should have tried harder to stop him from leaving that day. They say God doesn’t give a person more than they can handle. I don’t believe that at all anymore. I’m losing it. I can’t handle any more from anyone. I’m not one to pity myself, but I’d like to know the reason why I’m dangling over the edge with my grip loosening with each passing day. “I wish I could give up,” I whisper, low enough for only myself to hear. Part of my future had already been taken away from me with my parents’ death when I first met Blake Jensen, my husband. I sat on the lawn under a large willow tree on the campus of the University of Michigan, admiring the new lens my grandmother had bought me for my camera, when he tripped over me, the lens fell out of my hand and broke when his large body crashed down on it as he stumbled forward trying not to fall on me. I had been crying for months over the loss of my parents and the weird way my sister had been acting, so instead of bawling like most people do, I was pissed that some overly large, tattooed muscle meathead hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. My

redheaded temper came out, and I fired my flaming mouth in his direction as I tried to shove him away from me, but he wouldn’t budge. He took the beating I gave him with a devilish smirk on his face until I stood there with my wild hair a mess, shoulders shaking, and then he picked me up off the ground by my skinny little elbows, hoisted me up to within an inch of his face, and kissed me. I was too shocked to kiss him back. Became dazed and outraged when he shoved all the broken camera pieces inside his backpack, apologized, and walked away. I cried for two days straight. Stayed in my dorm room until a loud, heavy knock on my door turned into a persistent pounding. I swung the door open to see a brand-new lens sticking out of a bag that also held the most beautiful flower I had ever seen. A purple tulip. Behind the bag stood Blake Jensen. He stole my heart that day. He also kept his promise of giving me a life full of passion. Until he took the passion with him the day he died. We were married four years later. He died a few days after our two-year anniversary. I haven’t been the same woman since. I don’t even remember his funeral. All I know is, I was there in my sister’s arms, while Heidi hovered over us. Crying and gripping hold of my stomach with one hand while trying to contain my broken heart to keep beating with the other. My heart may still be beating. However, the pain is still in my chest, and the guilt still sits in the pit of my stomach. Neither one of them will go away. I’m lost. Utterly broken. “There’s a big block of ice sitting on my chest, Heidi. It’s the middle of the summer, and it’s still there. Heavier than it was before. It weighs me down. It won’t melt; it won’t move. This hurts so much.” “Shh. I’ve got you. Let it out.” No, she may think she has me, but she doesn’t. The heavy block has me sinking to the bottom of a dark, gloomy, pointed pit of destruction. Every day, I tell myself that it’s time to move on. I’ve gone over and over the day Blake died in my head so many times. Convincing myself that he loved his job more than me, that he shouldn’t have agreed to meet a client in upstate New York that morning when the roads were covered in ice and snow. His excuse he used for going into work was lame and unlike him. He claimed it was hard for him seeing me wilt away with everything happening in our home with Alexis. I know he hated what Alexis was doing to herself, to me. Hell, I knew he hated her. Only once did we argue briefly over it. He would hold me when I needed it. Screw me senseless when I didn’t. I thought we would grow old together, and I assumed the love we had was so strong that we would be together forever. “I never told you this before. When I first met Blake, I didn’t need him to make me whole again. I only needed him. I was determined to find a way to move forward on my own with the weight of losing my parents, with Alexis falling down a hole, but my heart has never healed over losing him. It keeps finding new ways to crack. I’ve become a woman who has no idea what she’s doing anymore. Who she is or the path I’m supposed to walk on. And every day, I ask myself why I can’t let him go. He took so much of me with him when he left, and I need all of me back.” I expect Heidi to say something. She doesn’t. Maybe she wonders if I’m talking to her, myself, or no one in particular. I don’t

know. I’m thankful for her silence as much as I’m thankful she’s standing here with me long after all the people have come and gone. Life isn’t done throwing sharp objects my way either. Nope, it wants to stab me repeatedly up and down my spine. I have to make it through this meeting with Blake’s godfather when life will have me stirring up memories I don’t want to think about once again. I knew my grandmother was leaving half of everything to me. The other half of her fortune was going to all her favorite charities. What I didn’t expect was what happened five days ago when I went to her house expecting to see her sitting at her kitchen table, looking at the photos I had dropped off earlier. Only she wasn’t. She was slumped down in her chair, barely breathing from a heart attack. My grandmother died before the ambulance arrived. Her kind heart gave out on her while I stroked her hair. She took the last bit of my heart with her. Along with her reason why I had to see her lawyer when she told me where all her paperwork was if, or when, anything were to happen to her. I’ll never know why she kept who her lawyer was from me. It makes me so angry because I will always wonder why. I can only hope that when I meet with Hunter, I’m strong enough not to fall apart. I deserted him shortly after Blake’s funeral. Every time I stepped into his home, it was a reminder of Blake. I couldn’t continue to live if I didn’t try to forget him. Regardless of how much I loved my husband, I think Hunter knew I had to try and move on, or I was going to end up in a box beside Blake. A box I haven’t visited since before my sister died. I’ve never moved on. I’m not sure if I ever will. “I can’t believe all of you are gone. This will be my first holiday season without any of you. I don’t know how I’m going to celebrate when I feel there’s nothing to celebrate. How do I get through this, Grandma? I’m hurting. I miss you all so much. I’m trying to remember the things we did together, the way all of us laughed, and the stories you would tell to keep my parents alive in my heart. You believed in me when I felt I couldn’t go on. I wish I could see you again.” I exhale, hang my head, and let the tears flow. Thankful that Heidi is letting me do this on my own. My grandmother had started Monroe Boudoir forty years ago in downtown Manhattan. She turned it into one of the top three photography studios this side of the state. Not only did we greet our guests with coffee, water, or mimosas, we consulted, helped them pick out what they would like to wear—if they didn’t bring their own, which most of them never did. We offered hair and makeup services, which I learned to master on my own once Alexis became unreliable. We made them feel as comfortable as we could. We understood that most of our clients were nervous, whether it was their first time modeling in front of a camera or not. Most shoots were done for a boyfriend, husband, or the women who just wanted to feel good about themselves. Those were my favorites. The ones who have no self-confidence. That’s where I’d come in. One of my specialties per se. To get the woman to bring out her inner beauty through the eyes of my lens. Every woman should feel nothing less than the goddess she is. No matter her height, shape, or size. It’s a pity I don’t practice what I preach. My other specialty was dressing them in the colors that suit their skin tone, the color of

their hair, and the meaning behind the shoot in the first place. Several months ago, she told me she was ready to retire. Asked me if I wanted her to sign over ownership to me. Even though I loved what I did, I wanted more out of my business degree, more out of the passion I had for photography. I told her to sell it. Teased her that if anything were to happen to her, I was moving somewhere peaceful where I could open my own studio. Preferably on a lake. My grandmother’s business sold in less than a day. I started my own photography business after the Boudoir sold. It was my grandma who convinced me I had the talent to capture a precious moment someone could hold on to forever. I still dabble a little in dressing up window displays. And now, as I drop a rose on my grandma’s casket, inhale deeply with the stinging tears behind my eyes, force my feet to shuffle left to stand in the middle of my parents’ and sister’s graves, I crumble. Not knowing what in the hell I’m going to do with my broken life. My body drains, my legs give out, and I fall to the ground clutching the roses to my aching chest. “I told Grandma I would always try and smile. How am I supposed to do that when I’m all alone now? What did I ever do to life for it to be such a cruel punishment?” I cry. “Hey, my friend. You’re not alone.” Heidi kneels beside me, pulling me into her side. “I know. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I’m sorry.” I lay the roses in front of the graves, my head spinning, my heart full of grief. “It’s just…They should be here. My father should be running the business with my mom by his side. My grandma should be sitting at home watching The Price Is Right. Alexis should be here with her bright blue eyes, her smile, her torn heart, and her brilliant mind, and my husband’s arms should be holding me. My heart is missing vital pieces, Heidi, and I don’t think I will ever get them back.” It took me two months after finding Alexis dead in my house to walk back through the door. Heidi had to pick me up off Alexis’s bedroom floor, where I lay in a pile of her clothes clinging on to her favorite silk clutch. The one I had bought her because the different shades of blue reminded me of her eyes. I carry it with me everywhere now. It’s my lifeline to her. A memento of the young woman she was before she became lost. I study her tombstone through blurred eyes. “I bled for you. Every part of me did. I tried with all I had to help you. I tried to understand how you could turn on me. How the drugs sunk their hooks in you and wouldn’t let go. I was finally breathing again. Happy for you. For me to finally be on my way to having my sister home. The sister who used to braid my hair. The girl who would tell me how pretty I was when I would come home from school after the kids would call me names and laugh at me over my bright red hair. How could you of all people do this to me, Alexis? How? I miss you so much there are days I don’t know how I’m still breathing. You left me to pick up the pieces by myself. How am I supposed to do that when all the pieces are covered in guilt? How?” I sob. I hate feeling sorry for myself. I hate it. I packed her stuff up and moved in with Heidi and her husband, Daniel. Dug my heels into working. I haven’t dated in God knows how long. I go home, curl up on the couch, and cry. I’m tired of crying. Tired of not living, and I’m grieving so bad it hurts. The pain

in my chest is unmoving. Grief is an awful emotion. I’ve lived this monster called pain for far too long, and I know I need to start living. I simply don’t know how.

THREE

BLAKE- SIX MONTHS LATER

With nearly twenty thousand people living in the city of Traverse City, Michigan, I had told myself the likelihood of running into her would be slim to none when I found out she was moving here. Apparently, her grandmother bought her a new home. One Adriana never knew about until she met with a lawyer to go over her grandmother’s will. A lawyer I know very well. The irony of how unlikely something nearly impossible like this could happen isn’t lost on me, that’s for damn sure. It shocked the living hell out of me. I’m still in shock, still unable to remotely comprehend she’s within minutes of me. The woman I vowed to protect. Christ, this is unbelievable. Every single day, I’ve been telling myself this is the day I’m going to go see her. Tell her everything. I always end up stopping myself like the coward I am. My heart tells me it’s not ready, my head screams that I need to figure it out, and my body craves her touch, my ears perk to hear her voice. It’s a sign there’s a possibility I won’t continue to live in hell. “Or else it’s a sign you’re going to stay there for the rest of your life, you pathetic ass,” I mumble. The blood pumping to my heart slows down the more I think about her. I should have gone to her when Hunter first told me she was moving here. I couldn’t. Not when I was flipping the fuck out thinking this was some kind of Goddamn trick and she either found me or was being followed. I’m being pulled in all kinds of directions when all I want is to go to her. I simply don’t know what I’ll say to her when I do. But the shit running through my muddled-up brain hasn’t stopped me from driving by the building she bought, or her home late at night, hoping to get a glimpse of her. All I’ve been doing is punishing myself more. “You’ve suffered years of punishment, Blake. What’re a few more days going to hurt?” Everything, that’s what. It’s increasing the ache of missing her in my chest with every breath I take without her. I wake up gasping for air with a twinge in my chest that makes me feel like I’m really dying. All I want is to breathe clean air. Fresh air to share with her. A month ago, I showed up unannounced in NYC. Hiding in the backseat of my friend Mason’s car. I had to know what in the hell was going on with Adriana moving to the

same town I disappeared to. I was once a man who vowed to live on the right side of the law, and I did until it was stripped away from me. Along with my wife and our dreams. It wasn’t easy to convince the man who helped raise me to understand my reason for showing up in a city I vowed never to go back to. I had to say good-bye to it for good. If she was moving here, then I knew with everything in me that I would never step foot in that state again. I doubt Adriana will understand any of it at all. In fact, I know she won’t. She won’t see that the reason why I left was to protect her and those we love. I’m sure it hasn’t been a walk in the park for her to mourn the loss of me. It sure as fuck wasn’t for me. I’ve missed her every minute of every day. Time doesn’t erase itself. But knowing I’ll be able to see her face, hear her voice, and gather her in my arms if she’ll let me has been easing my pain. I have to be careful when I tell her the story. I have to make it clear to her how safe we are, that the odds of us being found are slim. That is if I can get her to understand the importance of secrecy along with the likelihood neither one of us may ever be able to return to New York again. It was dumb of me to chance going there in the first place. I can’t erase time, but I erased my name as if I never existed. In fact, four years ago, Blake Jensen was declared legally dead and Blake Mitchell took his place. Now, I need to find a way to see her. Regardless of how these past years have come and gone, my dreams have mostly consisted of her as my days blended together. I love her so fucking much I ache without being able to tell her. It was one of the best parts of my day to say and show my love, to steal her heart away from her every time I expressed it. I’ve lived with a shredded heart for four fucking years over something I was forced to do. Something I’ve regretted; yet as much as it pained me, it had to be done. Every time I drove past a photography studio, saw a piece of lingerie or a tulip, a heavy, weighted-down brick would lie on my chest. It didn’t matter that I had that bitch locked up tight and the key had been left in the palm of Adriana’s hand. It was her I would see in the window. Her I would see walking out the door. A purple tulip instead of a yellow one, or her body wearing the lingerie instead of a mannequin. Everything was her even when I knew it wasn’t. For the first few years, I did nothing but work in the fields of a vineyard. A recluse not to be seen. A promise to become a silent partner to the man who secretively put me here. I could have brought her with me. But I still wouldn’t have had her. Not really. For she, too, had lost herself along the way somewhere. She was halfway gone before I left. Barely hanging on to her sanity with trying to keep her sister alive. If I had brought her with me, she would have ended up resenting me. I couldn’t bear it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “The worst possible nightmare imaginable,” I grumble into the silence of my truck. When I first moved here, I didn’t know a damn thing about making wine. I was a lawyer, for fuck’s sake, not some harvester sweating his ass off in the fields. Sheltering himself away at night in a cellar full of wine. Needless to say, the growing of grapes, the harvesting, all of it became my life. It didn’t take long to learn how the warmth of the day, the coolness of the evening blends together to preserve the growth of the grapes. How, over time, the changing seasons lead to savoring their acidity until they’re fresh and ripe. I love every minute of what I do. Except I wish I were doing it with her.

I’ve made a hell of a lot of money over the years with the sales of our wines, juices, and tours. I have more money than I know what to do with, and it has killed me not to be able to share my success with her. I’ve made a few good friends who were placed here for the same reason I was. All of us hiding, existing, but none of us are really living. It doesn’t matter if their circumstances are different. We’re all lonely men who live a profitable yet sad, nonexistent life. All these years, I could have had anything I wanted. I could have found a new woman. Decided to have a family. The thing is, finding someone else is impossible for me because my heart belongs to her. There isn’t a woman who can compare to the one I gave up, and every day since I’ve paid the price with my heart. The thought of us not belonging to one another has rotted my soul. I may never be able to call her mine again. Lord knows I have no right to. “You had to leave.” Once again, I remind myself I did it to save her life. I thought about her all the time. Hoped she was doing well and that her sister had finally gotten her shit together. I could have asked Hunter, an old family friend and the man who helped me, how she was. If her sister did indeed stop doing drugs, or if Adriana had found herself someone else. I didn’t do any of those things. I needed to leave that world behind. Pretend I was someone else when inside, I was really dying. I could have found a way to call Adriana when Hunter broke down and told me Alexis did not pull herself out of it. Fuck, I could have come back to her. I did none of those things. I only thought of myself and how watching her fade away before my eyes was too much for me to handle before my own life went to hell. I hated her sister. God, only Alexis and I know all the reasons beyond what she was doing to Adriana as to why I loathed that woman. I wanted to punish her for being a selfish bitch. For putting the woman I loved through hell. It was too late, though, before I realized that by me faking my death, I had dragged Adriana through hell myself. I know I did. Adriana loved me as much as I loved her. We had goals. Life plans. And her sister fucked them all to hell. I told Hunter to keep an eye on her for me. To keep her safe. I wasn’t about to hear him tell me ever again how I could have brought her with me and together we could have started this farce of life I live. I couldn’t take her away from her family. The greedy bastard in me has regretted it every day since. I thought I was doing fine; until I heard her sister had died and a year later, she lost her grandmother. Not in a million Goddamn years did I expect that woman to die. Let alone so close after Alexis did. Guilt. So much of it I can barely stand to look at myself. I know Adriana must feel the guilt, too. She lived with it every day over the death of her parents. “Your surprise visit to her is going to freak her the fuck out. You better start safeguarding your balls now. Because she’s going to castrate you,” I groan out to myself. My nerves are coming out of hiding. I haven’t been this nervous since I walked out of our house the day I disappeared. Four fucking years of living the worst mistake I ever made in my pathetic excuse of a

life. She will never forgive me. Never understand why I left her behind. I haven’t loved anyone the way I love Adriana. How could I even try when from the first moment I saw her, she held my heart in the palm of her hands? Stole my soul and shook it up with hers. We blended. We mixed. Together. The organ beating in my chest is only there to keep me alive. A life I hated living without her. So, now, here I am, pulling up to a place I’ve driven by many times, hoping she’s here like Hunter told me she would be. Probably should have sent him to explain all of this to her. I couldn’t; she needs to hear this from me; and Lord help me because I need to see her more than I need air, which means everything, since we all need air to stay alive. How I’ve survived this long without her, I’ll never know. Regardless of the fact that I fucked up her life, there is shit to be done, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to avoid doing this forever. I have a choice to make, and I’m choosing her. It’s always been her. I swing my truck into a parking spot and shut the ignition off. Close my eyes to gather my frantic nerves. The moment I open them and lift my head is the moment my thoughts go in the opposite direction. My dick goes from his shriveled state he’s been in for years to painfully hard. Inches of strained, hard cock, a cock that hasn’t wanted to be inside another woman since her. He’s raging. His veins are stretching to the Goddamn max, pulling my balls agonizingly tight. “Fuck me. What in the hell is going on with my life right now? I swear to God this has to be a fragment of my imagination.” This isn’t a dream at all. It’s reality in the purest form. A calming before the sudden strike of an eruption. I’m actually staring at my beautiful wife.

FOUR

BLAKE

“Adriana,” I whisper. Perfection amongst a world full of imperfection. “Goddamn, it’s really you.” Right in front of me is the most exotic sight I have ever witnessed. It will be stuck in my memory for the rest of my life. In the form of a magnificently shaped ass. The longest slant of a back on a woman I have ever seen. Darker, thicker burgundy-colored hair than I remember. “Damn, Adriana, you’re hot as fuck, so what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Son of a bitch. I adjust my dick, palm him through my jeans. I’m one dirty-thinking motherfucker right now. Always have been, to be honest. Especially with her. I love whispering the things I’d like to do or what I want Adriana to do, and right now, I’d give just about anything to have my cock in my hands. Stroking him in a hurried frenzy while visualizing coming all over the sweet globes of her ass. I can’t help myself. I feel sorry for anyone who would dare to interrupt me right now. I’d kill them if they ended this fantasy come to life. Leisurely, I recline my seat, sit back for my own personal show, and feel a bit guilty that I’m staring at an ass that I once palmed in my hands many times. Especially after everything I’ve put her through. However, I’m a man in love with everything about the woman who is torturing me in ways she has no idea she’s doing; and if the tempting, long, red-haired vixen who hasn’t shown her face to me yet didn’t want people to see her in the display window on all fours with her tight ass in the air, then she should have shut off the lights, put up some sort of barrier to stop men like me from watching her. I’m surprised there isn’t a line of men out here. The few who stopped and watched already have my blood turning into red-hot lava ready to erupt all over them. Sodden their eyelids closed for looking at something they shouldn’t. Which, for a man who has never become jealous over a woman except with her, should be my first sign to get my ass out of the vehicle and demand her to open the doors so I can spank her behind red. Turn it bright. Punish her for tempting me. The only way she’s yours anymore is on paper, and that’s not something she’s aware of. I don’t give a fuck about that right now. I’m sitting here mesmerized. Unable to focus on a damn thing. Except her. Fuck what I came down here for. At least for a damn minute. This is a hell of a lot better. I’ll regret it later when I’m in bed stroking my dick to this

memory. I keep my eyes trained to her backside for God knows how long as she remains in the same position, fiddling with what appears to be several pieces of lingerie on the floor. People come and go. Gawk and then continue on. Good riddance, fuckers. Because I remember all too well how this woman can stay on her knees when she’s sucking my hard, throbbing cock while my eyes roll around in the back of my head. Christ, I’m a sick man. My dick jerks when she stands. All that flaming-red, thick hair flows down her back. I groan. My fingers grip the steering wheel, white knuckling until I feel a twinge of pain shoot up my arm. “Fucking hell.” The teeth on my zipper are ready to rip the hell apart. I want my hands in her hair, my palms framing her head, angling it back so I can take advantage of all her creamy-white skin up and down her neck. All of a sudden, a woman shows up. Heidi. Fucking hell. After all this time, the first time I talk to her will not be with her best friend here. Heidi will kill me for real this time. I have no doubt she would blow my head off if given a chance. Firestorms shoot from my eyes when a guy with a beanie on his head wraps his arms around Adriana. Whoever the hell this guy is better not be with her, or I may blow the hell up. The guy kisses her cheek, and every bone in my body nearly snaps in half. Anger floats lazily on its back through my veins with a big smile on its face, telling me she’s with someone else. You left her, you dumb fuck. What the hell did you expect? I’m pissed Hunter didn’t warn me about this. I growl. Ferociously. I don’t give two fucks if she’s with someone else or not. She’s mine. Adriana is going to come back to me. I hope. I pray. And Christ, do I want her, too. Need. My hands drop to my legs, nails digging into my thighs, my eyes burn, my ears fill with rage as I watch the man move to Heidi and I get a glimpse of his face as he kisses her. Holy fuck, that’s Daniel, Heidi’s husband. He grew his damn hair out. The second I realize who he is, my breathing steadies, my hands relax. I tilt my head to the side, shift my eyes back to Adriana, and stare. I’m ready to explode in my vehicle, wanting to poke my eyeballs out, and yet I still watch her. Still sit here torturing myself. Still visualize what her lips looked like wrapped around my dick. Her mouth-watering, heavy breasts in my mouth. Her legs spread open and her pussy warm and waiting for me to crawl inside. Motherfucking hell. I’m in it. Only now, I’m living that bitch to the fullest extent. The earth could be ending right now, and all I’d see through the clouded haze would be her turning around to grace me with the first glimpse of her face. Never in my life will I forget my animalistic reaction when she does. I went long enough without seeing all that beauty. I’m suffering. She’s beautiful. Exquisite. I can hardly breathe. Can’t move a muscle except the twitching one in my pants. I can’t take my eyes off her right now. She’s without a doubt absolutely stunning. She has a body my wet dreams have craved. Ones I’ve stroked my cock many times to. The quick glimpse I’ve gotten tells me her eyes are still as blue as I remember, holding an even deeper myriad of apprehension that always swirled behind them. Vibrant yet

withdrawn. Scarred from a life of pain. I feel her from here. Adriana is living in hell, too. Her life has been one endless struggle after the next with the devastating loss of her parents. Me. The horrific death of her sister. And now the lost life of her beloved grandmother. I wanted to find her after I had heard she found Alexis dead in her house. My heart ached for her, and yet I didn’t do a damn thing to reach out. It would have destroyed her even more to see me. A ghost who probably haunts her. It’s ripping me apart all over again as I watch her. I’m an inconsiderable asshole. “Shit,” I hiss. I don’t want to stop staring. I can’t. I miss her, and I sure as hell don’t deserve to be sitting here with the privilege of watching unbeknownst to her. All hell breaks loose in my head the minute she bends down, grabs a pair of sheer black panties, hikes up her skirt, and lies down on the floor, showing me a hint of purple covering the sweet spot between her tempting thighs. I’m mentally seduced. Tranced for life. The heavy beat of music starts playing, then the three of them begin dancing as they work together to dress up the mannequins in the window. But her, this mysterious woman who has always drawn me in with her mystical goddess ways, she shimmies those panties on the plastic creature while her sweet, tight bottom sways. I imagine her placing them on herself instead of the mannequin. Lifting her arms as she brings the nightie over her head. I imagine her in our bed. Her body is writhing underneath me, on me, beside me. Panting. Begging me to hurry up and fuck her hard and fast, slow and steady. All that wild hair a mess while she sits on top of me, moving as seductively as she is now. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this is what I’d find when I came here. All I want to do is drag her out of that building, take her in my arms, smell her citrusy scent, hold her, protect her, cherish her in all the ways I did before. “Fuck it. I’m going in.” I grab the file, exit my car, and stop dead in my tracks. My heart is tripping over every pounding beat it makes. “Shit, fuck, shit.” I can’t go in there with those two around. This needs to be done when it’s just the two of us. I pace. My heart dips. My throat closes when Adriana turns around; those crystal-blue irises rimmed in sadness gut me when they look right past me. Is she searching for me in the darkness? Perhaps her long lost sister she has to be missing. I hold on tight. My breathing uncontrolled and ragged. God, I hated it when she was sad. It was constant. While it was always more than I could take, more than I could handle, she always snapped back. Always put one foot in front of the other. My beautiful, strong girl who I don’t deserve. I’ve held her in my arms many times while she cried through the pain she endured with her sister. I didn’t leave her side for days when she found the first bag of many kinds of drugs in her sister’s car. I comforted her, listened to her cry, talk, got angry on the inside, and let her deal with her inner turmoil. Not once did I reassure her Alexis would change. She’s the one who built the strength to move forward on her own. Each and every time. I swear my heart stops beating during the long, drawn-out moments when she gazes

into the darkness behind me. There’s a ton of vulnerability, doubt, and hurt, guarding her bruised soul. Mine, too, sweetheart. Christ, she’s still the most intoxicating woman I have ever seen. “Adriana. I… I love you so damn much,” I stammer into the cool evening air like a fucking idiot instead of a man who chooses his words wisely. Christ, help me now. Years of our life together flash before me. I can hardly take much more. I want her by my side for the rest of our lives. More than I should for the mere fact I’m undeserving of her. God Almighty, am I blessed to be standing here breathing her in. Taking in the sight while dying inside over the fact I can’t draw her into my arms. I have no restraint left. I lift my hand to wipe away the tears roaming down my face. Guilt crawls up my throat as the outlets in my head visualize Adriana pretending to be strong when she’s anything but. The idea of her hating me chokes me up. It swirls all around me until a cold gust of wind slaps me in the face, faltering at my feet, trying hard to keep us together. She can’t hate me. I know she doesn’t. Please, God, don’t let her. Panic is a hard pill to swallow. Regret is even tougher. Every stabbing dagger is full of pain, adding scar after scar across tissue that won’t heal until she comes back to me. Her eyes widen. I dart out of sight. I know all too well that dreaded feeling of thinking someone is watching you. My guess is, she feels it. My wife is lost. Shattered. I completely understand because that’s the way I’ve felt without her. Only, I didn’t realize how lost I was until I heard she moved here two months ago. She lives five miles from me. In a house on Lake Michigan her grandmother bought for her. Right next to my damn winery. I’m grieving over the loss of her. The mistake I made has caused irreparable damage. I’m going to fix it. Have her come back to me. I don’t know how yet, but I am. I look her way one last time. Even though she can’t see me, my eyes are signaling what I want to say. “We belong together. Tell me what you need. I’m here for you. I’m fucking sorry for everything.” It’s going to be hell to get her to forgive me. But she will. She’ll come back to me as soon as I figure how to tell her I’m alive.

FIVE

ADRIANA

“I can’t believe how much snow is coming down,” I tell myself when I stare out the French doors from my bedroom window. You can barely see Lake Michigan with how heavy it’s coming down. The roads were covered last night when we drove to my new house, but nothing like this. It’s dangerous to drive in, and I hate the snow for my own personal reasons, but my God, is it beautiful. I sigh, step back, and make my way into my kitchen. “I think I have enough sweets to last me a while,” I say when I announce my appearance with a hard slap on Heidi’s ass as she closes the lid on a container full of cookies. I plop down on one of the worn vintage barstools I bought at an antique fair a couple of days after my grandmother’s funeral, when Heidi dragged my ass out of bed with her demanding tone. I fought her until my throat burned. Screamed over the sights my eyes will never forget. I can’t get the images of finding my sister dead and holding my grandmother while she died out of my head. I think their deaths are permanently glued to the back of my eyes, and the minute I close them, the light goes on inside and their cold bodies burn bright. I went with her looking the same way I felt. Drowning in my private lake called despair as I watched the shore of emptiness fade away. I ended up spending more money than I should have, not paying attention to a damn thing I bought. I must have done okay because this aged, teal-colored barstool with weathered paint and the matching one next to it fit perfectly in my cream- and teal-colored vintage kitchen. It’s so close to the color of my walls and appliances one would think I painted them myself. Heidi held me for days after I returned from seeing Hunter the same way she did the minute she slammed her way through my home when Blake and Alexis died. Only this time, instead of picking me up off the floor, she wiped away my tears and laid me in bed, where I slept for a few hours, only to drag me out again and direct me into the shower. She had my bags halfway packed by the time I got out. Told me we were heading here to see where my new home was. I love it here. However, when Heidi isn’t here with me, I’m lonely. It’s hard moving when you’ve lived somewhere else your entire life. Left so much behind that you often wonder if you’ve made the right decision. Time will tell, I guess. Hell, I don’t know. Heidi’s been here for two weeks now. Daniel flew out here a few days ago to help me

finish unpacking some of the heavy stuff for my office. Though now, I’m not sure when we will see each other again. I’ve been told Michigan winters can be much more brutal than New York’s. Especially when you’re right on the water. There’s a snow storm crossing the lake now. I reach for the mug of steaming-hot coffee she’s prepared for me and bite into one of the blueberry muffins she knows all too well are my favorite, and I can’t help but think about Alexis trying to make these things. Her frustration took over until we would stand there in a fit of laughter over her missing an ingredient or burning them. I shove that memory away for now, my mind drifting to Hunter, to when I went to his house. He was good to me when I stopped over. We had such a wonderful conversation about everything and nothing at all. I was so afraid he was going to hate me. But he told me he understood and that whenever I needed anything, to call him, or in time, if I wanted to talk or simply visit, then I could. I won’t. The sharp blade is still lashing across my heart. Pain. I thanked him and then stared out the window toward the small gravesite where my husband’s tombstone sits on the back of his property. I never went out there to say goodbye. It was too soon after my grandmother’s funeral. At least that was the excuse I kept telling myself. Guilt builds another internal wall for not saying good-bye to Blake as the ache behind my eyes becomes too much. A heavy cloud of resentment towards myself for not doing so mixes with my blood. I keep my eyes trained on Heidi’s pitch-black hair to try and drain my horrid thoughts away. It doesn’t do me any good to try. I had to leave Blake behind, or I’ll never learn how to live again. Heidi and Daniel are all I have now. I’m incredibly blessed to call them my friends. “There’s no such thing as too many sweets. You can always find a man to give some to, you know. I bet the sexy bartender over at the winery next door would cure your lonely vagina,” she teases. My vagina isn’t the only thing that’s lonely. My heart tries embracing her unintentional jab. God, I’m pathetic. She’s joking, yet I’m searching for the negative. “Maybe I’ll call him,” I lie. “You won’t. I’m not going to push you, especially not today. Are you ready for your first day of working by yourself on Monday?” I sigh in relief. Today of all days, I don’t want to be pushed into discussing another man. “Technically, I’m not going to be working by myself. You do recall Jenny, right?” I have a receptionist who I’m falling in love with more every day. Jenny is a fifty-nine-yearold retired bus driver who was recently widowed. Her children told her she needed a hobby. She set out to find one when she stumbled across me standing in my window as I tried to figure how I wanted to decorate when the time came to open. I loved her instantly. Hired her on the spot. And she has been wonderful for me. “Uh, no kidding. I know that, dipshit. I meant without me.” Of course, she did. Heidi is my own dark-haired she-devil guardian angel. A mixture of good versus evil, depending on her mood–or mine. “I know what you meant, bitchface. I’ve never been this ready for anything in my

life.” Another lie. I was ready to live an entirely different life not too long ago with my husband, whose car blew up after it went over a cliff. I shudder. That sudden wave of being punched in the chest until all the air escapes my lungs hits me all over again. I’m alone. This is life’s brutal reality. This is my life, and I have to pull it together for the memory of my grandmother. I loved her, and she loved me so much that even after her death she’s still looking out for me. “Do you want me to stay here with you?” she asks, ignoring the name she’s used to me calling her as she reaches across the counter to take hold of my hand. “No. You’ve taken enough time off work to be with me. Go home and bake me one of those blueberry pies I love. You can ship it to me,” I answer quickly, knowing I won’t eat it unless she’s here forcing me to. Proving I can be by myself for longer than a few weeks at a time is the main reason she needs to leave; the other is, she really does need to get back to her job before she turns this kitchen into a bakery. All she did the other night after I broke down once again with her and Daniel was burying my hands in flour, cookie dough, and cake batter. It was her way of trying to keep my mind on something else besides the obvious dark cloud following me around. There’s a pineapple upside-down cake, two dozen sugar cookies with way too many smiley faces staring back at me on my counter, and a half gallon of frozen yogurt in my freezer. My go-to treatment for depression. Yeah, she needs to quit mothering me. Heidi and Daniel own HJB Bakery two streets over from my grandmother’s old boutique. Her pies are the best in town. We met shortly after my parents died, a few weeks before I met Blake. Her sparkly fun-for-life attitude strolled into the store one day. She was looking for a sexy bra. Told me her life story and declared how she was going to lose her virginity that night. I had never laughed so hard in my life. Here I was, this young girl grieving over losing both of her parents at the same time. Worrying about her sister who would disappear for days and a grandmother devastated over the loss of her son. I was trying to hang on by the last thread that held my family together, and in walked the woman who balanced out my life. Making me laugh. Telling me how her mom owned a bakery and she had been working alongside her for as long as she could remember. We chatted for over an hour. I ended up giving her a bra with matching panties and told her to promise to come back with a blueberry pie. She did. The next day. Devirginized and all. We’ve been best friends since. She married the man who took her virginity one year later. Lucky bitch. “If I find out you’ve been wallowing in self-pity, bad weather or not, I’ll be up here to kick your ass. I mean it.” “Yes, Mom,” I lie again. I’m getting good at making her believe I’m okay. Unless I have a meltdown; and she always seems to be around when I do. I finish my coffee and muffin, set my dishes in the sink, and follow her to the door when Daniel hollers that he’s ready. The poor man has been out there for a while now, scraping off the ice and snow from their rental.

“God, it’s freezing. Be careful driving to the airport. Please text when you guys get home,” I tell them as I pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my fingers. “We will. You keep fighting.” I answer with a nod instead of verbally. Anything spoken regarding my struggle to keep fighting would be another lie. I lost my reason to fight a long time ago.

SIX

ADRIANA

I close the door after watching them drive away and gaze at the dense, heavy blanket of snow covering Lake Michigan as I dig my feet into the plush carpet of my living room. The large crystal-like flakes draw me in as I make my way to the line of windows covering the back of my house and tilt my head up. The gray snow clouds are suspended above. Soon, the sky will weave its way around, the snow will come down harder, and the buildings that are open on a Sunday in this touristy town will light up, dressed to perfection for the Christmas holiday. They’ll be buzzing with life. I love and hate the holiday season for many reasons. I halt when I turn around to take in the open floor plan of my home. The color scheme is bright and cheery with different shades of blues, greens, and cream, with hints of purple, my favorite color, here and there. You step inside the front door to the large open space allowing for panoramic views of Lake Michigan from the kitchen, dining area, and living room. There’s a three-season room right off the kitchen. The main-floor master bedroom suite has two enormous walkin closets and a beautiful master bath with a large tiled shower. There’s a fully developed basement with a gym, sauna, and game room. The upstairs holds all the other bedrooms and baths. My grandmother knew me well when she hired the painters and the landscapers to begin turning this place into me. I can’t wait to be able to sit outside and enjoy the lake. For now, I’ll stay inside and watch the snow. The pain in my chest leaks unpleasant warmth through my body. I’ve never felt like this in my life. One half of me is empty, the other bitter, angry, hurt, and unable to control myself from wanting to run and hide. I can’t do it, though. Not when anger rears her ugly head and screeches to lash out at life for hurting me. She wants to protect the empty side. The side is so undecorated that I shiver even though I’m warm. I want to close my eyes and go back to a time when my life was peaceful. When sadness wasn’t always digging a little further into my bones, no heartache filling me up during the day and running over me when I sleep. No guilt building walls around my heart. I’m suffocating, and I don’t know how to gasp for the breath to make me stop. Today is my wedding anniversary. I remember our second anniversary like it was yesterday. The way Blake stood there undressing me as he did so many times before, only this time it wasn’t with his hands. It was with those stimulating, dilated eyes of his. The

ones that I used to stare at when he was buried deep inside of me. Voices prattle on in my head like a confused flowing river—the current slow and steady on one side, fast and rapid on the other. I wait for them to meet somewhere in the middle. But they don’t. They carry on. The obstructions differ, and my meandering mind drowns. I can’t keep up. Sinking under and letting go is the only choice I have to ease my troubled mind. To be free of the cold, fearful regret that has fried my brain and pointed its trigger finger in my blinding direction. Burning blue orbs sent blood straight to my core. Those eyes needed to be staring down at me while he was filling me, making me whole. He lifted one hand to reveal a sexy-as-hell corset. Lifted the other to show me his signature purple tulip. My favorite color. Purple means passion. His eyes traveled up and down my body as he mouthed, “Fuck, baby; this will look good on you. It’s purple. My favorite color on you.” I was wet with anticipation. I immediately looked away when my sister strolled in dressed in clothes that looked like she hadn’t changed in days. Hair a mess and eyes so red you would have to get up close to see their true color. I became irrationally pissed off at her. I did my best to pay attention to what was happening in front of me instead of Blake on the other side of the room ready to take me away for the weekend. It was our two-year wedding anniversary. I had something to tell him. Something that would have to wait now because I doubted very much we would be going anywhere. Not with her in this frame of mind. “What on earth are you doing here looking like that, damn you, Alexis?” I mumbled. She was supposed to close up for me tonight. I should have known better than to trust her. The lack of oxygen in the store shrinking the room made it difficult to breathe. My anger was spreading from my head to my toes. I loved my sister more than she would know, but why did she make me hate her at times? She started apologizing for something again. Her words were rushing out, her hands flying all over the place. “Alexis, slow down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” I squeezed my eyes shut. My hand flew up to press against my chest. She was drunk or high again. Slurring her words and raising her voice a little too much. I craned my neck to see Blake staring at her and me. Deep lines across his forehead were stressing his annoyance and confusion. He was angry. I’d been down this road many times with her before. Always late, showing up half wasted, smelling of booze, eyes glassed over, and barely able to stand. Every time he was a witness to this, I wondered if he would be tired of it and leave. He never did. Never said a word like he promised he wouldn’t. He loved me. I wished I had the guts to pack up and leave this place with him. However, the guilt would eat me raw. She was my sister. Blake knew I could never leave her. I steady my hands on the cold glass of the window to stop the heavy pounding of my bleeding heart when my body reacts to thoughts of him, of her. I want to walk outside and

bury myself in the snow. To freeze my brain so I don’t have to think anymore. Damn them. And damn me for missing them. Today, though, I want to scream at the top of my lungs at my husband for not listening to me when I told him the weather was too awful to drive on the day he died. For him being responsible for the empty part of my flailing heart. For deserting me after healing it, then turning around and shattering it into fragments everywhere. Every second of the day is more than I can handle. Death has been all around me for far too long. It burns right down the center of my chest. When is it going to be my turn to be happy? I wonder. Why do all the good people have to leave this earth before their time? I walk down the hallway toward my bedroom, stopping to run my fingers down the smooth, velvety texture of a chair I had redone. Almost everything here is new to me. Someone else’s tossed-out furniture has become my delightful treasures. I had no idea what was in store for me when I met with Hunter. All I knew was, I was scared out of my mind that I would lose it before I got there. I held myself together the best I could until he showed me what my grandmother had done. Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that she had bought me a home. Left me a letter and told me to start my life over. Here. In a place of serenity and peace. Am I really going to find peace here? Will I finally find a man who will bring out the Adriana I once was? One who will cover up the scars of my past with happy memories. I don’t like the woman I’ve become. She’s lonely; her thoughts are full of guilt and regret. I want more out of my life. I deserve to be happy. I’ve been in Traverse City on and off for close to six months now. Buying items here and there, redoing them to my vintage liking. Between that and the store, it’s kept me busy. This four-bedroom home on one of the Great Lakes is too big for me. But it’s mine. It’s a gift from her. And I have never been more thankful for anything in my life. Except for my new studio, the only place where my mind can wander, the place where I’ll soon be able to lose myself behind my lens and live out the fantasies of others, I have nothing else; and even that will take a long, hard winter before I’ll be able to stand behind my camera all day. I want what others have: a family, a home that looks lived in. I want a life. I sigh. This self-pity is getting old. I tell myself it’s going to be a glorious day. It has to be. My thoughts drift to Blake one last time. This is it, Adriana. No more thinking of him for the day. “Why didn’t you listen to me? I needed you so much, Blake. I’ve lived years without you, and yet there are days like today and last night when I feel you near me. I hate you for doing this to me. For leaving me without saying good-bye.” I cry. Questions rule. Fury rears. They prod. Poke. Spreading feelers everywhere until I feel I’m about to lose control of myself. I had the strangest feeling of being watched last night. It was weird. When I spun around, no one was there, so I continued working. I’m panicking, and I don’t like it. He left me broken-hearted, and now I’m thinking I’m feeling him. This has got to stop.

Deep, heavy breaths escape my lungs. I need to calm down. I swallow the debris in my throat. The voices hush, and if I didn’t recognize the truth from Heidi’s words about me dating bleeding out of me, I would fall to the floor and crumble. I’ve tried to stand on my own two feet. To carry on with the guidance of Daniel and Heidi. I can’t bear for anyone to see the loneliness I feel crawling all over my skin, inserting itself in each tiny, feeble speck of my body. Its steady beat clashing with the conviction in my brain. I need to stop thinking so hard. I really do need to move on.

SEVEN

BLAKE

“What the hell do you expect me to do, Hunter? Just walk right up to her and say, ‘Hello, Adriana. I’m sorry, so fucking sorry I didn’t make it home for dinner four years ago. I had to leave to save both of our lives. I’m back from the dead, now let’s start the day over?’” I close the door to the cellar after checking the barrels of wine. I suck in a breath. The cold winter air is hitting my lungs before we take our first step. The wind is howling, and the chill off the lake is blowing this crap all over the place. It’s going to be a hard winter. I can feel it already. I pull my hat down over my ears as we start to make our way back to the house I’ve tried to make a home. It’s more like my own Goddamn prison. It’s my wedding anniversary, and I’m pissed. Therefore, I’m not in the mood to rehash why I should be going to see my wife. Especially today. I’m angered out of my Goddamn head that I’m not off somewhere making love to her. Cherishing her in the ways she should be. Fucking her until she can’t take it anymore. Hearing her say my name while I whisper every dirty thing I want to do to her. All the things couples in love do; normal couples, anyway. I’m far from normal. Aren’t we all in one way or another? From the first moment I laid eyes on her, I wanted her. The feisty, gorgeous girl underneath the tree. The one whose mouth I had to kiss the second her tongue darted out when she chewed me a new one for accidentally breaking her lens. I had to find out who she was. I begged every person I knew on that campus to help me find her. I struck it lucky when someone told me her name. That mouth of hers has always been my weakness even when I’ve done my best to control her. Which I never succeeded at. She literally brought me to my knees with that mouth. God, I miss her. My cock stirs to life. All I’ve been doing is telling myself I’m done wishing to hear her moan my name as I drive into her from behind or hear those soft little noises coming out her lively mouth when I shut her up with my cock. It isn’t going to be easy to convince her why I had to leave and why I stayed away. She may never forgive me. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try. I’ll never let her go. That is if I’m lucky enough to get her back. “No, that’s not what I’m telling you to do. I’m telling you to pull your fucking head

out of your ass and get a plan together. Fate is what brought her here. Her grandmother didn’t know you were here, didn’t know you were alive when she started searching for a slice of heaven away from all the hell her granddaughter was living in. I mean, come on, I didn’t even know she bought a place until she showed up with the title, asking me to put it in her will. But you’re here, or the strong man I used to know. You belong to her, she belongs to you, and you know as well as I do that you need to get your wife back. Christ, man, you’ve had months to figure this shit out. Go see her now, because I can tell you this; one of these days, she’s going to meet someone, Blake, and then your decision will be made for you. Then the man you’ve become will also be dead. I’m afraid I won’t be able to pull you up from this if that were to happen. Get it the fuck together, son.” I see red. The heavy, white snow falling from the sky is changing to drops of the crimson color. I see so much of it I want to punch someone. Preferably my friend, who’s right. Hunter is like an uncle to me. Even though I hated him when we spoke about the two options I was given all those years ago, I knew he was looking out for Adriana and me as well as everyone else. He could have steered me to do the one thing that would have eventually killed me if I was forced to do it, but he didn’t. One of my choices was coming here to work for him. The other was witness protection, where I would have had to cut my ties from everyone completely. Doing it the way I did was hard enough. Witness protection in a place where I would be chancing to start over while always wondering if the people after me were lurking? That was a ‘hell, no’ altogether. I’m living proof that our system is screwed up. Royally. I’m glad he took me under his protection. I love this vineyard. What started out as a small investment for Hunter and his wife, Rebecca, has turned into something more than any one of us ever expected. We bought another small vineyard adjacent to this one. Planted more vines. And this summer will be our third year with acres of new grapes. He’s my friend, my counselor, business partner, and he’s been there through the darkest years of my life. He’s listened. Heard me cry. Has got piss-ass drunk with me. But not once has he pissed me off the way he’s doing now or pushed me until I’m clenching my fists with the need to punch the first hard object I can find. I sat in my office for the better part of the morning yesterday, staring at a long list of things to do now that winter is upon us. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to look it over if I didn’t pull my head out of my ass. I have always taken every job I’ve had seriously. Pushed myself to the limit. But when the woman you love is mere feet away from you after years of you not being able to touch her, then your job goes down with it. At least it has for me. I’m anything but calm. I’m fucking seething. I came home from seeing her in that window and beat the hell out of my punching bag until my knuckles were raw. I thought about moving so I would never have to see her again. Then quickly changed my mind because the thought of her eventually finding someone else, another man touching what belongs to me, made me want to put a bullet through my head. I’ll die if I find out someone has. I had to call Hunter to calm me down. He laughed for all of ten seconds. Then he sobered right up and started paddling in the opposite direction. “You man the hell up, boy. Right your wrongs and fight for that girl. I

can’t imagine what she’s going through. Can you?” he said. My jaw dropped. His words punched me in the gut. But to hear him say the words that have been rotting away in my stomach had me falling back in a chair. My legs were no longer able to hold me. I wasn’t about to argue with him when what he said was right. Not to mention, I respected the man. Adriana has and still is living in hell. We both have. Then I drank. My mind kept fading back to last night, how she went from her playful, seductive way to a traumatized victim of life’s cruelty. It was written all over her face, her body. She’s on the verge of falling apart, and even though she held herself together well, when she turned around, her face gave it all away. My beautiful Adriana is barely keeping it together. I could see right through her. She’s lost. My mind goes back to this same day years ago. Burning blue orbs watched my every move, sending blood straight to my dick. Those eyes needed to be staring down at me while she rode him. I lifted my hand to reveal a sexy-as-hell corset. My own blues traveled up and down her body. Fuck, this would look good on her. It was purple. My favorite color next to the nude of her creamy-white skin. She immediately looked away when her sister strolled in dressed in clothes that looked like she’d slept in them. Hair a mess and eyes so red you would have to get up close to see their true color. I went from being turned the fuck on to royally fucking pissed. On our anniversary, no less. I did my best to pay attention to what was happening between the two of them as my fingers flexed around the silky material in anger. Adriana loved the feel of silk. I loved the feel of her. But the sight of Alexis being here was enough to make me sick. My ears were hurting as I tried to pay attention to what they were saying. “What on earth is she doing here looking like that, damn her?” I grumbled. I knew what she was doing, and I hated her all the more for it. She was trying to save her ass before I had the chance to try and set her straight. To backpaddle. And the part of her that wasn’t high on whatever her choice of the day was, was eating away at her. She knew she fucked up in the worst possible way. Stupid bitch. I didn’t like her before. I hated her now, and I had every reason to. Adriana and Alexis argued for minutes. I knew Adriana wasn’t buying her excuses. She had heard them all. All except the one I threatened Alexis to keep hidden. I was ready to break the two of them apart when her sister stormed out of the store and those once burning eyes quickly smoldered out with tears. With the garment still in my hands, I made it to her just before her legs gave out. I took her in my arms, cradled her to my chest, and held on tight while she let it all out. All the time knowing this was our last anniversary to be together and it was fucking ruined. Everything about Adriana mirrors the same as that incident years ago. She’s barely holding herself together. The sadness, the shame, the guilt. Not a one of them is her fault. It’s fucking fate. The word so many people in this fucked-up world we live in believe in. “I don’t know what to do. I had every intention of telling her everything last night. Fuck, I even brought the file with me so she could read it, because I wasn’t sure I had it in me to tell her how my greed in trying to give her the world nearly cost her life. She’s so fucking broken over everything that has happened to her that I’m afraid she won’t be able

to handle this.” I’ve never believed in fate. Not until she moved here. What I used to believe in was a love so powerful it can’t be stopped no matter how much a person tries. No matter how many unmovable obstructions are thrown in its path. Love always finds a way. I’m just not so sure of it anymore. This whole thing is a riddle full of confusion. I just need to get her back. “Jesus, man. How many times do I have to tell you it wasn’t greed? You were doing your damn job, and you just so happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re standing there telling me you don’t think she can handle it. You’ve told me that before. I didn’t buy it then, and I sure as hell am not buying it now. Did you ever consider that maybe you are what she needs to get her through this? To bring both of you back to the people you once were? For years, you’ve told me how strong she was, how all the shit life has done to knock her down hasn’t. She’s still standing; she’s right in your backyard, Blake. What in the fuck are you waiting for?” “Fuck you. You can’t read her mind the same way I can’t. I know her. I saw it in her eyes. Adriana blames herself for everything bad that has happened to the people she loves. The day I left I told her I couldn’t stay home and watch her take care of her sister. I told her it was killing me that Alexis was killing her when that was nothing but a fucking lie. The more Adriana believed in her sister, the more I loved her. I fucked my wife up. Me. Adriana is hiding behind her lens. Her job. All because of me! Fuck!” I roar so loudly my ears ring. “Well, you might want to figure everything out real fucking soon. Rumor has it that she’s all Mason has been talking about at the winery.” I stop walking. The heavy snow starts coming down like rain. I’m sinking. “He touches her, and I’ll kill him.” Hunter lifts his brows. Both of us know words similar came out of my mouth years ago. The backbone to why I’m standing here with him in the first place. That damn night will haunt me for the rest of my life. The sight, the sound, the smell of the metallic blood that coated my fucking skin and clothes. “Then do something about it, Blake. I know you’re scared. I would be if I were you. The longer you sit around here feeling sorry for yourself, the more time you give Mason or someone else the opportunity to squirm their way in. I happen to know she’s sitting at the bar right now.” Those final words of his have me losing all rationality yet again when it comes to another man touching my wife. Last night and today have felt longer than the years we’ve been apart. Rage runs through me faster than fluid flowing through a funnel. Guilt is eating me alive. His words become the ultimate breaking point of my patience. “Drive me there,” I tell him. Sweat begins to drip down my frozen body. My mind isn’t in the right condition to be driving in this heavy snow. We shouldn’t be on the road, but I have to see her. I have to tell her, and I have to pray it won’t kill her when she sees me. He nods, and by the time we’ve warmed his truck and swept off several inches of thick, heavy snow, my brain is screaming for us to hurry up. “I’ll get you to her, my friend.”

“I know,” I answer, climb in the truck, and gaze at the frigid, blowing snow. I pat down my pocket for the ring I had made for her, internally sighing when I feel the stone. My fingers begin rubbing over it continually as thoughts of what I’ll say and how she’ll react to seeing me begin to plague my mind. Only, life has other plans for me yet again. The devil has embedded his horns straight into my side. The burn, the sting as her baby blues stare shockingly into my soul. I want to tell my wife ‘Happy Anniversary.’ To hold on to the look on her face when she sees the ring. I want too many things with her. Things we’ve lost. Things that no matter how much we wish for them, we will never be able to get back. Time is gone. I was given a chance to make things right with her, and now it might be stripped away. Life. It all flashes before my eyes. From my childhood to where I am now. My grandfather cradling my four-year-old crying body for days when my mother dropped me off to see him and never came back. My first day of school. Getting my driver’s license. Grieving the loss of my grandparents. High school graduation, college. Adriana. Purple tulips. Silk. The flash of her camera. Her tears as I stroked her hair when she would cry. Her welcoming smile. Cornflower-blue eyes that peered up at me with more love than I deserved when I took her virginity. Our outdoor winter wedding. The purity of her walking toward me with white against white. Screams from the alley by the bar where I met with a potential client. Blood. A gun. A murder. Threats. The police. Secrets. Hidden truths and deceivable lies. I see the man sitting next to me, the one who helped me when my life fell apart. His neck is snapping backward, and his hands are gripping the steering wheel tightly. I hear metal scraping against metal. I see all the lies I told that got me to this point in my life. The white snow is turning red. The one thing I don’t see that night is my wife.

EIGHT

ADRIANA

“Thanks again for walking me home, for listening and understanding tonight, Mason, I mean it. You and I are going to be great friends.” I laugh, slide my key in the lock, lean up, and kiss his cold cheek. “Anytime, Adriana. I mean that.” He smiles. Genuinely. I haven’t smiled this much in a long time, and I owe it all to him. “It’s not safe to drive. I’m glad you’re crashing over there. Good night,” I whisper before I open the door, closing it behind me, and fall to the floor. I’ve never told anyone my entire life story all in one day before. It’s mentally exhausting. Earlier today, I had rationally talked myself into going over there, and if Mason was working, I was going to say yes if he asked me out again. It all came crashing down on me when I took my first sip of wine. Mason wasn’t my husband. There was no way I was going to tell another man I would go out with him when years ago to the date I became someone else’s wife. It was a beautiful Saturday evening on December 12thth. The winter air was chilled, and the view from Blake’s teenage bedroom window was breathtaking as I stared into the backyard of Hunter’s home. The lights twinkled through the trees, casting a silvery sparkle as the snow began to fall to the ground. I dabbed my eyes as I prayed for Alexis to hold it together this one night. That she would prove to me she loved me, and she would give for a few hours instead of taking more from me in my short lifetime. Blake and I wanted a small, intimate wedding. Our families. Our close friends. Coworkers. The important people in our lives to celebrate the first day of many with. I jumped when someone pounded on the door. “You look beautiful, Adriana,” my sister said as she smiled at me. God, she’s been gone for a half hour. Please don’t let her be high. “Thank you, so do you.” I internally sighed when I studied her movements. Alexis looked stunning in her purple strapless gown, her hair up, her eyes clear. She wasn’t high. Her words weren’t slurred. Her body wasn’t swaying. She reminded me of the sister I had

lost, the one I hoped I would soon again find. Even then I knew it wouldn’t last for long. All I could hope for was for her not to make a fool out of herself at my wedding. “Heidi and Grandma are all set to walk down the aisle. Are you ready?” I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life. “Yes.” I picked up my bouquet of purple tulips and made my way to her. She grabbed my cheeks, looked me in the eyes, and spoke the cruelest and kindest words she had said to me in a long time. “I don’t deserve to be your maid of honor. I don’t deserve to walk you down the aisle. I don’t even deserve for you to call me your sister. But I am. I will never forget this day in my life, Adriana. You deserve that man down there waiting for you. You deserve happiness. I love you.” She did deserve it. She was my family. My sister. My blood. I would do anything to make her see the light. But not today. This was my day, and for once I was going to enjoy it. I contemplated my words carefully. I had waited so long for her to tell me she loved me instead of saying how much she hated me. I could have buckled to the floor, cried. I wasn’t going to. This was my wedding day. “Yes, you do. You deserve to have it all. You have to want it, Alexis. I love you, too. We’ll get through life together. I promise. Just take me to Blake. Get me to him. All I want right now is to be his wife.” I thought today was going to end wonderfully, yet one special memory has made me lose my mind. I’ve blocked and bottled them up for so long that with each gasping breath I take, another one drags me down. I hate the man who left me. I hate the way I feel. I can’t seem to shake him no matter how hard I try. I need help. Not from Heidi or Daniel. Professional help. A doctor to make me understand why I cannot shake him, why my dead husband is the driving energy behind the fact that I can’t seem to allow myself to say yes to a man when he asks me out on a date. I’m crazy. That’s what it is. Crazy and in love with a man who doesn’t exist anymore. I despise feeling these walls that are holding my heart hostage. They should be blasted down by a man who won’t walk away from me. Demolish them and safeguard my heart. And yet, here I am on the floor, remembering a day that should be a happy one, a day that meant everything to me. My sister was shining that day, so beautiful, so radiant and attentive. My husband swept me into his arms the minute my grandmother and Alexis placed my hand in his. So why, why am I clinging to hope that he’ll come back to me? Why is it that all day today, every part of me has been aching for him more than ever before? I remember the way he would ravage my body. Grip me by my hair, place me up against the wall, and rip my panties off me. Spread my legs and fuck me so hard the earth shook. Blake broke me. He’s the reason why I’ve never been able to love anyone but him. I still love that man, and that is my biggest fear. My largest problem. I’m afraid I will never stop loving him.

Now I’m here in a new city, alone. I’m a grown woman who would give anything to be able to climb in her mother’s lap and have her stroke my hair while I cry. I’m strong, Goddamn it. I have to be. I jump out of my memories when I hear the pounding on my door. Pushing myself up, I’m startled and confused. I wipe the tears from my eyes, plaster on a fake smile, and swing open my door. The frigid temperature is blasting me in the face. I expect it to be Mason standing there when the cold gust of wind catches my breath. It isn’t. The man I’m shocked to see is staring at me with regret covering his features. His face is as white as snow, and he’s shaking from something other than the freezing cold. Whatever it is, is something so life-changing that it crawls into my skin, slashes at my heart like the blade of a dull, blunt knife. “Adriana, I apologize for stopping by so late. I need to speak to you.” God. I feel dread plant herself in my throat. My heart stops its thunderous beating in my chest. It slows to a barely-there thump. Hunter is standing on my front porch. I swallow. Bile. Something horrible is going on. Go ahead, you big fucked-up thing called life and take that single sliver of sanity I have left. You’ve taken all the rest. I blink through the flashes in my mind. All I can think about is the time he told me about Blake. “May I come in?” No. “Yes.” I grab the handle tightly and squeeze. I can’t move. “Adriana, you need to sit down.” He places his hands over mine. Prying my fingers off the door handle. Closing the door and guiding me to a chair. I’m shaking with fear. It’s uncontrolled. Becoming more indignant with each breath I can barely take. “What’s going on? I… I need my clutch.” I’m so pent up I can’t even bend down to retrieve it. My fingers are aching for the one bit of security I have. “Here. You need to listen to me, okay?” he says softly as he bends down and picks up my clutch. I take it from his outstretched hand. My fingers begin running back and forth across the worn, silky material. It’s not helping like it usually does. Terror creeps over me. Its gloom numbing my aching brain. My mind is offering up only one thought: something has happened to Heidi and Daniel. The day when I’m truly all alone has finally come. “There was an accident tonight, Adriana. I need you to come with me to the hospital.” My heart begins to pound at an increasingly rapid pace. A vicious circle of swirling emotions. It’s the morning of Blake’s death all over again. I can’t let my mind go there. I simply won’t do it. I can’t go through something like this again. “You’re scaring me. Who was in an accident? Was it Heidi and Daniel? Spit it out!” That has to be it. There would be no other reason for him to be here. I won’t know what to do if something happens to them. I’ll never make it. I know I won’t. The anxiety begins to

build. I swallow. Hard. But wait, why would he be here if it were them? Why wouldn’t Heidi’s mother, Grace, call me? Oh, God, please no. One of them is dead. That has to be it. “Hunter, please.” He continues to stare at me with an unreadable expression. I want to shout at him. Beat my hands on his chest. Tell him to get his shit together and tell me. “Blake is alive, Adriana. He was in a car accident earlier today.” His whispered words slap me in the face. My eyesight blurs. Everything turns fuzzy. There’s no more color in my living room. No more warm blood is flowing through my veins. It all freezes up. Solid. My consciousness is floating through the thick, heavy air. I can’t breathe. My heart is screaming it can’t be him, while my head is trying to lift the dark cloud of misunderstanding hovering above me. “His accident was years ago.” I’m confused. He has to be, too. My heart aches for him. Is he sick with a sudden case of forgetfulness all of a sudden? I mean, he is getting older. “No. Shit, this wasn’t how he wanted this. Adriana, Blake is alive,” he repeats with more determination than I’ve ever heard him use before. Oh. My. God. What on earth am I hearing? I’m not hearing, that’s the problem. My heartbeat pounds against my ribs so hard that the ringing in my ears is too much. I drop my clutch. My entire body is having a fit. It’s shattering into a million pieces. This can’t be. I think I’m pleading for help, for someone to call Heidi and Daniel, while my mind shuts off and my heart breaks all over again. I think my own life is out to destroy me until I can’t think of anything else anymore. I AWAKEN IN A DAZED, disoriented, and confused state expecting to see white, padded walls. A man sitting in the corner with a notebook in his hand or Heidi’s face suspended above me ready to pull me out of bed. Hunter. Or else, the devil himself. I see no one. Hear no one. Feel no one. Irreversible numbness. What I do see, though, has my heart cracking. I’m lying on my bed in my bedroom, alone. The room designed in purple and cream-colored hues. The walls are the light lavender I painted. The only sound I hear is the howling of the cold wind that has crawled into my chest. Insanity has cursed me. It was the one thing I feared the most. Life has finally broken me to a state where I can no longer be repaired. I’ve succumbed to losing my mentality on life. Basically, I think I’ve lost my mind. “Blake is alive?” I whisper, place my hands on my chest, and press. The excruciating pain is spreading feelers everywhere. My heart is thumping with overwhelming emotions I can’t explain. The agony inside of me burns when I stop and think about how many nights I would lie in bed wishing but knowing I would never feel his arms wrapped around me again. Never savor the taste of his lips, feel him inside me. Never hear him say he loves me or me to say it back. I’m so angry I could scream until I lose my voice. Cry until I’m dried

out. Pull all my hair out of my head. And it would never be enough. I’ve been walking around wanting to die with everyone else for so long now that the thought of him leaving me when I had so much left to tell him, so much life I wanted to share, has me reliving everyone’s death all over again. He lied to me. He made me believe he was dead. I swing my legs off the bed. The glow from the lamp is guiding me toward my living room. There’s no way I dreamt that shit. It was real. I know it was. Just like I felt his presence the other night. Today. He’s truly alive. “Hunter,” I call out. My feet are briskly picking up speed. Panic clusters around the cracks in my chest. Planting tiny seeds, ready to sprout. To grow from corner to corner attacking my internal organs, leaving me trapped in a jungle of hopelessness. A silhouette stands in front of my windows, his tall frame staring out into the darkened sky. “Hunter.” His shoulders slump; his thick, gray hair is disheveled. He turns to face me, and I grip the wall to keep me upright. The man has aged in the time I’ve been passed out. Dark circles border his eyes. Worry and concern are etched in his forehead. He looks scared. He should be. So am I. I’m frightened out of my skin. “It’s only been a half hour. I picked you up off the floor and took you to your room. I called your friends before I got here. They’re on their way. The roads are horrible. They should be landing anytime.” His eyes become glazed with tears as he shifts them back to look out the window. God, they just got home. They have got to be sick with worry. I wonder if he told them the same thing he told me. He better did. I don’t want them thinking something has happened to me. “Did you tell them what you told me? It’s true, isn’t it? He’s alive?” I ask. My lower lip won’t stop quivering as the words slowly make their way out of my mouth. If it is, then why is he here with me when he should be at the hospital? Oh, God. The cloaked vale of death is striking me again. I didn’t awake in my warm bed. I woke to walk through another nightmare. More suffering. More pain. More than I know this time I can take. He was alive, and now he’s dead. What the hell is going on? The anger sloshes like gasoline in my guts. It burns. Christ Almighty, does it burn. I’m breathless. The oxygen in my lungs is empty. I mourned him once. I don’t know how to do it again. His shoulders start to shake. My stomach lurches upward in a violent tornado; it spasms, and pain so sharp sprints through my lower abdomen that I nearly hunch over. I want the pain to go away. I should be over there holding him. Supporting him and asking him what I can do. However, I don’t. He’s hiding something from me. Something much more powerful than this accident. “Yes. I told them he’s alive, Adriana. I would never toy with your emotions that way. Not with everything you’ve been through.” I grit my teeth to hold my tears from clouding my vision. There are so many questions lurking in my brain that I don’t know where to start. I’m scared to open my mouth. I want to tell him his beloved godson played me like a

fucking fiddle until he broke all my strings. But I won’t. Hunter is telling me the truth, and right now, I’m not thinking clearly. All I want to do is cry. Slide down this wall and cradle my arms around me. “What aren’t you telling me, Hunter? Please don’t hold out on me. I can take it.” I can’t. But I have to try. “I wasn’t supposed to be the one to tell you. He was. We were on our way here to see you. Blake was going to tell you everything, Adriana. We were struck by a vehicle. He hit us on the passenger’s side. Blake was the passenger.” My heart falls to my feet. This cannot be happening right now. I’ve heard everything he said. There are too many past tenses in his words. Is he alive? Hurt? Or dead? I have no damn idea. “Who’s with him now?” I have no clue why those are the words I say first. Maybe it’s jealousy deciding to add herself to this range of emotions that is trying to suffocate me. Please don’t tell me a woman. “No one,” he says with a dry hint of laughter in his voice. I find none of this funny at all. In fact, I’m feeling as if I’m playing the starring role in a low-budget off-the-beatenpath Broadway play with one person in the audience. It’s humiliating that I seem to be blind to the point that my life is going nowhere. I’m stuck in reverse. Sliding backward with each breath I take. My husband is alive. Hunter is here telling me he is. What in the ever-loving hell is going on with my life right now? “I don’t give a shit if you weren’t supposed to tell me. Where has he been? What in the hell is going on? You came to my home for another reason. What is that reason, Hunter?” I’m angry now. He stared me down as if I would break a little while ago. Now he seems to be hiding in every large bush he can find while tossing me the smallest clues in order to find him. I’m tired of people treating me as if I’m fragile. I’m already broken. I can’t be fixed. “Blake has been living here the entire time, Adriana.” His voice is so low I can barely hear him. But his face…The aging look from minutes before is gone. In its place is hope. Desperation. “He what? I don’t understand. In Traverse City? Did you know he was alive the entire time?” I snap and step out of the shadows of the hallway. Trying to allow this knowledge the pathway it needs to sink in. My entire life, all I’ve done is try and survive the sharp-edged stones life continues to throw at me. This is the sharpest one yet. It slices right through me, and it will leave the ugliest scar. “Yes.” “You mean to tell me you’ve known all this time and you never told me? You watched me stand at your window and cry. You watched me bury my husband. How in God’s name could either one of you do this to me? What did my husband do? Why? I suppose I should ask you if my estranged husband is alright, seeing that he’s my husband, yet you know what’s going on in his life much better than I do.” I fire off so many questions that I don’t know which one I want him to answer first. My voice is on the verge of sizzling. I’m

angry. He went to this man for whatever reason instead of me. How could he do that to me? “I did all of those things because I had to. You have every right to be angry. Blake is fairly banged up. However, they expect him to make a full recovery. I’m sorry. I know you’re upset. You’re probably wondering what in the hell is going on. How could he have faked his death? Why would he do that to you? It’s his story to tell, not mine.” That’s not all that’s going through my mind. It doesn’t matter if he lived here or China. The fact of the matter is that he made me grieve him. He made me believe he died. Made me blame myself for years. That’s what matters. I’m not about to get into it with Hunter or anyone else. Not until I sink my fangs into Blake so far they drain him. How in God’s name could he do this to me? “I’m not going to the hospital,” I strike out. How dare he come here and lay this on me and then have the balls to tell me it’s not his story to tell? I don’t care whose story it is. I’m feeling so much hurt and betrayal right now I can’t see anything but anger. Hunter doesn’t even flinch. I’m sure he suspected I would be flying off the deep end over this. I want to do more than that. I want to drown everybody right along with me. “I have a driver waiting outside. I was hoping to be able to convince you to come with me. Please, Adriana. Let him explain.” There’s that word. Hope. I haven’t seen or felt the true meaning of hope in a long time. A glimpse of it when I first saw this house, first walked out onto my private beach. My studio. Hope doesn’t exist in my life anymore. Hope left the day Blake walked away. She split down the middle when my sister passed away. I buried one half of her with my grandmother. So, he doesn’t get to come to my home and look at me with glassed-over eyes filled with hope when the only part of her I have left is empty. He hasn’t given me anything to fill her up with. “Blake needs you, Adriana. I came to take you to him.” “Need is a hard pill to swallow. Possibly the biggest one of them all. I should know; he left me at my lowest. I need to know why I was betrayed; then Blake can take his need and go fuck himself.”

NINE

BLAKE

I remember seeing my life race in color before my eyes. Blackness. I remember seeing life in reverse, changing gears, and spinning out control. Everything inside of my head being shoved through a facet of nothingness. I have images of a medical crew, doctors, snow, and Hunter. There isn’t one single image of her. The woman I need to see. She’s not here. I would feel her if she were. I spit my wife out as if she were as bitter as some of my grapes. Destroyed the only good relationship I’ve ever had. The only one I planned on having. Not only did I break my own fucking heart, but I also broke hers, and I’m a bastard because of it. I fucked up with the only woman I’ve ever loved. Tore our relationship all to hell and buried it as if it meant nothing when it meant everything. All I’ve ever wanted to do was love her the way she deserves. To take the kindness in her heart and give it back to her. Treat her like the precious woman she is. Savor every moment. Cherish her. I love her so fucking much I’ve choked myself up over it more times than I can count. I always will. Wetness drips down my face, blurring the contorted visions of my anguish. “Fuck,” I mutter, or at least I think I do. I have no damn idea. I can’t seem to open my eyes. I’m numbed up everywhere except for the one organ I wish would shut off completely. My brain. I internally scream when the voice in my head belongs to the one man I prayed I would never hear again. The man who destroyed my life. The man who forced me to leave my wife and my life as Blake Jensen behind. “My son’s wife is divorcing him. His transgressions have finally caught up with him. I asked a few of my associates to point me in the direction of a good divorce attorney. They gave me your name. We want this done as cleanly and as quietly as possible. There’s a million-dollar bonus in it for you if you can get her to sign a disclosure to keep her damn mouth shut.” I sat there staring at Stephen O’Reilly with my mouth hanging open. My vibes were telling me this was a horrible mistake. I should not be getting involved with these people. I was smarter than this. I’d made quite the name for myself in the few years I’d been practicing. I was one hell of a divorce lawyer. Whether you were in need of a prenuptial agreement, engaged in an easy or difficult divorce, or involved in a fight for

child custody or spousal support, I was your man; and yet here I was letting greed take over when everything about this man, this case, told me it was not worth it. I prayed this was the only encounter I would have to deal with when it came to him and his son. The one thing I despised in my job was being the attorney for a damn drug-dealing cheater. Especially the son of a man who went around covering his grown son’s indiscretions. Bailing him out of jail time and time again. And this wealthy man’s son, Devon, was notoriously known for being one. That wasn’t all he was known for. Rumor had it he liked to rough women up. And dear old dad was one of the richest men in New York City, covering his tracks constantly in order to keep his son out of prison. Dirty, rotten fuckers. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” I noted. “As long as Devon cooperates by keeping his nose clean, we have a deal.” I lifted my brows, hoping the slimy asshole would get my meaning without having to say his son was a worthless piece of shit who had to keep his dick in his pants and his hands to himself instead of slapping the shit out of women. Even though this fucker was an asshole, I didn’t want to cause a scene in this bar. I’d save being the ruthless lawyer I was for when his son and I’d meet behind the closed doors of my office. “He knows I need this buried. If it gets out, my reputation is ruined. It’s a scandal our city does not need right now.” I called bullshit on him really caring for the people of our city. I would give the guy a little bit of credit, though; he shared his wealth all over the place with many well-known charities. As for his reputation, the entire city knew he was a slime ball. He was a drug dealer, for fuck’s sake. I could hardly stand to be sitting here with him. The only thing he was right about was the fact our city did not need this shit. We sat there for another half an hour discussing the case and going over my bonus. While he prattled on about his son, I sat there thinking of the house I could buy for Adriana and me. How I could pay off both of our student loans. Possibly take her to Paris if I could drag her away from worrying about her damn sister, which would be like pulling my teeth out of my mouth one by one. “Have Devon call my office first thing in the morning,” I said, stood up, and tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table. I was dying to get home to my wife. She had spent the last two nights at her grandmother’s when Alexis had shown up coked up out of her head. She had called to tell me they had her calmed down and had her resting at our house. I didn’t want the bitch there ever again, so I bit my tongue like always, told my wife I loved her, and I would see her soon. “He’ll call,” he answered. Both of us stepped out into the mid-July humid evening air. I stood by the curb and waited for him to climb in the back of his car. Once he pulled away, I started to cross the street toward my own car. It was then that I heard a high-pitched scream for help from somewhere in the distance. I didn’t hesitate to run. I pulled out my phone for light as I darted in between the buildings searching for where the scream of terror came from. As I folded my body around the corner, my eyes grew wide and my feet slowed. He was choking her, her nearly lifeless body flailing all around and dangling a half foot lifelessly in the air. Her eyes nearly bugging out of her head. It was dark and gloomy, but my phone gave me enough light to see her and him.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Let her go?” I said. “Fuck off. This doesn’t concern you. The bitch has been a tease all night. She deserves it, don’t you, bitch?” The man didn’t turn around to see me. It didn’t matter; I knew that voice. The man I just met with knew it better. “Either you let her go, or I’m calling the cops.” “You call the cops, and I’ll kill you both.” Jesus Christ. Fuck the money. This son of a bitch needed to spend some time behind bars. Preferably for life. What happened next scared the shit out of me. Devon O’Reilly pulled out a gun and brought it to the woman’s temple, his other hand still squeezing the life out of her. Her whimpering tore through me when she whizzed her panicked eyes my way, boring her terror right into my brain. He pulled the motherfucking trigger. The woman’s blood splattered everywhere as she fell to her death on the murky, puddled cement. I leaped for him, knocking his ass to the ground with a thud. We fought. Punches were thrown. All I could think was prison was too good for this man. Death sounded so much better. I stopped hitting him the minute I saw Adriana’s beautiful smile. He wasn’t worth me losing my wife. He could rot for all I cared. I was an eye-witness to him committing coldblooded murder. I silently prayed for the woman’s soul. That she was in peace, that her family would find a way to forgive me for not being able to save her. My life began flashing before my eyes. I reached for my phone that had slipped out of my hands, called the cops, and waited while this fucker was lying unconscious in front of me. It wasn’t until I came home hours later to tell Adriana the story while tucked away in our room that I knew I should have stuck to my instincts. She was frightened out of her mind. I hated seeing her worry. She had so much going on. I promised her everything was going to be fine when I knew in my gut after speaking with Hunter it might never be again. The O’Reillys weren’t people you messed around with. I had known this before I met with Stephen. Days went by with the news talking about a woman found dead in an alley, a witness, and Devon O’Reilly’s arrest. I was that witness. The one who remained anonymous. I was not about to drudge my family’s name through the mud. Not until I had to. Adriana and Hunter were the only ones outside of the police who knew. So, how after a month my name was leaked to the defendants, no one had a clue. It all clicked when the first of many threats came in. Pictures of Adriana at work, out walking. Me getting in my car. Her grandmother. It was a fucking nightmare in the making. There wasn’t a damn picture of her sister. Not a one. Alexis craved drugs. Drugs meant Damon O’Reilly. Alexis fucking sold her sister and me out for drugs and revenge. Life went to hell from there.

I kept those threats and my suspicion to myself until they started coming with big red X’s on their heads. Notes attached telling me to disappear before they were forced to make someone in my family die. I went to the only man I could trust: Hunter Daly. There was no fucking way I was going into witness protection and risk the lives of those I loved. Hunter, who took me under his wing after my grandfather passed away. The man had always treated me like a son. He owned a vineyard out in the middle of nowhere. I disappeared just like I was asked. Leaving the people I loved behind. I left my wife, my home, and her family. Except, I left on my terms. My own way. If Devon could kill a woman in cold blood and not feel the guilt, then he would kill my wife, and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. My eyes fly open. I went to Hunter Daly because my grandparents had brought me here on vacation one year. I knew I could stay out of sight, and I knew he had the drive, the power, and the proper people in his hands to make what I needed to be done happen. To help me hide away like the coward I was. The day I went to his house to meet with him and his two sons, Ben and Jonah, to plan this out was harder than making the decision itself. They set it all up. While my car was rolling over a fucking cliff, I was well on my way to Michigan trying to focus on shutting down my mind. Trying my hardest not to break when the time came for the cops to pound on my door to inform Adriana her husband was dead. Trying to calm every part of me down for not choking the fuck out of Alexis for destroying Adriana. I hated that woman, and she knew it. I ended up getting piss-ass drunk before I even checked out the home I was going to live in, because fuck all if I didn’t need my mind as numb as my body felt. I needed those long days that came after to deal with my own grief. We did it all in a matter of days and told ourselves if the plan failed, then we would make sure I vanished. The shit wasn’t easy. And for days, I sat inside my house with a bottle in my hand, staring at the door, just waiting for someone to demand Blake Jensen open the Goddamn door, to arrest me for faking my death. Or to kill me in cold blood. It wrecked me knowing my days with Adriana were numbered. It hardened me. I’m still the man everyone calls Blake. However, I’ve lived with an unbreakable shell surrounding the real man inside me. I’ve been waiting to crack that shell open since I learned that glimmer of hope moved here. I may never get the chance to right the only wrong that I can’t live without. I’ve been struggling long enough between right and wrong. Letting go and holding on. I didn’t take a thing with me when I walked out the door of the home I shared with my wife. I had the clothes on my back, my phone, and everything I normally took in with me to work. I left it all in my car. Right down to a duplicate wedding ring of my own. I couldn’t risk a thing. Nothing that would cause suspicion that my death wasn’t real. When someone puts an expiry date on your wife’s life, you do whatever the hell is needed to make sure she stays alive. Sure, I could have handled it all differently. I could have just left her, disappeared without a word. I couldn’t do that to her. It was hard enough knowing that she was going to go through the deepest parts of hell when she was told I had died. Subjecting her to a search of our home for DNA samples if the police wanted

them. Proof that there weren’t any signs of changes in my behavior that would make it appear I had committed suicide. The roads in those hills weren’t made to drive on that day, but I really did have a client I wanted to see. For him, it could have waited. For me, it was a matter of life and death. Corruption took place everywhere that day. People filled the air with fraud and dishonesty. Hunter promised me they had all done this before and would take it to the grave without giving me up. Forensics experts. Police to taint my report. It was a revolving door of secret men and women who didn’t fully believe in witness protection. They sacrificed themselves to help make a person’s fake death real. A secretly hidden version of their own kind of protection. The majority of these take months to plan. Mine was done in mere days. My spirit supposedly lifted when it was really descending into hell. My beautiful Adriana was free to carry on with her life. To marry someone else if she chose to without being legally bound to someone else. She was able to take care of her sister even though she didn’t deserve it. God, if she were ever to find this out, she would never forgive herself, though she did nothing wrong. It all lies in her dead sister’s grave. There were many times I wanted to leave her a note. Tell her everything. And yet every time I woke to see her sleeping peacefully beside me, I knew I couldn’t. She deserved someone better than me. Someone who would give her everything she needed and more. I thought I was that man up until it was stripped away from me by people who bend the law to their advantage. I often consider myself like the father and son who crashed into my world and corrupted me into becoming the kind of man I never wanted to be. A bribe of a different kind than the cops, lawyers, and judges I have no doubt they’ve paid off in the past to keep that piece of shit out of prison. I speculate at times that maybe his guilt ate him alive. Except, I know well enough that people like that never change. They take, they seek, and they conquer revenge on the innocent. Even Alexis is innocent when it boils down to it. Her addiction owned her. The woman in the alley, Kelli Masters—her family will never get her life back; they will always know that the man who killed their loved one got away with it. That guilt will never go away for me. I had to wrong someone else to do right for others. I could go back. Work with the police or the FBI and pray to hell they don’t charge me with faking my own death. I could show them the evidence I have to why. But how will that change a damn thing when it comes to what I’ve done to my wife? How will that make her see that even though Blake Jensen is legally dead, her husband is very much alive, and that I’m here with legal documents through another form of corruption proving who I am? Hunter and his sons gave me a completely new identity. Right down to my fingerprints. The only thing that has changed about the man I am is the blame that lives inside my head, so much of it that I wish it would destroy me so she could go on living the life she deserves. “Oh, shit. You scared me. I was coming in to see if you had woken up yet.” I blink at the woman looking down on me. Her hand is resting over her heart. My fucking head is killing me. “Sorry. There was a guy in the truck with me.” My words sound garbled. My throat is

dry. This is bullshit. “He’s right outside. Broke two fingers, is all. I’m Marcy, your nurse for the day. Let me go get the doctor and your uncle. I’ll be right back.” Christ, we even have him down as my uncle for my emergency contact. “My wife,” I stutter out, push my aching body up, and wince. “Jesus.” I arch my back, trying to relieve the pain that runs down my side, shoots through my right leg, and hits the bottom of my foot. If I have nerve damage, I’m going to be pissed. “You shouldn’t be moving around. You’ve been in a light coma for three days. Now, stay still, please.” The expression on her face is intense and hard to read. She looks confused. Her words, though, cut me down. Three fucking days? Damn it. “My wife?” I say again. Annoyed. “I’m sorry. Your chart doesn’t say you’re married.” “Well, I am,” I tell her sneeringly. I lift my left hand to show her the proof. I don’t know what hurts more; my head, my heart, or my bare finger. My ring. It’s gone. “Where’s my ring?” I yell. I haven’t taken it off since Adriana slid it on my finger, committing herself to me until death do us part. She may have thought I was dead, but she is very much alive to me. She has to know I’m alive by now. That silver band is the only true thing I have left of my marriage. It’s kept me sane. I know it’s wrong to be yelling at this woman, but I don’t care. If she had any idea about the hell I’ve been through, she would find my ring and give it to me. The word ‘if’—it’s a powerful fucking word. If I were a better man, I would have told Stephen O’Reilly to go fuck himself. If I had, I would have never been in that alley. If I were a better man, then I would allow my heart to believe that everything about Blake Jensen should have died the day I walked out the door of my home. If I were a man at all, I would have never left my wife. If I were a better man, I would never stop begging to get the hell out of here in order to get her to come back to me.

TEN

ADRIANA

I sat on my couch for several hours after Hunter left my home, staring at a large, worn file with my name scrolled across it in Blake’s handwriting he left on my table. He told me everything I needed to know was in that file. I couldn’t open it. Couldn’t move. All I did was flip on the light to my deck, watch the snow fall, and wonder what in the hell had happened to make my husband fake his death. He’s as deceiving as the snow. Its sparkling flakes beg you to touch them. But the more you touch, the colder you get. The colder you get, the more traumatized you become until everything inside of you is frozen. A cold, hard ground lies beneath the purity of the white blanket of snow. Underneath, the ground holds every single one of your loved ones. Except one. The one you thought was there with everyone else. And when you find out it was all a lie and that he could have held you when you cried, loved you when you needed it, and took it upon himself to do everything he could not to make you feel alone, that’s when your last bit of existence runs dry. You give up hoping to find peace in a place where it should be. Your home. This is why I hate to hope. Hope makes you want to smile. It’s an emotion that says something spectacular is waiting down the road for you. It could be around the corner, it could be years away, but it’s there. A promise as long as you keep on hoping. Lies. Hope is a damn lie. It’s beyond the negative voices screaming in your head, dragging you down to the bottom of a pit that keeps on going while you wait for something that’s never going to be there. Hope doesn’t tell you to turn around and head in the opposite direction. It doesn’t guarantee a damn thing except to give you a dead end when hope isn’t waiting around for you after all. A person’s mind can wander like nothing else. It drums up the wildest things. It hopes. It warps in a vicious circle until curiosity gets the better of you, and yet I couldn’t get my body to lean forward and pick up the file. It has been days, and I still don’t want to pick it up. I want to toss it into the snow and bury it. My husband is alive. He’s been living and breathing the same air as me all these years. It hurts more than the day the loud knock came on my door to tell me he was dead. A time in my life I wish I could forget.

“I’ll get it,” I hollered to Alexis, knowing she wouldn’t come out of her room to answer it anyway. She had the next several days off work. She’d sleep off her drunken, high stupor with not a care in the world. Then she’d wake up, come out to grab water and junk food, and then go right back to sleep. I was getting so tired of this back-and-forth thing Alexis had going on that I was beginning to think I should make a doctor’s appointment for some kind of nerve pills because she had mine fraying. No wonder Blake wanted to leave in spite of the weather. If there were ever a time I wished she was working, it would have been today. I had the best news to tell Blake, and I wanted to do it alone. Our anniversary had already been ruined, so when the weatherman advised people to stay home, I was thrilled. My thrill didn’t last long when Blake decided to go to work anyway. My heart shattered because I had been waiting for days to tell him. To see his face and lock it down in my memory. I’d be sure to ease his tension tonight when he got home. I smiled to myself as I held the gift I’d be showing him tonight. He was going to be incredibly happy. When I looked through the long window next to the door, my smile faded when I saw Hunter standing on my porch with two police officers next to him. The tremble in his lips, the devastation in his eyes told me something was terribly wrong. While I opened the door slowly, my heart vaulted out of my chest. I knew with all I had in me my husband was gone as I witnessed the indescribable pain of heartache etched like a sorrowful, painted canvas carved across Hunter’s face. Death had knocked on my door once again. Only this time, it had taken the man I’d vowed to spend the rest of my life with. I twisted my wedding rings on my finger while holding a white stick in my hand. They all felt as heavy as my heart when I gazed blankly at the man whose mouth was moving, but my ears weren’t registering what he was saying. My soul became lost and my spirit defeated. I tried to talk. I tried to ask them what happened while clutching the white stick to my chest. I couldn’t hear a thing except someone telling me Blake was dead. His car had rolled off a cliff. It caught on fire. Scorched with no remains. I was asked if I was willing to answers questions. Hunter told them no. We would come down when we could. Blurred lines. Cloudy visions. Distorted dreams of hope because the child I was carrying inside of me would never meet his or her father. I screamed. Left them standing there while I ran to the bathroom to throw up still clutching the white stick in my hand. Alexis came barreling in. Tears were streaming down her face. Her hands were trying forcefully to pull back my clutched fingers to see what was in my hand. “No. It’s mine. He’s gone, Alexis. My husband. Oh, God, take me. I can’t lose him. I can’t,” I screamed through my tears. My voice was unrecognizable. “He was going to be a father, and now he’s gone. Our child will never know. But you don’t care, do you? You only care about what I can give you. Not me, not him or my unborn child. You don’t care.” I opened my hand to show her. The two dark pink lines I was excited about earlier meant nothing to me now. Not if I couldn’t share this with my husband. “That’s not true. It’s not, Adriana. I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t want this to happen to Blake or to you. You need to listen to me, okay?” she said. She sounded normal

to my mucked-up head. So much like the sister I missed. “You need to keep this to yourself for now. Don’t tell anyone you’re pregnant. Let us take care of everything while you take care of yourself and the baby. I promise I’ll help you get through this. Heidi will help you; Daniel will. Grandma will. You have to think of the baby, okay?” I knew that. At least the logical part of me did. Nothing about any of this was reasonable, though, was it. It was implausible. Alexis was right. I did have to take care of our baby, and the last thing I wanted was for people to pity the young, widowed wife who’d just found out she was pregnant and hadn’t even told her husband yet. I moved from the cold tiled floor to my sister’s lap, where she held me for God knows how long. Her bony arms, her small frame holding me as tight as she could. We didn’t move from our spot on the floor until our grandmother showed up and started taking things over. Besides Alexis, she was the only one I told about the baby. Something inside of me wanted her to know. The part of me who knew the real Alexis had surfaced briefly yet might be gone the next day, forget that my husband had died or that I was pregnant. All I wanted at the time was to see a genuine smile on someone’s face when I told them that I was going to be a mother. Someone who I knew would remember this day with me forever. She gave it to me without even asking. She placed her hand on my stomach and promised me everything would be alright. It wasn’t alright again. It would never be alright. But I believed her. At the time, anyway. Time dragged on. The funeral came and went, and still, his accident made no sense to me at all. He was a reasonable driver. He knew the road conditions from growing up here. They didn’t perform an autopsy per our request. We knew he didn’t commit suicide, and so did they; and still, they asked me anyway when Alexis finally drove me to talk to them. I hated them for asking me that. My mouth shot vile things at them. How could they even think that about Blake? He loved life too much. He loved me, our life together, and his job. His wedding ring was found in the wreckage. His watch I gave him when we got married was found several yards away. I was numb. The hope of raising our child together was gone. All I had were my memories. All I had were my own visions of the smile he would have smiled when I told him we were going to have a baby. I hated myself. The guilt, the shame hit me more with each passing day. And then it finally took over my life. The one thing I prayed wouldn’t happen did. I lost my baby. My child would know his or her father after all. It was me they would never know. Me who couldn’t beg her husband enough to stay home. Me who continued to have her druggie sister use her over and over again. Me who couldn’t drag herself out of bed to feed her growling stomach. Me who cried so hard at night in her sister’s, grandmother’s, and best friend’s arms that I made myself sick. Me. It was all my fault; the same way my parents’ death was my fault, too. I forgot about what Alexis was doing with her life, my job, my grandmother, and everything around me while I sat there day after day and stared at the deceiving, beautiful snow. My husband underneath the cold, hard ground. My baby’s spirit was now soaring. Death had knocked on my door. Guilt came to live with me, sleep in my bed, watch television with me at night, while hope moved far away. Alexis stayed by my side and held me. She fed me, walked me to the bathroom, held my hair when I threw up, wiped my tears when I cried, while Hunter and our grandmother made most of the arrangements because I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t look at

anything that reminded me of him. He was everywhere in our home. Photos, his clothes, his smell. He was my life. I didn’t want to shower because it would wash the last traces of his smell off me. I didn’t want to get out of my bed because it was the last place he had made love to me. I didn’t want to do anything. Not until Alexis, Grandma, and Heidi made me. Days bled me dry. Nights stole my strength. I didn’t want to go on. Somewhere down the dark, lonely road, Heidi pulled me out of my corner. Told me I needed to get back to work, and so I did. I hid behind my lens, my face a painted disguise hiding the guilt, all the while knowing my husband was never going to come back to me. It was the one time in my life I really needed my sister more than anything. It was the one time in my adult life I remember her being there for me. The only time she beat out those drugs and stayed sober for two weeks outside of rehab. The only time her tears were real and the last time I saw the sister I remembered until she moved in with me shortly before she died. Alexis isn’t here anymore to hold me. It’s Jenny, my receptionist. A woman who has no responsibility to me at all, and yet here she is, clinging on to my crying frame days later while I still stare at that fucking file. “Sweetheart, you need to eat something.” Heidi approaches with a steaming bowl of soup, crackers, and fruit on a tray. She sets it down on the table beside that file, and all I want to do is pick it up and dump it over the top of it, ruining the contents of what’s inside, because whatever is in there is the cause to ruining me. “Okay,” I say, not wanting to argue with her. She’s been at me non-stop to eat since she once again picked me up off the floor when she and Daniel arrived. I hate that I’m the reason for taking them away from their bakery once again. They have a life, but as of late, their lives have revolved around me. “Where’s Daniel?” I ask, sit up, and wipe my tears on the sleeve of my shirt. “He’s covering the studio for you.” “He’s what?” I ask angrily. My growling stomach loses its appetite. We’ve only been open a little over a week. I’ve had several people stop in for inquiries, but no one has booked anything yet. Those asking knew I wouldn’t have what they wanted by the holiday, so they took brochures; a couple of them had thought of Valentine’s day, so they booked for early January. We planned on it being a terribly slow month. So now, my best friend’s husband is running my business, while I’m sitting here wallowing in the fact my husband didn’t love me enough to tell me what forced him to leave me the way he did. Fuck that shit. “Honey. It was either that or go to the hospital and talk to Blake.” I swallow at the mention of his name. I don’t want to talk about this, but the look of determination in Heidi’s eyes tells me she isn’t giving up. She’s going to push me like she always does. “Don’t you dare look at me that way. Fuck him, Heidi. He faked his death. Left me to try and pick up the pieces of a heart that can never be fixed. There isn’t any of us going to that hospital. I don’t want to see him.” I’m reasonable enough to know I’m putting off the

inevitable. I’ll have to see Blake sometime. I’m simply not ready. This is one of those times when I will put my foot down when it comes to what Heidi thinks I should do. I’ve been brushing talking to anyone about this off since the minute they all showed up here. I’ve shut off my phone in case anyone tries to call. I’ve avoided seeing Mason when he stopped by. I’m at my breaking point, but no one seems to see that. But again, it’s life’s cold, hard reality punching me hard. Knocking me down. And this time, I don’t want to get up. I’m tired of fighting. “You don’t have to see him. Not yet, anyway, but you do owe it to yourself to open this file and see what the hell is going on,” Heidi says. I don’t have to do a damn thing. But she’s not buying it. She’s going to trap me in a corner and dare me to get around her. Well, I don’t want to, nor do I have to. I will not be pushed around. “Let’s get some food in you. Then a nice hot shower. We can talk about this when you’re done,” Jenny interrupts. I will admit, the soup smells good, but I’m not eating. Heidi wants me angry. Well, she’s getting her wish of bringing out the one emotion I’ve kept hidden, because guilt no longer belongs here. It belongs on the shoulders of the man who made me feel the stinging emotion in the first place. “No,” I scream at them both and stand up on my wobbly feet. The room is suddenly spinning. “You read it, didn’t you? You know what’s going on. That’s why you’re pushing me to do this. You can tell him to go to hell. I want him to feel it. Feel what he did to me. To hurt in ways you can’t begin to describe. To blame himself for killing me right along with him. But he isn’t dead, is he? While he’s been breathing here this entire time, I’ve been waking up every day trying to find ways not to feel sorry for myself. Trying to tell myself that today has to be better than yesterday. But it never is.” I stare at my friend, the only person in this entire world who feels my pain. She has been there every step of the way with me. She still doesn’t know about the baby I lost. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her because I had to bury the guilt of losing my child right along with its father. I had to, or it would have ended up killing me. “That’s it. Get pissed. Get angry and take it all out on me. I can’t begin to comprehend what you’re going through right now, but you need to look at that, because whether you want to believe it or not, he had a damn good reason for doing what he did.” I’m not bending this time. I want to stay in the corner she has me in. She can go to hell with Blake for all I care right now. The guilt I thought would leave me comes crashing back in a dash of unwanted panic. I gasp for air. I hear the resounding beat of my heart in my ears. My unsteady legs shake as they scream they can no longer hold me up. “You don’t think I see it, do you? All the guilt that has taken away my best friend for years. It’s eaten away at you for far too long. It’s built a wall inside of you so sturdy you won’t let anyone in. Not even me. You pretend. You hide behind your wall of mirrors to appease me. You did it to your grandmother; you do it to Daniel. You have to stop hiding. What life has done to you is not your fault. Do you hear me this time? It is not your fault. You have nothing to feel guilty about.” My eyes bug out of my head. “I have every right to feel guilty,” I scream. “Why? Are you the one who shoved drugs down your sister’s throat? You didn’t put that needle in her arm. You didn’t force your parents to drive home to help you. You didn’t

force those drinks down that man’s throat who killed them. They did it. Not you. Them. And it is not your fault that Blake left that day. It’s not, Adriana. He would have done it regardless of the weather. He had to. Open the damn thing and look, because your husband is alive. He’s been living in his own kind of hell, and I want my best friend back, Goddamn it.” She picks it up and hands it to me. I slap it out of her hand. Papers fly everywhere. How dare she speak to me like this. How dare she take the side of the man who made me believe he was dead. I’m acting out, and I know it. All control has vanished. Except, control is real. It’s the only thing a person has when it comes to their sensibility. Right now, I have none. Zero fucks to give. Not even to my best friend. The rest of my body shakes. I move my hand to cradle my head, trying to keep everything she said to me from sinking in. To not let it squirm its way through the tiny crack in my chest where I’ve welcomed more pain over the years. If it does, it will be more than I can bear. The pain inside reminds me that the people I love are dead. It bounces off the walls in all its glory that it’s destroyed the woman who once had everything in the palm of her hands. It loves living there. It loves destroying. The pain, the guilt, and the hope have cemented them inside of me. I need to keep them there in order to survive. But it’s no use trying to pretend anymore. Not when I look down to the floor, and there in living color is a picture of Blake staring back at me. His eyes are as dull as mine. No sign of the flames once burning brightly when they would roam over my body. Nope, I don’t see a part of the man I once knew. On my floor lies the picture of a man who’s hurting as badly as I am. I bend down to pick it up. My shaky fingers hurt when they run across his features. I’ve missed him so much I can barely take a breath. Breathing hurts. It stings. “Heidi,” I whisper. “I know, Adriana. Believe me, I know.” I look to the floor at another photo. This one is confusing. It’s a picture of me scraping the snow off my car after work. But seeing myself isn’t what makes me gasp. It isn’t what has the tears emptying out of me, dripping down my cheeks and landing on the photo at my feet. It’s the red X across the back of my head. It’s the words written across the bottom that say ‘She dies first’ that have the scream ripping out of my throat. The next screams stay lodged in my stomach. The knots are holding them hostage, because I feel his presence in the home that hasn’t brought me a bit of peace. I don’t want to look up out of fear I might be wrong. I don’t want to look up out of fear I might be right. Yet I do. I slowly lift my head to see his reflection staring back at me in the window, and that’s all it takes for my legs to give out.

ELEVEN

BLAKE

Chaos swirls inside of me as I stand in Adriana’s home, surrounded by her friends. A man does not want to hear his wife scream for him to take his hands off her. Not when he’s waited so long to touch her, feel her again. I should have listened to what Mason told me on the way here. Should have given her time. “This isn’t what the doctor had in mind when he told you to go home and rest,” Mason huffed out with frustration as he climbed into his truck. “I haven’t rested in years. It’s the last thing on my mind right now.” I would have much rather had Hunter be with us to help me explain, but the man had to fly back to New York. He still had a job to do, and there were very few people who knew about the vineyard. For everyone’s safety, we needed to keep it that way. Plus, Christmas was a few weeks away. He had a family to be with, and so did I, damn it. I’d be damned if I spent another Christmas without my wife. “I’m not the one you should be worrying about, Mason, and you know it. Resting isn’t high on my priority list. She is. I won’t rest until I have her back,” I told him for the umpteenth time, adding the last part in hopes he’d quit nagging. I rested my head back and closed my eyes. The doctor had wanted me to stay a few more days to allow the right side of my body to heal. Nothing had been broken in the accident except my fucking heart over the fact of not seeing her yet again on our anniversary. Hunter had told me everything that happened when he went to see Adriana after the doctor came in and explained my injuries. A mild coma, which they monitored through drugs, making sure I stayed still to allow my bruised ribs to heal. Five fucking days was long enough for me to stay still and contemplate what I was going to say to her. In front of an audience, no less. Not what I had planned at all. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to say. It depended on her reaction to seeing me. I chuckled to myself several times on the drive over for the reason that I shouldn’t be planning on seeing my wife at all. I should be able to walk right into our home. Pick her up and kiss the living hell out of her. I doubted I’d be able to see if her lips still felt as soft as I remembered; not for a long time, if fucking ever. I refused to believe that once she was over the initial shock after I explained everything to her, that she wouldn’t understand why I did what I did. Believing was all I had left.

Of course, I’d considered to give her time instead of going to her the minute I was released. I lay in bed after everyone would go home in the dark trying to wrap my head around how she must feel. I knew she was pissed and hurt. She had every right to be. When you added confused into the mix, it was a whole other level when it came to Adriana. She might tell me to get the fuck out, or she might break. My guess would be both. I knew her, and there was no amount of time that would change the woman she was on the inside. I had a permanent reminder of the look on her face burned in my brain the night I watched her in her studio. She wasn’t happy or sad. She was stuck back in time the same way I was. We’d had a future, but it vanished without warning. I’d left her with broken promises and shattered dreams. Where I’d had nothing but time to enclose the short life we were able to share together, to cherish it, hold on to it, and remember it with fondness, she’d had time to hate me for walking out that door. To seal her guilt inside of her and give up. I’d crumbled her to the lowest point she could go. I knew I had, and she didn’t know which way to go anymore. I’d ignored the way my chest constricted every time I thought back to when I found out she refused to come see me the night of the accident. My wounded heart was aching much worse than the bruised skin up and down my side. “I’m telling you once again, man, you need to give her more time. She has to still be in shock, Blake. Even Daniel told you when he came to see you. She’s not holding up well.” Every time he told me this, it was another blindsided sucker punch to the gut. I knew she would experience every reaction he’d repeatedly told me. Didn’t make hearing it again any better than it did the first time. Wouldn’t make my heart beat with excitement when she saw me either. In fact, I had an unsettling feeling my friend was right. It was a damn good thing I loved the asshole, or I’d have been punching him in his pretty boy face. Daniel had showed up yesterday and again an hour or so ago. We followed him to Adriana’s house. He stood in the hallway and stared me down. Quite angrily, I might add. His protective glare struck me hard. He shouldn’t be the one shielding Adriana from anything. Especially me. He was doing it now. Claimed he thought it would be in her best interest if he was there when she first saw me. Even though he was right, it pissed me off even more. I will say I had been glad to see my old friend, and after several hours of talking with him before the nurse finally kicked his ass out because she demanded I get some rest, he understood. Said he would look at the file with Heidi to help prepare Adriana for when I came by. When we spoke right before leaving the hospital, he said Adriana still hadn’t looked at it. In fact, he said she hadn’t spoken a word at all. Hadn’t eaten a thing in days and had barely gotten off her couch. I had to get to her. She needed me, and that was all I cared about. “I know she is. I’m worried about her. I can’t stay away from her any longer. She’s suffered enough. I’ve told you this.” I glanced his way. When he’d first met her, he’d had no idea that the Adriana he was interested in was my Adriana. I’d wanted to take my frustration out on him. But then he’d told me she’d come by the night of the accident and spilled her guts out to him over a few glasses of wine and dinner, and he’d known right

then who she was. Couldn’t believe the irony of it. When Hunter had called Mason after he had been released from the emergency room that night to let him know what was going on, Mason had told him he was with her. Hunter told Mason he was coming to her and asked for him to keep her with him as long as he could. He did, then he took her home before he came to sit beside me. “And I told you I agree with you. You didn’t see her face when she started telling me everything she’s been through. The woman is a rock. I haven’t met anyone as tough as she is, except you. Doesn’t mean she’s ready for this, though, man,” Mason replied while keeping his eyes on the road. Mason Landers was in the same situation as I was. The difference between him and me was, he didn’t give two fucks if the people from his past found him or not. He’d turned on his entire family for robbing a bank. Some of them were in prison, some were dead, and the others ran their scared little asses back to Germany. He didn’t have a woman he was dying to get back. Adriana was the first woman he admitted he had been interested in getting to know. He was fucking lucky he had a big goddamn mouth and told Hunter about her, or I would have killed him if he’d laid a finger on Adriana. “She’s stronger than she realizes,” I added before drawing in a sharp breath when I saw the winery up ahead. “Fuck. No matter what happens today, I can’t believe I’m about to be in the same room as she is,” I said as I twirled my wedding ring I finally got back on my finger. They had taken it off in the emergency room in case I needed surgery. I had never been more grateful to get something back in my life. Now, if the woman who put it there came back to me, I’d never take another thing for granted as long as I lived. I sat up straight and grimaced from the ache in my leg. Goddamn bruises were worse than a break. Swear to hell they were. Not that I’d broken many bones in my life. A few toes and fingers, and they held nothing like the pain on the side of my body that was covered in bright shades of black and blue from my shoulder to my ankle. It hurt like a motherfucking bitch. We pulled into her drive, climbed out, and I grabbed hold of the door handle to steady myself. I couldn’t believe she lived here. I’d admired this place a few summers ago when it had been built. “She’s going to slice you open, and you deserve it. I’m warning you now, Heidi will leave if she feels she thinks it’s right. If she doesn’t, whatever happens, it will have to be done in front of everyone. I’m not on your side once we step through this door. You might think you know your wife; I’m standing here telling you right now that you don’t. She isn’t the same woman, Blake. She’s gutted to her core. There’s barely a shred of her left. She’s a fighter, but she’s losing the war raging inside of her. You give her the space she needs if she asks, but you do it without leaving her again, or I swear to fucking God I’ll kill you.” I nodded. Any words left to be said would be said to her. After everything she’d been through, I was thankful she had Heidi and Daniel. My heart began slamming against my chest with every step I took. My hands shook when the door opened, and my heart beat steadily when I saw her right there in my line of sight. My first glimpse of her up close split me in half when I heard her angry voice yelling at Heidi. My heart broke that steady rhythm and condemned itself to hell. Adriana

was telling her how much she wanted me to feel her pain. I’ve felt it, baby, I wanted to say. I’ve felt it for a long time now. I’m smothering in it. Trust me. I’d broken her trust in me in the worst conceivable way. Her bitter words sliced right through me. They cut so deep that I should have listened when they’d all told me to give her time. All I’d ever wanted for Adriana was to see her happy. The woman who seconds ago stood with her back to me wasn’t happy because she’d found out I’m alive. She wasn’t standing in front of the door with eyes that wanted to devour me like she used to. No, her entire body was shaking with the pain of abandonment. I flinched when she slapped the file out of Heidi’s hands. I cringed after I caught Heidi’s desperate eyes when Adriana bent down to pick something up. Heidi was wordlessly screaming for help. Reluctantly, I nodded my head when Heidi’s eyes screamed and begged me to wait a minute longer before making it known I was there. I stayed glued to my spot, dying. But so was Adriana. I knew her mind was racing and her heart was breaking. She would never listen to me if she was this angry. I blinked exhaustedly and dragged my attention out the front window, taking a chance I’d catch a glimpse of her face. She stiffened. Our eyes locked briefly, and without warning, she crumbled to the floor. My feet shuffled to her in long, suffering strides. “Get your hands off me!” she screamed so loud when I placed a shaky hand on her shoulder that I backed away, then a woman I didn’t recognize dropped to her knees beside us. She pulled Adriana into her arms, helped her off the floor, and guided her out of the room. She was out of my sight just like that. The silence coming from everyone rings loud in my ears. It’s not until Heidi starts sobbing that I collect myself enough to stand and sit on the couch. Defeated. I did this to her. Me. “If you don’t make her understand why you did this, then I swear on everything holy I will kill you myself. She needs you more than she’ll admit, and for the record, I’m not happy with the way you handled this, but I understand why you did. Tell her I’m next door if she needs me.” The words Heidi speaks through her strangled cries have me chuckling when none of this is funny. Those two are so much alike and get along perfectly. Whereas Adriana and I, we’re complete opposites. We got along, though. Better than most people I knew. Better than I ever would have expected. I nod at her the same way I did at Daniel. I continue to stand in Adriana’s living room long after I hear the click of the door shutting. I lift my head from the pile of papers on the floor to see everyone gone. Including my ride. My heart halts when the woman who took Adriana away seconds before comes down the hallway, her face twisted in pain. She doesn’t look at me. She merely grabs her coat, slips on a pair of boots, and exits. She’ll need to be talked to about this just like we did with Daniel. I need to see Adriana. Be close to her. Make sure she’s alright. But I simply can’t move right now. I’m not sure what I expected to see when I came here. It definitely wasn’t her leaving the room without even looking at me. I know I should walk away from her right now and give her the time she needs. And now, as I stand here wondering if I should stay or go, Daniel’s word hit me full force, and before I even register what I’m doing, I’m

shoving every last bit of the four years of my life back into the file. Then I’m slipping off my shoes, placing them by the door, and walking down the hallway toward the faint, heartbreaking cries. Adriana has always felt guilt; now she’s dealing with betrayal. It’s obvious she still has no idea why I did what I did. I’m not sure what to talk to her about first. I stop in my tracks outside of the doorway to what has to be her bedroom. My God, she’s a vision as her tiny frame lies curled up on her bed, her hair a disheveled mess, her eyes swollen and worn. Even in the midst of her despair, she takes my breath away. Those lips I want to kiss are quivering. Her shiny hair is captivatingly making my fingers itch to pull it out of that mop on top of her head and get lost in it. I want to feel it. Smell it. I need to feel her in my arms, to take away her pain and fill her life with nothing but sunshine. I want to make all of this better for her and for her to see me. The real me. I want to get down on my hands and knees and tell her that no matter how much time has passed, I’ve not once, not one second stopped loving her. When it comes to Adriana, I just want. Her body stiffens when she sees me. The tears continue to stream down her face. Every part of my body aches with unbearable pain. A set of frozen, iced-over daggers latches on to mine, poking and prodding through my soul. The hurt covers me with a divider I never wanted, adhering to my skin. All I want is to put my arms around her and never let her go, live the rest of my life by her side as her husband. I want to honor, cherish, and carry on the vows we made to each other. I’m an open book of wants. There was a time when I would hold her, wipe all those tears away, and now she’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger to her. As if she’s trying to decide if the man she’s seeing is real. I can’t blame her for that. I’m feeling the same way; only, I know she’s as real as she’s going to get, as vulnerable as I’ve seen her, and punishing me without even knowing she’s doing it. She’s every damn thing and more than I expected her to be if I were to see her again. She’s stunning. A perfect individual who is reaching out for help without even asking. I won’t move, speak, or do a damn thing until she asks me to. I’m not giving up, not when my entire life has a mental hurricane spinning out of control inside of her. “When Hunter first told me you were alive, I thought he was losing his mind because I believed you loved me enough to never betray me,” she whispers through her sobs. “But you did, didn’t you? Skip past the reason why you put me through hell. I gave up on saving myself, so I could stay strong in order to save my sister, but you know about that, too, don’t you? You know about my grandmother. You know everything there is to know about me, yet I know nothing about you. The man I married is a Goddamn fraud. The man I married put my heart through a shredder, ripped it to pieces and destroyed me.” The pain in her voice pierces me instead of bringing me calm. Her breath catches, her sobs continue, and I still stand there like the betrayer I am. She has never been more wrong and right at the same time in her life. She does know me. With her, I’m the same man she fell in love with. When I’m with the people I’ve spent the past four years with, I’m the fraud; at least by name, anyway. I know this isn’t an ordinary fight between married couples. It’s much worse. It’s the

ultimate betrayal. A deceiver’s double-edged sword that’s stabbed both of us. The thing is, I do know everything about Adriana. I know she’s not even close to being done with chewing my ass out. I deserve it all. Everything she throws at me and more. I’ll stay put inside this doorframe with my hands shoved in my pockets until I know she’s done. Because I know this, too; if I take one more step toward her, she’ll be in my arms, and as wrong as it is to think this way right now, I can’t be in bed with her. I’m a man who has missed his wife in more ways than one. She lies there with one hand shoved under a pillow, the other one wiping her eyes. Watching. Waiting for a response from me and so damn beautiful all the air in my lungs evaporates. It’s as if she’s lost in a trance. She has no fucking idea how much I want to take the lost little girl I see and find her. To bring her back to me where she belongs. “I loved you. Did you know that? You were everything to me, Blake. Everything. Why didn’t you love me enough to tell me what was going on? That’s the hardest thing for me to understand. Love isn’t supposed to be ripped out from under you by the person you trust the most. Our love wasn’t the kind to be betrayed. Our love wasn’t the kind to put guilt and blame on the other. You loved me, and I loved you. Why wasn’t that enough? Why isn’t love ever enough for anyone?” She’s begging me to answer a question I don’t know how to answer with words. Not yet anyway. “Please take a look at the file, Adriana.” God, it feels good to say her name while looking at her, even if the phrase that comes with it isn’t what I had in mind when speaking it first. “I need you to leave,” she says sternly. Her eyes are no longer looking at me. It hurts more than I ever thought possible to hear her say those words. I’m scared if I walk out her door, she won’t allow me back in, but I’m not going to push her into having a conversation she isn’t ready to have. No matter how much we both are holding each other’s broken hearts in our hands. She’s getting a few days to absorb this, and that’s it. “Love is the reason why I did this, Adriana. Once you realize that, you’ll understand that love has always been enough when it came to you and me. It will always be enough. Falling in love with you is the only thing that made sense to me. It’s the only thing that has ever felt right. It’s everything to me. Your love and mine. There isn’t a thing that will change that. Not one damn thing.” I see right through her; everyone does. Her heart is crying out for help. The strong woman who’s carried around so much weighted-down guilt on her shoulders believes she’s unfixable when she’s far from it. All she needs is a push in the right direction. Toward me.

TWELVE

ADRIANA

“I suggest you get in there and put this on, Adriana. Daniel is setting things up in the studio.” I really don’t love Heidi anymore. In fact, she downright angers me. No, that’s far from the truth. I love her more than I ever have before. It took her less than five minutes after Blake left for her to be right back by my side, holding me for the longest time once again. She didn’t ask what we talked about; she didn’t bring up the file. She simply took me in her arms until I stopped crying. Then she made me get up, warmed my soup, and stood by me while I ate. She held me while I apologized for being rude to her. Lay with me until I fell asleep. Both she and Daniel are the last people on this earth I would ever intentionally hurt. Heidi stormed into my room the next morning at the crack of dawn, opened my blinds, and told me we were going to work. That she had called her mother to manage the bakery and she and Daniel were staying for a while. I didn’t argue then, and I’m not going to argue now. I have a business to run. A life to live. And a damn file to look at. In that order. I know I’m a lot stronger than I give myself credit for, too. Sometimes weakness tries to color strength out with a big black crayon that seems to grow bigger rather than smaller. I’ve let it long enough. I have every intention of sitting down and looking over that haunting file tonight. “Fine. When I’m poor and have to move in with you and Daniel, I’ll drive you both bat shit crazy the same way you’re driving me insane.” I snatch the corset from her hands, lock the door to the store, and make my way to the back of the studio. I pause for several seconds as I watch Daniel adjust the bed and pick up my camera. I’ve been putting designing my site off until the last minute, thinking I might be one of those people who slips through the cracks of finalizing her website. That’s all I’ve been doing these past few days, trying to put the finishing touches on the thing. Then all of a sudden, Daniel makes a suggestion, and these two take off with it like I have no say at all. When life slaps you in the face, you punch the bitch back harder, kick it in the balls, then focus on the hand you punched it with. That hand will guide you anywhere, I hear my grandmother’s words. I smirk knowing she’s never far from my mind. I wonder if it will guide me toward the courage I need to call Hunter and apologize for the way I treated him. I had three missed phone calls from him when I decided to turn my phone back on after seeing Blake the other day. He’d left messages telling me we needed

to talk about things. I feel awful for the way I talked to him. Surely, he has to understand what I’m feeling. That was three days ago. Three long days with little sleep and a mind that won’t shut off. “I need about a half hour. Don’t drop that, or I’m taking it out of your pay,” I tease Daniel. Well, sort of tease when he looks up after seeing me standing there. That lens holds more value to me than anything I own. It’s the one Blake replaced. “I know what this means to you, Adriana. Get on with yourself, and while you’re back there, you may as well give me my holiday bonus check now. Those bras in the front window are going to bring you in all kinds of money. Seriously, though, I think this will be good for you. Get your mind off things for a bit. Help you focus on the important stuff. Besides, you know I’m damn good at using this thing.” His joking brings out a smile in me. It’s the first one I’ve allowed to escape in over a week. The first genuine one in a long time, because we all know the man is horrible behind the lens. Heidi is ten times worse. And Jenny, well, she may be good at answering the phone, selling my lingerie like crazy to the last-minute shoppers, but she wants nothing to do with taking a picture of her boss half-naked. She’s not the only one. I don’t want to be the half-naked boss either. As I stare at the lights hanging over the bed and take in the seductive atmosphere, I will admit I’m rather excited. It was Heidi’s idea for Daniel to take the pictures. They both jumped on it, stating it would cheer me up, expressed how they thought it was a great idea that I was on the homepage of The Boudoir’s website. I told them to fuck off at first, but the more they went on about it, the more I told myself I needed to stop sitting at home staring at the file I refused to open, so I agreed. I came to work to finish some behind-the-scenes things, while the three of them maintained the store. I can’t allow someone else to work for me anymore. This is my job, my life, and I should be here. I make my way back to the dressing room, close the door behind me, and toss the garment on the couch. I haven’t even looked at what she grabbed for me. It better cover everything up, or I’ll decide on something myself. I inhale, rub my temples to try and ease away some of my tension, and take a seat in front of the mirror. “You look like death,” I say to my image, grab the concealer, and start to work on my face. My mind starts roaming again. Honestly, it hasn’t stopped. How can it when all I can think about is him and the way his brief touch on my shoulder prickled my skin? The way he looked standing in the doorway to my bedroom. Sexy and alive. Handsome and here. In this town. Unbelievable. To say I was shocked to see his intense gaze reflected in the window would be a lie. To say I haven’t wanted to pick up the file would be an even bigger one. To say I didn’t want him to crawl into my bed and hold me would be the biggest one of them all. He looks the same. Those inescapable eyes of his were drawing me in. I hated him at that moment. The way he stood there trying to dissect me while I wanted to reach out and touch him. To take his hand in mine and hold it to my chest, for him to read my thoughts. To understand what I’m going through and to hear his reason why. Even though, I pleaded with him to leave. I could tell he was holding back from

pulling me into his arms. The muscles ticking away under his smoothly-shaven face gave it away. His signature sign when he’s struggling not to do something he wants to do. He hid that sign well when he deceived me years ago, and the deceiving alone is the hardest part for me to swallow. The brute force of his body underneath his coat had my head swaying. His hair is still thick with a heavy wave. Legs long and lean. My husband is an incredibly sexy man. All dark and broody. Mysterious on the outside, kind and gentle on the inside; until he came to bed. In the bedroom, he was an entirely different man, and I wanted him. I wanted him to stay when I asked him to go. I wanted him to keep his hands on me when I asked him not to. I wanted and wanted. I still do, and I have yet to find out why he did what he did. He stood there with his hands shoved in his pockets, looking at me as if he couldn’t believe I wasn’t a dream. I’m overjoyed he’s alive. It takes a huge part of my guilt away. It made me stop resenting the fact that my heart was beating while his was not. Although it doesn’t do a damn bit of good with everything else stemming its way through me. All the hurt and pain. The misleading. The lack of trust. It’s gone, and I haven’t the slightest clue of what to do or where to go from here. He has taken very good care of himself when he should have been taking care of me. I’m selfish, inconsiderate when it comes to what he’s probably been through. I don’t care. I’m so tired of doing what’s expected of me that I want to disappear. Run off the way he did, so that no one can ever find me. Then again, I won’t; because if I do, I won’t keep my promise to my grandmother. I wouldn’t do her proud. I block him out of my head as I paint my face with makeup in an attempt to cover up the hidden sadness behind my eyes. They shine brightly now. Smokey. Sexy. My lips are painted with a bright stain of red. I’ve never done anything like this before. What possessed me to agree to it in the first place is beyond me now that I’m sitting here looking at myself. Maybe my subconscious is telling me I need to do this for me. Whatever it is, I stand, shimmy out of my clothes, and grab the corset. My hands shake profusely; my eyes go wide when I hold it up to my naked body. “Don’t even think about it. Put it on.” Heidi whips open the door. I don’t even bother covering myself up; she’s seen me naked plenty of times before. “Where did you get this?” I shake the piece of material in her face. I never got the chance to wear this. It was the one Blake was holding in his hand on our anniversary the day Alexis screwed up our weekend. “In the back of your closet. That color looks good on you. Why?” She doesn’t know. Of course, she doesn’t. I kept that memory locked away. “Blake took this from the store. He gave it to me shortly before…” I can’t get myself to say it. He’s been dead in my mind for a long time, and now he isn’t dead at all. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Do you want me to get something else?” She feels awful. I can see it, and it makes me incredibly sad that I’m putting her through hell right along with me. She doesn’t deserve this. “No. I’ll wear it. It’s time to put on my big girl garments, so to speak.” I laugh at my

stupid joke before I turn my back on her and place my feet into the corset, wiggle my hips, and pull the tight, silky material over my thighs and breasts. It hurts more than I care to admit that I was never able to wear this for him. For me to see his expression. Blake loved devouring me with those tantalizing eyes before he slowly peeled away the lingerie I had on. Good Lord, that man had a way with his hands. I need to stop. “Damn. I can see why he wanted it. You look sexy as hell!” she expresses as she stands in front of me and draws the strings up tight, tying them together. She pushes my breasts up more, revealing entirely too much cleavage, and grips my shoulders. Her face turns from playful to serious. “I know this is hard on you. What you’re doing is a step in the right direction. I think this will be wonderful, for you to be in front of the camera for once. Let your mind go and enjoy this. Do something for yourself. Everything else can wait. Okay?” I’m in awe of my strong friend who has everything she’s ever wanted. A mother who will help her out. A husband who adores her. Her eyes fill with tears, and my ability to see hazes over. I refuse to cry over this anymore. At least for the half hour or so the shoot will take. This is the most spontaneous thing I’ve done. I’m not going to let the dark cloud hanging over me ruin it. This is for me and my career. It’s the only thing I have control over in my life right now, and if everyone around me thinks it’s a good idea for me to pose, then I’m going to do it. Not for them but for me. I wish Blake could see me now. No, I really don’t want him to see me in this. “It’s a good thing my wife is here. Fucking hell, Adriana.” I roll my eyes at Daniel’s comment, while Heidi just laughs as if this is an everyday occurrence for her. Makes me envy her more that they have such a tight bond of trust. That trust doesn’t have a thing to do with me prancing around half-naked in front of Daniel. Their connection reminds me of what I lost. What I thought I had. I’m not used to this at all. Being a woman behind the lens is entirely different than being in front of one. I push back my shoulders, crawl up the bed, and tell myself to relax like I do my models and quit feeling sorry for myself. I’m strong. This is a piece of cake. “It’s a good thing I trust you with my camera.” Daniel has no idea what he’s doing. I mean, he’s used a camera before, but nothing like this. Before we closed up, I adjusted the lighting, told him where to put the bed, where to stand, and for neither one of them to say a word to make me laugh. I also told him he had thirty minutes to capture a good photo. If he didn’t, he was fired. “This is strange,” I say as I lie on my back, bring one leg over the other, and twist my torso slightly. I ruffle my hair until it spreads out all around me, close my eyes when the lights dim, and arch a little. I keep them closed for several clicks of the camera, my mind adjusting to the mood so I can be done with this. I twist and turn. My eyes are looking everywhere except at the camera. I’m afraid I’ll bust out laughing if I do. I train my mind to become sexy, secretive, and seductive. Spreading my legs, hands over my breasts, biting my bottom lip, and tossing my head back as if I were in the throes of ecstasy. With Blake. I think of him and how his hands felt, his moans, the way he would demand me to touch myself. I carry on until I feel as if his eyes are on me. I need to hurry up and get this over with, or I’m going to turn into a puddle.

“Let’s try a few this way, and then we’re done. Stand a couple feet straight out from me. I’m sure you’ll have one after this that we can use,” I mutter. Skin flush, voice full of lust, I flip around until my head is butted up to the edge of the bed and tilt my head back, letting my hair cascade down behind me. Once again, I close my eyes for several clicks. I feel incredibly sexy and turned on from my thoughts. “Wow, Daniel. I’m impressed. You’re following orders. Heidi has you trained well,” I joke, bring my legs up, and press my palms on the inside of my thighs, my back arching to show off a little more cleavage. I can hear the clicks going off one right after the other. This pose has got to be it. “Okay, that’s enough. I’m done. You better pray you have at least one good shot. I’m not doing that again. May I see them?” I ask, open my eyes, and my relaxed body goes rigid. “I don’t think we’ve captured the right one.” Oh, God. That voice. Deep and seductive. The bed dips. Blake’s tall frame hovers over me as he hides behind my lens, continuing to click away. I’m utterly embarrassed, extremely pissed off, and turned on all at the same damn time. I don’t want him taking photos of me. I don’t want him anywhere near me. And yet I don’t move. I don’t blink. I don’t swallow. The only thing moving is the rise and fall of my aching chest. “One more,” Blake says, his voice so damn dark and sexy that my core flutters along with my heart. I’m going to choke my friends for this. I take that back; they’re not my friends anymore. I’ll be a lonely lady devoted to her job, and I’ll buy a dog. Dogs are loyal. They don’t pull you tight then give you slack. They don’t push you headfirst into the deep end when you can’t swim. And they definitely don’t trick you into having your husband taking pictures of you on a bed. Especially when you’re wearing something he loved and your emotions are still trying to overcome the fact he isn’t dead. “Give me that and get the hell out,” I scream. I push myself up and reach for my camera. He tosses it on the bed, pushes me down, and straddles me. His hard erection is pressing against my stomach. I shiver. My body is betraying me. I’m absolutely ashamed that my head is screaming in glory for him to bend down and kiss me, to feel his lips move against mine while our tongues explore. Taste and consume, devour each other. Blake is as real as the stifling air in here. My husband is on top me, daring me to make a move. His lips part, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. I’ve wanted that tongue on me everywhere. I’ve dreamed of it, craved it so many times that I’ve woken up to touch myself. “Blake, please,” I beg, not even knowing what I’m begging for. My breasts ache. I clench my knotted stomach to stop the desire coursing through me. It’s on a mad dash to settle in my core. There’s so much chaos inside of me that I’m having a hard time breathing while my heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest. His fingers lace through mine. Slowly, he lifts them beside my head. He doesn’t say a word. He simply stares at my face. My mouth, my neck, my chest, and our entwined hands. This is too much, too real. I’m frightened out of my head right now.

“Fuck. I knew this would look stunning on you. God. You’re exquisite,” he growls, circles his hips, his stiff, hard cock tempting me. My nerves are frayed and worn. Anger surfaces. I’m so pissed off at the world that I could kill this man for real. “How dare you do this, Blake? Is this some kind of joke to you? Get the hell off me,” I yell. This is a nightmare. A complete disaster. This is not a game. This is my heart everyone is playing with, and they keep on slicing me open. “This is far from a joke, Adriana. It’s been over a week. One fucking week since Hunter told you, and you haven’t done a thing to try and talk to me. You don’t want to look at the file, then you give me no other choice but to make you listen to me.” Our gazes stay locked. Now that my mind is clear of the initial shock of seeing him again, I become lost in a deep blue set of eyes that are trying to tell me a sad story. One of suffering and years of mental draining. I’m not sure what he sees reflecting back at him from me. I shouldn’t care one way or the other, except I do. I’ve loved this man long enough that even when I thought he was dead, I couldn’t let him go. I’m surrendering with every soulshattering breath I take. “I’m terrified,” I whimper on a fatigued exhale. I’m so tired of flopping back and forth from wanting to get in my car and find him to curling up in a ball and sinking farther into myself. I’m scared of what I’ll find out if I read all those papers. One minute I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with a criminal, and the next I’m angry because the part of me who loves him doesn’t believe he is one. I don’t know what direction I’m supposed to run to anymore. I see the struggle in his features before he exhales and drops his forehead to mine. “I am, too. I can’t go on like this, Adriana. I might have been alive all this time, but I’ve died a little more each day that I’ve spent without you. You have to let me explain. The decisions you make after you hear me out are up to you. I only hope you make the one that includes me in your life. Don’t be pissed off at Heidi and Daniel. Today was my idea. When I called Heidi to check on you, she told me you came back to work and you were trying to fake your way through this the same way you’ve been doing for years. We strummed up this idea for me. I want these pictures. They’re mine. You are mine. I convinced them to let me do it. We have to talk. I can’t be without you anymore.” A lot of words were spoken there. The only ones I’m hearing are ‘pictures,’ ‘mine,’ and ‘explain.’ His warm breath prickles my skin. I’ve missed the deep way he says my name. The destructive way it would rattle my common sense, flare an eruption in my body that hasn’t sparked since him. Since he last touched me. He lets go of my hands, and I draw them up to cover my face. The tears drip through the gaps between my fingers. I don’t know if I can bear for him to explain. “I’ll look at the file tonight.”

THIRTEEN

BLAKE

“You’ll look at it now,” I demand. I’m a cold-hearted idiot. Our lives begin here. Adriana isn’t going to have to make a choice about ending this. I heard her choice when she said she was terrified. I see it in the way her body reacts to me. Her choice is already made. She isn’t over me. She’s in complete and unreserved shock, is what she is. With a sidekick of anger. If this were anything other than making things right with her, I would turn her over and brighten her ass, fuck those emotions out of her. The thing is, this isn’t an argument. It’s reliving one of the worst parts of your life all over again. It’s telling a story that should have never happened in the first place. It’s wanting to shelter someone you love from hearing something you don’t want to tell them, something they assuredly don’t want to hear. I’ve kept everything about Alexis’s part in this hidden. I can’t tell her, not until I know she can handle it. Regardless of the fact that my mouth is watering to take those red lips of her with mine and my dick is raging out of control to rip that sexy little piece of lingerie off her and bury my face between her legs before I sink inside her warmth, neither one of us is getting off this bed until she understands why I did what I felt was right. It’s going to be a damn hard battle to keep my hands off her, though. It was hard enough when I stood off to the side and watched her walk into this room with that thing on. My cock leaped right along with my heart. I’ve dreamed of seeing her in this. The tops of her flawless, creamy-white breasts were daring me to take a peek, while her shoulders were bare, half of her ass was hanging out, and her legs were tempting my twitchy digits to run up them before I spread her wide. The second those two stepped out of this room, I shot right into action. I’ve snapped plenty of pictures with her camera before. I knew exactly what I was doing, could have kept on seeing her close up for hours through the viewfinder. Seeing her like this, though, underneath me, breathless and tempting, has me losing the last bit of patience I have left. Everything I’ve ever wanted was seductively taunting me in this bed. I captured her perfectly, and I’ll bet anything she was thinking of me the entire time. I’ve never been a jealous man when it came to Adriana. Didn’t have to because I knew who her heart belonged to. I was the one men were jealous of. Nonetheless, no man should see my wife dressed like this, regardless of who he is. Daniel was out of here in less than a second. This exquisite beauty below me with her face flushed, her skin coated in a sheen

sweat is for my eyes only, and it’s going to take all the willpower I have to keep my fucking mouth shut about wanting to fuck her. If I have my way, though, I’ll be inside of her, reminding her of who we are. Husband and wife. Friends. Lovers. “I didn’t bring it with me,” she exclaims. Her eyes are full of more unshed tears. It rips my chest wide open to see her in so much emotional pain. I’m done waiting for her to float slowly to me. She needs to swim a hell of a lot faster. I’m yanking her in, and she’s going to listen to every goddamn word I have to say, whether she wants to or not. I don’t care if we sit here all fucking night. I don’t care if she beats me bloody raw. I’m setting her ass straight. Then, and only then, can she go home. She won’t be going home alone for long, though. I’ve waited what feels like a lifetime to be able to stare into her mesmerizing eyes, and even she isn’t going to take my right to do so away from me anymore. “Trust me. I have plenty of copies. I’ve stared at those papers enough that I could tell you word for word what they say.” She swallows. Her eyes are holding me prisoner. So beautiful, so taunting. So damn strong she’s swimming in it. No wonder she’s floating slowly. She’s hiding behind every harsh emotion known to man. My wife needs someone to point her toward the shore. She can make it the rest of the way by herself. I watch those blues swirl with regret, guilt, remorse, anger, and the terror she says she feels. They all need to go. Every damn one of them. I internally groan when I climb off her, grab her camera, and set it on the floor. I reach down to where I left what I needed while she was changing. I know what the three of us did was wrong. Don’t give a fuck about it. The only thing I care about is now scrambling up the bed and climbing under the covers, hiding what she shouldn’t be from me. She may think she’s trying to cover her body from me, but that’s not what she’s doing. She’s hiding all those emotions along with it. I turn around and stretch my legs out in front of me. Her back is up against the headboard. Her eyes are focused on something else. I hold my anger in. It’s not directed at her. It’s this entire situation. The darkness is hovering without the light. The bad without the good. And it fucking pisses me off that she won’t look at me out of her own free will. “Heidi mentioned you saw the photo of you.” I’m not about to be cautious with her. Hunter was right when he reminded me how strong she is. She may not think she can handle this, but I know she can. Once this all sinks in, she’ll realize just how strong she always has been. How the tragedies, the deaths of everyone she loved, were not her fault. She isn’t to blame for a single one of them. Life is. She’s been dealt the shittiest hand any person has been dealt. Life is what brought her to me. Life is what took her away. And life is what’s going to bring us back together. If I believe in anything at all, it has to be that. Without Adriana in my life, I have absolutely nothing. And nothing doesn’t belong in either one of our lives anymore. “Yes,” she whispers. Her hands are running back and forth across the silky edge of the comforter as if she’s trying to pull strength from it. “Do you need your clutch?” I ask. Her eyes go wide, her brows furrowing in confusion.

“No. I need you to keep going, so I can strangle Heidi for having a big mouth.” There’s my sassy girl. Her feistiness turns me on. It always has. I reach down and grab her clutch off the floor and hand it to her anyway. I may be an asshole for sneaking around behind her back to get this done, but when Heidi handed this to me, told me Adriana gave it to Alexis and she carries it with her wherever she goes, I placed it alongside the bed. If it’s her crutch for strength, a way to keep her close to her sister, then she can hold on to it for now. My goal isn’t to take anything away from her that reminds her of Alexis. It’s to make me be the aid she needs to get her through the tough times. For her to lean on me. Fuck, I hope she can forgive both her sister and me. “Thank you.” She takes it from my hand, places it in her lap, and runs her fingers back and forth. God, I hurt for her. Every part of me does. “Do you remember the murder I witnessed?” She rolls her eyes. “How could I not. That case took a big part of you away from me. Especially the last few weeks.” It took me away from you the minute it happened. We just didn’t know it yet. “No, seeing that murder tormented me. It trapped me inside of my own head. The case itself, it didn’t have anything to do with it. I wanted that man punished for what he did. I wanted him dead, Adriana. The strange thing is, he wanted the same thing for you and every other person I loved.” I toss several photos along with the last threatening letter her way. Like I told her, I have this memorized right down to the sloppy handwriting that’s been tested to prove it is indeed Stephen O’Reilly’s. There isn’t a thing in here I haven’t missed to prove these men were guilty. The problem is, they’ve gotten away with it. She bites her bottom lip. My dick twitches. I’m a bastard for being turned on while watching her pick those photos up, her fingers shaking, her shoulders slumping forward in disbelief, away from the headboard. I can’t seem to help it. Despite the sorrow she’s bathing in, she’s exquisite. I want to touch her so badly. Feel her underneath me and love the pain right out of her. Her breath catches when she reads the threats. I want to tell her there’s more, so much more in this file, but I don’t say a word. I’m not going to, not until she does. I’ll answer every question she has. I’ll do whatever she wants me to do, except lie. Unless she asks me the one question she’s not ready to hear the answer to. Lies are what brought us to the moment when this is all going to have to sink into her bones before she’s going to let me all the way in. Her body may have reacted to my touch earlier. Her mind, her heart, those are what I need back more than I need anything else from her. “Why couldn’t you have gone to the police with this?” she presses. Her words tell me she’s clearly oblivious with the vulnerability of how cruel some people in society are. She hasn’t a clue that her sister forced my hand, and that’s the hardest part to all of this. “People like them, the ones who threatened me, they have power, Adriana. Tainted power. Not everyone is as honest as you are. Not everyone can be trusted either. There are corrupted policemen. Dishonest judges. They don’t care if they ruin people’s lives. All they care about is money. I had no clue who these people had working for them. Greed is a random bitch. Our culture is full of toxic people who thrive on it. It’s all about money. They wanted me gone so I couldn’t testify. I pulled every card I could think of not to run.

The only one I had left in the deck was the winning card to keep all of you safe. I went to Hunter to help me disappear. I saw that son of a bitch kill a woman in cold blood. I knew what he was capable of. They had my hands tied, and they knew it, but I wasn’t going to drag you into this, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away with the chance they would follow through with what they said. So, we staged my death. A dead man can’t talk. He can’t go back on his word.” Her eyes flutter shut. My words are piercing her soul. “Wow. This… I never would have thought about this. You had me fooled the entire time. Is there any chance you can go back?” she pushes, whispering softly. “That’s where you’re wrong. My love for you is as real as I am. It’s as real as you. My love for you is why I did this. I’m sorry, Adriana. You will never understand how much this hurts me, knowing that I put you through hell. I can’t go back, not unless you want to see me in prison, or worse yet, take a chance on me being killed for real this time. Not sure if I’d go back even if I could.” I shrug. The animosity dripping off her is fading. One small chunk at a time. There’re plenty of pieces I’m going to have to break off her. I’ll get through them all until I’ve reached the foundation that made me fall in love with this woman in the first place. Her heart. So beautiful and forgiving. “Did you know these men were dangerous when you went to the meeting that night?” “Yes.” “Then why would you go see them? You came home and scared me to death. Told me you witnessed a murder, tried to kill the man over it. Why in the hell would you go see them in the first place, Blake? And how did they find out it was you? I don’t understand.” Her beautiful face falls along with my heart. She’s only going to get half of the truth to that last question. “I went because of my duty as a lawyer, and I had visions of the vastness of winning a case like that. Which in turn would have given me the opportunity to provide for you the way I wanted to. So, I guess you could say greed made me accept. The person who told them it was me must have done it out of greed, too.” Fuck, please leave it at that. Don’t ask me any more questions about who. Her struggling eyes glance down to the papers once again, searching for only she knows what. When they snag mine again, I have to steady myself by placing my hands on the bed in order to plead with her to stay, beg her to forgive me for not being the man she thought I was back then. “So you’re just like them. Greedy. Is that what I’m hearing? I’ve lived through hell for years over money? I buried my husband over it. Are you a criminal now, too?.” For fuck’s sake. Now she’s reading into what I’m saying. She knows me better than this. I said I would answer her questions. I’m attacking this money situation, so we never have to speak of it again. We need to move the fuck on. “I’m not like them at all. If I were, I wouldn’t have turned him in. Damn it, Adriana, I told you I should have never gone to see them. I did; there isn’t a thing I do can do change it. They offered me a million-dollar bonus. All I could see was the life we could start to build with that money. I could have given you everything. We could have been debt free. I made a mistake. One that cost me you.” I told her all this the night it happened, all but the

losing her part. “You made a mistake? You have got to be kidding me right now. This wasn’t a mistake. It was my life. Our life. I grieved for you. I needed my husband for more things than you know. I needed you, and you left me. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? The nights I cried myself to sleep. The days it took everything I had inside of me to not give up. Was our entire marriage a game to you? This says your name is Blake Mitchell now. Every legal document known to man is in here. Does this make me a fraud, too? I paid off every bill we had with your life insurance money. Am I still in danger? Are you? Because I’m struggling really hard here not to kill you myself.” A smile wants to tug at my mouth because her feisty attitude is returning with a damn vengeance. I want her angry; she has every right to be. What I don’t want, what I won’t tolerate coming out her mouth, a mouth I want to kiss so fucking bad my tongue hurts, is for her to doubt what we had was real. It still is. I can feel it simmering in the air despite her anger. “No, we’re not in danger. The only way we would be is if anyone notified the police that I’m alive. I can’t go back. I won’t risk it. Those threats are real, Adriana. I believe that with all that I am; they wouldn’t stop just because I sat in jail. They would find a way to get to me, and the only thing that would hurt me is if they did something to you. That’s how the evil in this world is wired. You listen to me. You’re not a fraud; I’m glad you paid everything off. What you are is my wife. My wife, Adriana. I know you needed me, and I’ll take my dying breath with regret still inside my veins that I wasn’t there for you when Alexis and your grandmother died. We can’t go back; we have to look ahead. Work our way past this.” I raise my voice to match hers. She’s spitting emotions. They’re swarming all around her like bees to a disturbance in their hive. When the first tear falls from her eyes, I move tentatively, slowly toward her. I can’t take the chance she’ll pull away from me. Not when we’re finally talking. We’ve barely scratched the surface. The road of heartache ahead of us is so fucking long, but I can’t talk anymore. I thought I could keep my hands off her. I can’t do it. I’ve missed her so much I physically ache everywhere from it. “We could have disappeared together. You didn’t have to do this to us, Blake. I’m trying to understand. I really am.” This hurts more than I thought it would. You think your mind is prepared for this when it’s anything but. It’s torture watching her try and condense all this. It’s a sharp whip that snaps across my bleeding heart. Scars. So many of them they will never fade. “I know you are. That’s more than I deserve, sweetheart.” Her eyes stab me with a sharp edge of pain. Shit, I fucked up by calling her that. Damn it. “You don’t get to call me that. This”—she waves one hand at the papers scattered in front of her while shoving the picture of herself in my face—“might be a legitimate reason, but it doesn’t mean that you and I are going to go back to being husband and wife. It’s been years, Blake. We don’t know each other anymore. I don’t know where you’ve been. What you’ve been doing, or who.” I tamp down that she just pissed me off with those last few words. She has every right to think the way she does. This bulletproof shield she’s wearing is going to be harder to break than I thought. Doesn’t matter. I’m plowing through that hard surface right now. Make a big Goddamn dent.

“You’re full of shit if you believe that. I’m the same man you fell in love with and married, who held you in my arms for years. I’m the same man who has never stopped dreaming of spending my life with you, and I’m the same man who not once has wanted another woman since the day I met you. I’ve been faithful to you this entire time, Adriana. In every sense of the word.” My hands are gripping the sides of her face before I realize what I’m doing. With pleading eyes, I’m asking her to tell me the same thing. I need to know for sure that I’m the only man who has had the honor of being inside of her. Hearing her moans, her screams, and her cries for more. She doesn’t answer me with words. The truth lies behind those eyes I have never gotten out of my head. She hasn’t allowed another man to touch her. I’m thankful. So fucking thankful that I could drop to my knees and weep. All we do is stare at each other, inhaling one another’s breaths. It’s more than I could ask for in a moment so divided, full of tension, confusion, and a thing called cruelty that wants to take her away from me. I’m not going to let it happen. I will fight every fucking emotional wall until they’re as dead and buried as they should be. Adriana sits frozen at first. When my thumbs brush her tears away, she relaxes. Her face curls against the firm grip of my hands. I swallow, lean in, and inhale her shaky little breaths. My lips press against hers. One tiny taste of her, and I feel more alive than I have in a long time. Unable to contain myself anymore, I slide one hand to the back of her neck, keep my eyes open, and swipe my tongue over her bottom lip. Her soft whimpers of anticipation are my undoing. “Open up, Adriana,” I whisper against those plump lips of hers. So fucking tasty, so red, so ripe that I could suck on them for days. When she does, I kiss her. Devour her as the world around us fades away. I consume what belongs to me. Everything inside of me goes silent. The only thing I hear is her moans. The only thing I feel is her tongue exploring mine. New and fresh yet familiar. She tastes like my beautiful Adriana. I will never get enough of her.

FOURTEEN

ADRIANA

The truth doesn’t set a person free, as they say. What it does do is encase you behind prison walls that you build yourself. I can’t think about anything Blake has told me, none of it, when he’s touching me, kissing me, and slowly dragging me down the bed until I’m under him and his large body is settled between my now open legs. I should stop this. It’s wrong in many ways. Ways I’m not going to dwell on for fear that what I’m feeling will all slip away. And it will, as soon as my desperate mind realizes I’m not hallucinating and that Blake is actually with me, his hard cock pressing against my center through his jeans. I’m completely captivated. Enthralled and in tune with every ghostly touch of his across my face. His breath, his hands, his mouth, his tongue. They all steal my sense of reasoning. The way we both keep our eyes open as we capture a taste of something we’ve craved is one of the most intimate acts I’ve shared with this man. I see so much. So much that still needs to be said. I see love, desire, and promises that he wants to say but knows if he does, it will break the spell. I see a man struggling with whether he should handle me softly or hard, or if he should simply back away. Most of all, I see him fighting back his mental agony as he, too, can’t believe he’s kissing me. I close my eyes when the intensity of his gaze becomes too much for me. All I want to do is forget about everything that is my life and let him take me to a place I desperately need to go. I’ve kept so much inside of me that I’m ready to unhinge. I need to stop bottling it up and storing my life’s demons. After what he told me tonight, I’m ready to twist the cap off and let them free my soul. Before I do that, though, I need to know everything. And everything will come down the road somewhere. Right now, I’m idling in neutral with him. He removes his mouth from mine, his hand fisting my hair, angling my head off to the side in order for him to kiss across my jaw, along my cheek, and inhale my scent before nipping my lobe. I melt in his hands. Slip away with him just for a little while. What we’re doing is wrong, but desperation trumps the damage this is going to cause to my heart. I’m wrapped up so tight that I can’t do anything but feel. I’m tired of giving and not taking, and I don’t care anymore if this is something I’ll regret doing. I’ve lived without his touch, without him, and I’m taking what is rightfully mine. Even if it costs me the last bit of my sanity I have left.

“Tell me you want this. Tell me I can make love to my wife.” God, it kills me that he has to ask. It settles in my heart and digs into my flesh, trying to bring me back to reality. My thoughts of hating Blake were dissolved the minute he told me what had happened, and in its place is an all new emotion toward the men who did this to us. One I have yet to describe. Right now, only love, a blessing, a miracle need to be in this bed with him and me. “Yes, you can have me,” I say, my body so caught up in this web of lies that its need takes over my mind. I need to feel and stop thinking. My hands skirt across the muscles in his back, down his spine until I’m gripping his ass in my hands, causing his body to shudder. I moan, squirm, and soar. Feel desire and shake. “Fuck. I don’t know where to start with you, Adriana. Every part of you is so Goddamn beautiful. I’ve missed everything about you. Every damn thing,” he groans while his lips are slowly moving down my neck, his stubble scratching my overheated flesh. Blake has always had a way with controlling my body until we both rasp out our pleasure. I expect him to take what he has always said he owned, but he doesn’t. He’s tormenting me slowly. A tease filled with a wish come true. “Oh, Blake,” I call out when his tongue dips between my heaving breasts. They ache as a result of his painstakingly measured torture. My nipples physically hurt in eager anticipation. He draws his body up, straddling my legs. His hands begin moving down my ribs, feathering across my stomach and spanning across both of my breasts. Palming them until I’m squirming and needy. One hand stays in place, tweaking my nipple, while the other slowly unties the strings. I whimper when he drops both hands. I fly when he lifts up slightly, grabs the material, and manages to strip it off me faster than I put it on. I’m completely naked. The lights are shining down to reveal every part of me to him. Blake has always looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, but the look he’s giving me now as he leans all the way back as his heated gaze starts at my feet and travels upwards, not missing one inch of my exposed body, causes a burning itch of pure, hungry desire to heat inside of me. I’m burning up. Slowly. “I want you.” His voice cracks. I can’t speak. His appetite for me is too much. The air hissing around us is enough to make me gulp. The man is an explorer when it comes to sex, and the apex in the middle of my thighs is quivering and waiting. I’m so turned on by his gaze that if he doesn’t touch me soon, I’ll be doing it myself. My heart races in anticipation when he runs his hands up my calves, his concentrating gaze exploring. “I’m going to fuck you until you’re screaming, Adriana. It’s been too long for both of us. You deserve gentle, but that’s not what you’re going to get.” Eagerness takes my nervousness and tosses it onto the floor beside us. Regret flies out the window and sits in the cold snow. I don’t care about the repercussions anymore. I’ll deal with all of those as well as everything else later. “It’s been a while since I’ve screamed,” I tell him, my voice loud and crazed with

want. “Is that so?” he replies. His remark drips with what he knows he can do to me. I lie there in pure and utter awe as he pulls his shirt over his head, unsnaps his jeans, and stands to shed them off. He never takes his eyes off me when he bends to remove his socks, his large cock begging for me. I can’t wait to taste him. First things first, though. I need to have him inside of me. I gasp when I see his bruises. “Your side. Is that from the accident?” I sit up; my trembling fingers run down the black and blue marks all down the left side of his body. Tenderly. “They are. But I’m fine,” he replies. “I’m sorry this happened to you.” “Not as sorry as I am. I missed another anniversary.” His voice shakes when he speaks. It breaks my heart, squeezes all the crushing air out of my lungs, and leaves me even more at his mercy. I don’t say anything else. I simply let him feel through my touch that I’m sorry he missed it, too. I can’t take my eyes from the impeccable masculine sample of perfection standing beside me inspecting me with hooded eyes while he’s stroking his cock with his right hand covered in ink. His chest is rising and falling. I pay no attention to the tattoos. If I do, I’ll fall apart. I pay attention to his body. How much bigger he is, his rigid muscles. His thick cock that’s massively hard. Good Lord, this man is impressive. Toned edges, perfect, strong legs, and intense eyes that beg to see through me. The sight of him has my thighs shaking in anticipation of what he’s about to do to me. I want him. “You didn’t answer my question.” He lifts a brow, slows his movements, and places a knee on the bed. His raging cock is mere inches from my face. I lick my lips. “Yes.” I expel the air in my lungs on a murmured little sigh. The faster his hands stroke, the further I spread my legs. I can smell my want. I can taste his need. And I can feel his warm breath skim up my legs when he climbs back on the bed until it reaches the spot where I want him the most. When a finger slips through my folds, my body flies off the bed, and I’m submerged in Blake’s groan when a long expert digit slips inside of me, starts curling, sliding, and building pressure through my slick core. His head dips, his teeth nibble my clit, and I’m screaming his name like never before. He laps, he licks, and I’m flying so high that I never want to come down. My hands tug his hair. My eyes roll around in my head. I pinch them closed, pressing my pussy into his face, unabashedly wicked, begging for more. I’m lost to everything that waits for me when this is over. I don’t care anymore because my husband is about to make love to me. Hard and fast. Always the man who could never get his fill. “Open your eyes, Adriana.” I’m helpless. Nervous and scared out of my mind this will send me spiraling out of control. Blake crawls up my body. I swear I can see his heart beating through his chest. He swallows. His Adam’s apple is bobbing. As soon as his hardness settles between my legs,

I instantly hate that he has this power over me. One little taste, and he has swallowed me whole. God help me when this is over because right now, I can’t seem to help myself. I don’t even want to try. There may be years separating us, but one thing that hasn’t changed about Blake is the way he’s looking at me now. He isn’t going to be gentle with me. He’s going to fuck me with the ferocity of a starving man. He can. I’m just as hungry as he is. “Give me all you got,” he entices, lines himself up, and slams into me hard. I scream from the intrusion. His hardness rips through me exquisitely painfully. “Oh, my hell,” I yell. My body is doused with a heat that penetrates through my entire being. “Fuck. Are you okay?” He rests his forehead on mine, breathing me in, his blues so dark and rich they nearly pull me in. “I’m good, but if you don’t fuck me as hard as you can, I won’t be,” I pant. “That I definitely can do. Just give me a second to let my mind catch up. I’ve never felt anything as good as you. Never tasted anything so sweet. Never wanted to be inside of my wife so damn bad. I’m not going to last long.” He grabs my neck, kisses me feverishly, and fucks my body hard. Hands roaming down to my ass, slanting me upward. My hips thrust; his hips plunge. They drive, take control, and slam into me over and over. Sweat forms between my breasts, dripping down my stomach and mixing with his. “Christ, I love you. I’ll never get enough of this. I’ve missed this connection so much.” Blazes conquer my insides. His stamina is better than he thinks. It has me surrendering like it always did. I squeeze him tight. He fucks me into a chaotic frenzy. Hips are bashing against hips. My legs are wrapping around his ass, silently begging him to fuck me harder. Gasps are turning to cries. Tears are dripping down my face. And when I come, I scream his name. When his warmth spills inside of me, it’s with a deep, shaky breath, then a hoarse whisper of my name in my ear. The stillness of my heart pulls me back to reality. I don’t want to regret this. It’s already drowning me, no matter how hard I try. “Don’t regret this, please,” his low voice rumbles as he pulls out of me and rolls over. I lie there as unforgiving, unforgettable tears fall from my eyes. “I don’t,” I lie. I try to stand. He’s not allowing me to pull away as he pulls me down and tucks me into his side, cocooning me in the same way he used to. “We aren’t starting over with a lie.” No, we just ended on one. I don’t say that, though. In fact, I say nothing at all. My eyes linger on his penetrating stare. We study each other for so long that the air around us shifts. There’s no more sexual tension. Instead, there’s a buildup of questions. Him wanting them from me. Me wanting them answered. I honestly don’t regret this. It may have happened too soon, but it was bound to happen. I don’t think I can let it happen again, though, not until we talk more of this out. There’s going to come a time when I’m going to have to tell him about the baby. Now isn’t that time. His presence is too much for me right now. I shift my body to his chest. He’s covered in tattoos he had to have while we were in college. My hand slinks out, circles the small, shaped heart with my initials in it right above his heart. These tattoos are a work of art. Much like the man who wears them. I’ve avoided looking at his full-sleeved

arms. One is the life story of memories from his childhood. It’s full of dedications to his grandparents. The other arm he had halfway done before he disappeared. Tulips, law books, a dedication to us. I can’t look at that arm. Not yet. “What have you been doing all this time?” I ask curiously. My nerves are scattered all over the place. I’m drained. I want to go home and think. To lay into my friends for lying to me, or thank them. I’m not sure yet. Being in his arms is more intimate to me than what we just did, and I don’t care that wanting to bolt is all I want to do. In my mind, I deserve it. When he places his hand over mine, the words he says barely register because all I see, all I feel as he takes my hand in his, is his wedding ring. It’s a reminder of the horrible things that he had to do. “I’ve been working in the fields of a vineyard. The winery next door to where you live is mine. Hunter and I own it.” I shoot up, crawl away from him, and stand at the side of the bed. Papers are crinkling underneath my toes. I turn away from him and practically sprint to the back room, where I grab my clothes and put everything on in a stressed-out hurry. I’m not sure why this is bothering me. Maybe it’s the anger-fueled adrenaline running through my veins of the possibility that he may have been in and out of the winery next door for months, seeing me and not telling me he was alive. Maybe it’s the fury I’m battling inside of me from sleeping with him. Understanding now why he went to Hunter and not me. But seeing that ring, hearing why he left me, letting him take over my body is enough for me for one day. All of it has everything slipping out of my bottle all at once. “Goddamn it. No. Whatever you’re thinking isn’t true.” He grabs me by the arms. I press my hands on his bare chest and push him away from me. My mind is a mixed-up mess, and my body is reacting to the same uncertainty of emotions running through me. I’m paralyzed. My heartbeat is on the rise so quickly it feels like I’m going to combust at any moment. I have to get out of here. That’s the only thing I can think of doing. I need to be away from him. “What I’m thinking is true, Blake. You planned your death, and when you did, you took my heart, my soul, and my spirit with you. Look at this.” I dart to the bed, grab my clutch off the floor, and flip it open. I watch his face as he pales then swings his saddened eyes back to mine when he notices what’s in my hand. “That’s right. This is the box my engagement ring was in. Our rings are in here. Right along with the part of me that died with you. I carry them with me wherever I go, along with this.” I pull his watch out and hold the clutch up in my other hand. “Of course, you don’t know why I do. Let me school you why you don’t. You don’t know me. You have no idea what goes on in my head. How I’ve dealt with losing you and Alexis the way I did. I gave this to her. I’ve blamed myself instead of the two of you. I took my rings off shortly after Alexis died. I thought maybe, finally I might be able to let the both of you go. I never did. Seems fitting that with you I never knew I didn’t have to.” My gut clenches. I have to go before I say something I can’t take back. I storm past him, but I don’t get very far without him grabbing me around the waist, twirling me around to face him. “Give those to me.” I do my best to ignore the way his bottom lip trembles and his palm shakes as he holds it out to me. I do my best to scurry away from the smoldering

look he gives me when I drop the dark blue box and the watch in his hand. “This is not my wedding ring. This is.” He holds up his hand right in front of my face. “The only time it has come off my finger was when I was in the hospital. I love you, Adriana. I know you’re hurting. I know you don’t understand any of this. You may never understand. But I’m a man who has been given a second chance to make things right with the woman he loves, and I’m not letting you walk away from me. That back there was the beginning of what you and I share. Spend some time with me, please? Share the holidays with me. Christmas Eve at my house.” I huff out a breath to steady myself instead of lunging for him when he shoves the box into his pocket as if it were his and places the watch on his wrist. And his question. I should have known it was coming with the way his face fell when he talked about our anniversary. “Okay,” I answer before thinking it through. The entire drive back to my house, I keep asking myself what in the hell am I doing. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Heidi asks before I close the door to the kitchen. She looks worse than I do, which says a hell of a lot. I’ve been driving around the town trying to clear my head before I came home. I don’t want to argue with her and Daniel. “Where do you think I’ve been?” I raise a brow, pull off my boots, and toss my clutch on the counter. It’s nearly eleven. They have to be at the airport to fly home in five hours. I was hoping she’d be asleep but knew she wouldn’t be. On my drive, I decided it was time to read every single bit of information in the file to get a better understanding of what drove all of us to this point. I’ll never truly forgive him, move on, or make a decision on what to do if I don’t. And as cruel as it sounds, I don’t want her hovering over me when I do. This is one time where I want to be alone. “Goddamn it, Heidi. I told you this is no longer any of our business.” Daniel helps me out of my coat, hangs it in my closet, and gives me a tight smile. Heidi says nothing. But the frown on her face disappears, and in its place is a wicked smile. She knows that I slept with Blake. I narrow my eyes at her. Let them do the talking. Little bitch set me up. I look away from her when her brows shoot up and her hands go to her waist. Traitor. “We meddled when we shouldn’t have. I’m not going to say I’m sorry for it, Adriana. For years, I’ve watched you hide away, and just as long, I’ve consoled my wife over it. I wasn’t about to stand back and do it anymore. I’m not going to let Heidi take the shit you want to dish out when this was a decision we made together.” “I’m not angry. I’m confused,” I voice, move through the kitchen, and collapse on the couch. “No, you look thoroughly fucked. Literally, I might add.” Daniel rolls his eyes, while I lean forward to pick up what holds the last several years of Blake’s life. I ignore Heidi’s comment to address Daniel, so he can leave the two of us alone. She’s nearly peeing herself to get information out of me. I know she is. Well, she’s not getting much. “Just like you, I’m not going to apologize for the way I am. I can’t help it. We all grieve differently, Daniel. However, I’m sorry for worrying both of you. I couldn’t have

made it through these years without you two. I need you to let me take it from here. Let me make my own decisions. Whether they’re right or wrong, they are mine to make.” Daniel sits down on one side of me, Heidi on the other. I sigh because even though I’ve been pushed until I’ve felt I had nowhere else to go, these two have truthfully gone overboard to do whatever they could to keep me sane. “It’s your decision, and you acknowledging that is all I need to hear. I’m going to bed. Our invitation still stands if you want to come for Christmas.” “I’ve made plans already.” Well, kind of. I’m hoping things work out so that Blake and I can spend Christmas Day together, too. I don’t need to elaborate with him like I do my other friend, who’s biting her tongue next to me. Her thin patience is flying all around us. Flapping little witchy wings and twirling her magic wand. Pretty soon, her ass is going to catch on fire from all the sparks. “Good. I’ll talk to you soon, then.” He kisses my cheek, gives Heidi a stern look she ignores, and heads up the stairs. “Are you really okay?” Oh, Heidi. I’m not okay. Far from it. “I will be.” I run my hands over the file. My eyes start watering up. Please don’t ask me to tell you what happened. “Did you know the corset came from him?” I lean my head back on the couch. She mirrors me by doing the same. My heart explodes with the love I have for her. Several hours ago, I was angry with my two best friends. So many things ran through my mind while I drove around. I came to the conclusion I can only do one thing at a time. The first thing is to make sure Heidi knows how much she means to me. “No. I thought it might have, since at one time it was in your dresser underneath your wedding picture. Then, when I went to look for it, I couldn’t find it. I was pissed at you, thinking you tossed it. My anger went away when I found it. Your underwear drawer is a mess, by the way.” Only she can make me laugh through the sorrowful tears running down my face. I couldn’t bear to look at either one of them anymore. I put the picture in a box with everything else I kept of him. The corset went in my closet and our rings in the box. I cried for hours that day. Lost in memories. Next to losing him, taking those rings off was the hardest thing I’ve done. He was proud that he had picked them out himself. I wouldn’t have cared either way because they came from him. All I wanted was to be his wife. To call him mine and to hear him say the same. “I slept with him,” I blurt. “I know.” She sighs, grabs my hand, and doesn’t pry. Which surprises me. “Thank you for being my friend. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. You’ve carried me on your shoulders. You’ve held my hand, accepted me for who I am. But this I need to do on my own, Heidi. I need to find myself, and I need to do it with him.” Our heads lean toward one another’s. “You would have made it on your own. Strength, remember? My best friend is the one who taught me how to be strong. I didn’t carry her on my shoulders. She carried herself. So, don’t be ditching on my best friend anymore. I’m tired of hearing it. The next time you

do, I’m knocking you on your ass,” she claims. “I love you.” “I know. I love you more,” I argue. “Impossible.” We talk until it’s time for them to go. It’s a good thing Jenny is working at the store all day because I don’t sleep. I sit in the same spot for hours. All I do is cry. With that cry, I earn the strength I require to open the file.

FIFTEEN

BLAKE

“I’ll do whatever it takes, even if it means I have to relive every damn painful second.” I tip back my beer then glance briefly at Mason before turning my attention back to deciding what kind of wine to serve tonight. Adriana shocked the fuck out of me when she sent me a text asking if she could come over. I wanted to give her the space she needed before seeing her again. I’m freaking the fuck out wondering what in the hell she wants. In the past, I never had to sit around and wait for her to tell me something. This shit has got to end today. I’m fucking sick of waiting. I ran around all day yesterday trying to find purple tulips while carrying two rings in my pocket. The one I had made for her and the one I gave her years ago. The fake one was flushed down the goddamn toilet the minute I returned home from seeing her the other night. But, of course, no one had the flowers. In fact, the majority of the florists didn’t have any shit in purple. I went to try one more place today only to strike out with finding fresh flowers. I ended up getting her something else. I’m hoping she’ll see it as a fresh start. I then came back home to find Mason sitting at my kitchen table waiting to talk. After we left the studio, I spent the entire night tossing and turning in my bed after helping Adriana clean up with barely a word spoken between us before she asked for my address and what time she should be here on Christmas Eve. I watched her drive away praying that she didn’t regret what happened, and now I can’t even fucking decide on a bottle of damn wine all because I have no idea what she’s thinking. She could be on her way here to tell me she regrets being with me, or she could have pieced shit together. Fuck, I hate this worrying shit about as much as I hate having to wait for her to get here. Goddamn people should all rot in hell for making me choose to leave her. “How is she holding up?” Mason asks out of the blue. I squat down, my eyes skimming the bottles for a white Pinot Noir. When I find it, I stand and turn my attention back to him. “Not good. But I’ll get her back to the woman she once was.” I tip my beer, finish it off, and place the wine on the counter. My cock begins to stir in my jeans, while my mind is thinking about the other night. Fucking hell, she felt incredible. Warm and soft in my arms. Her hands on my chest. Apart from the naked finger that should be adorned with her wedding rings, it was perfect. She was right where she was supposed to be. Now that I’ve had her again, there is no way in hell I’m going without her. She can fight me all she

wants, but I won’t let go of her again. Call me a prick, but with Heidi and Daniel gone until well after the New Year, I’m determined more than ever to spend as much time with Adriana as I can. Preferably in bed. She claims we don’t know each other anymore. Well, I’m about to prove her wrong. Right along with reliving all the shit we’ve both been through, I’m going to take all the good from our past and make it blend right into our future. It’s not going to be as simple as her hearing the truth for what it is for her to be able to put the past behind her and move on. Because when it all sinks in, she’s going to realize how complicated it all is. “Did you find out how much her friend Jenny knows?” I ask, hating that another person will be walking around knowing my secret. I open the fridge and pull out another beer along with the salmon I’m grilling. Adriana used to love the way I spiced it up, mixed it with vegetables, wrapped it in foil, and grilled it. As I said, I’ll do whatever it takes; that includes freezing my ass off standing at the barbeque. “She promised not to say a word when I talked to her. All we can do is go on how much she says she cares about Adriana and pray she doesn’t tell anyone.” Right. To be honest, that’s the least of my worries. If the woman cares at all about Adriana like I think she does, she’ll keep her mouth shut. That woman had mother written all over her. She’s good. The doorbell rings, and I pause with my beer halfway to my mouth. “Let me get that for you, since I’m being kicked out and all. I’ll see you after I return from my vacation.” Mason smirks as he leaves the room and…shit. I’m so used to coming home from work to the dark, always eating alone or hanging out by myself or with Hunter and Mason, that it took me hours to clean this house to meet her approval. Everything about this is all kinds of fucked. I’m still standing in the middle of my kitchen when she walks in, her eyes scanning the entire place to get a feel for how I’ve lived. It’s bland, dark, and lonely as hell, but seeing her in my home is nothing short of a Goddamn miracle. I see the work I’ve done to this place through her eyes. The way she studies the Lshaped kitchen with more counter space than any one person could ever need. The dark cherry cabinets, black appliances, and the white walls. The walk-in pantry and a small wooden table for four in the corner. The entire bottom half of my home is a wide-open atmosphere. “I’m in love,” she whispers. So am I. It sure as fuck isn’t with this dreary house. It’s with the woman standing here with her glossy red hair flowing down her back, skin-tight leggings, boots up to her knees, and an off-the-shoulder loose-fitting shirt. Damn. “I knew you’d love this room. It doesn’t get used as much as it should. I hope we can remedy that while you’re here.” I slip my arm around her, trying to gauge her mood. My innuendo is more than doubled. If I can help it, I’ll fuck her on every fuckable surface of this house. “I need a taste,” I indicate when she doesn’t recoil. I pull her tightly to me and take. The tension between us is nearing explosive. I can feel my blood heating from the way she’s standing there in my arms, staring up at me. She tries to pull away. I’m not having it. I flank my hands on her ass, smash my lips to hers, and suck in her breath, her smell, and

then I fuck the hell out of her mouth. If I could, I would fuck her mouth all night. Taste her and devour all she is. “We need to stop,” she pants, pressing firmly against my chest the same way she did the other night. “I know.” My dick starts groaning in protest. It kills me to pull back, but she’s right. “Have a seat.” I pull out a chair, grab the wine, cork it open, and pour us both a glass. She fidgets with the stem before taking a sip then placing it down, and shoots me a curious glance. “So, this wine. It’s from Huntsville Winery. It’s good, Blake.” “Yes. It used to be Hunter’s winery. I own half of it now. We expanded a few years ago.” I internally smile knowing she must have finally read everything. “I think it’s wonderful what you’ve done. Given what you had to go through and all. I read the whole file. I spent yesterday trying to put myself in your shoes. I don’t know what I would have done if I were you. I do know I wouldn’t have wanted to go on if anything were to happen to anyone if I hadn’t taken those threats to heart. I’ve never stopped loving you; that I’m positive about. I just… We need to take this slow. I have to put all the pieces together, Blake.” My heart expands. Thank Christ. However, slow will not be an option. “You love me.” Bastard move. I know it; she does, too. I need to hear her say it again. Everything else she mentioned can wait. I place my glass on the table, drop to my knees, and spin her chair around. My hands automatically go to her thighs. Mixed emotions of pure and open lust, blended with love, longing, and a road to forgiveness stare back at me. Blues so deeply mesmerizing they swoop down and capture me. I’m throbbing on the inside to tell her everything, to stay right here on my knees until the last piece is in place. Not a thing matters but right here, right now. That sensation of me saving her from the suffering that’s clearly inscribed on her features has me fighting with all I have not to pull her into my lap. Explain it all. But how can I do that when she’s openly showing me she’s hurting in ways I don’t understand? Her losses are destroying her. “Yes, I love you. I always have. I’m not going to pack my bags and move in, but I want my husband to come back to me.” Jesus, fuck. Thank you. She doesn’t have to pack a damn thing. It will be me packing, and soon. “I will never stop loving you. Years ago, I knew I made the biggest mistake of my life by leaving you behind. I had to, sweetheart. I hope you understand why. You’re incredibly strong, driven, and compassionate, Adriana. Don’t doubt yourself. Let me make you dinner. Show you around. We can talk later if you want.” Her lips tremble. It’s written clear as day that she’s given up on hope. I’m the cause of it all. Yet this is the start I’ve been praying for. I stand, kiss the top of her head, and grab both of our glasses. “I want you to see something.” I nod toward the hallway that leads to the back of the house. “My God. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this. It’s peaceful.” Right now it is; it won’t come springtime. I stand in the doorway of what I use more like my living room than a four-season porch and admire just how enticingly stunning she is. Her hair glows from the striking hues of the last remnants of the sun. Scorching and fiery locks have my fingers strumming against my glass with the need to touch them.

“I stand here and look at this view every morning. In a few months, all those ice- and snow-covered vines will be ready for pruning. The vines are fairly tolerant during the winter. Extremely cold weather can be harsh on some of them. We’ve been pretty fortunate so far.” I move behind her without touching her, placing her glass in her hand. The heat from her body elicits my cock to scream in agony. She wants to move slowly. I want to jump into the future. But this isn’t about what I want or need. It’s about her. Always has been, always will be. “I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen quite so much white in my life; all this snow is deceptive in a way. You know how cold it is, and yet the beauty of it pulls you in. I hated the snow, the holidays, after I thought I lost you. The only time I went out was to work or when Heidi would drag me out. I rarely went to my grandmother’s. She came to me. All I could think about was that the color should resemble purity, innocence, and light. Yet to me it meant darkness. But seeing this and knowing you’re alive, it changes my way of thinking somewhat. It makes me hope, Blake, and I haven’t had that feeling in a long time.” Her admission strangles the fuck out of me. I swallow the hard lump of truth as she takes a deep breath and holds it in before slowly turning her telling eyes on me. She looks so damn lost. So confused and yet so totally bound to grasp hold of the branch of hope I’m handing to her. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let it out and let me in. A little bit at a time if you need to. I’m so damn sorry I wasn’t there for you.” She releases her breath. Puts on the fake smile I’ve seen many times before when she tried to hide behind her pain. There’s so much of it inside of her that I may never get her to see the light. Hell, I hadn’t seen it myself until the night I saw her in the window. She was her old self that night. We enter into an intense stare, both of us working through a range of emotions. I can’t have her thinking of the bad ones right now. They will hit us both the minute we lay our heads on our pillows. Adriana’s eyes stay glued to mine as I say, “I sat in my car and watched you decorate a mannequin a few weeks ago. The minute I saw your face, I nearly lost it. You’re fucking beautiful, sweetheart. Brave and full of life. You did more than take my breath away; you stole it. And this hair… Christ, Adriana, I’ve missed it nearly as much as I’ve missed your heart. It’s thick, wild, and untamed. You can’t possibly begin to know the things I’ve drummed up about this hair.” I reach up and run my hands through her locks. Heated blues dive further into the shocking, raw desire of the woman who can push every wicked thought of mine into pure sexual bliss. My mouth dries. I’m frightened out of my damn mind over her not seeing who I see. This incredible human who I’ve had the pleasure of calling mine. She’s mine, meant to belong to me. I’m moving in a direction my head is telling me not to go. It’s dangerous, deliciously dirty. “Oh, God. We got carried away. I was into it until it felt like someone was staring at me. Not just a passerby. It was you. I felt you. Did you enjoy the show?” she asks shyly, swiping her tongue across her bottom lip. Goddamn, I want that tongue licking straight up my hard shaft. The veins in my cock pull tight. “Every inch of me did. You stole more than my breath away. You ensnared my fucking soul. I felt like you were dancing for me all over again.” My words are feasting on her

flesh. I can tell by the way her pale skin on her neck turns red; it’s slowly ascending and blending with her hair. It’s a necessity for one of us to break this current we’re sinking in before we do something incredibly stupid like submerge. It has to be me. She’ll never come up if I allow that to happen. “Let me grab dinner.” I back away, adjust myself, and make my way back to the kitchen, grabbing what I need. She cocks her hip and tilts her head when she sees what’s in my hand. “Salmon? I haven’t had that in a long time.” Yeah, me either. Not since the last time with you. I slide open the door, fire up the grill, close the lid, and cook the same last dinner the two of us shared before I left. “DO YOU MISS BEING A LAWYER?” she enquires when she shoves her empty plate away before she stands and moves back to the same spot in front of the window. Her mind becomes lost out in the darkened night. We ate in silence, watching the light snow fall after I froze my ass off grilling. It was worth it to watch her eat, listening to her moans and having her by my side. And now, I can feel her world slipping from underneath her again. She’s ready to break. “I did at first. Not anymore. This is my life now. There’s nothing I can do to change it. Not sure if I would want to. This fulfills me, Adriana. There’s only one thing that I’ve missed, and she’s here with me now.” Shit, this was not how I wanted tonight to go. She came to me to talk, and I don’t want to push her too far. Life has done a complete one-eighty on me. Tears start running down her pale skin one after the other. My lungs constrict. I’m casting a new rope her way, one that will bound us tightly together. She hasn’t grabbed it yet, but she will after she lets go of the old, ratted one from the past. Maybe, just maybe, what I said is what she needed to hear. “Let go, sweetheart,” I whisper. My arms are strong and steady. I’m ready to catch her. I can see her thoughts accelerating when she frowns. Her mouth opens, her head shakes back and forth, and her sensors fill with a raging war of terrifying contradiction. For the first time since I’ve known this woman, I can’t read her. I don’t have a damn clue what she’s thinking. I’m afraid I’m losing her all over again to her own struggling battle. Son of a bitch. Her body starts to shake. She places her hands on the window. I can see her wanting to crumble. Afraid she’ll fall, I dash around the coffee table, pull her into my arms, and slide us down to the floor, adjusting her on my lap until I’m cradling her head up against my chest. Her frail body is rocking with her earth-shattering sobs. She’s breaking apart, and me storming back into her life the way I have is one of the reasons. I’m going to hold on tight to the vibes I felt the other night when I saw her. She needs this part of grieving. Someone to listen to her without judging. Someone who wasn’t there to take care of her when it was needed. A strong, steady hand that says ‘Here I am, and I swear to all that’s holy I’m not leaving ever again.’

I can feel her absence sinking into my skin as she wraps her arms around me and cries. Her grief, guilt, and confusion are eating its way through her right in the palm of my hands. A mere second ago, I thought I had lost her to the troubles in her head, but when she speaks through her sobs, I’m thrown as my mind tries to figure out what to say. “I tried to help her. I did everything I could to make Alexis see that there was more to her life, that she was stronger than those damn drugs, but they eventually took over. They made her weak. I needed my sister to love herself, to love me more than them. She didn’t, Blake. I miss her so much I can barely breathe at times. There were days I don’t even recall what I did. Where I went or what I was even doing, and now my grandmother is gone, too. She was the only other person who loved Alexis as much as I did. She was my listening ear, my shoulder to cry on. I’m afraid I’ll fail her in life. Then there’s you. You left me, and now you’re sneaking up on me out of nowhere. My shoulders aren’t big enough to take any more. I can’t do this.” For God’s sake. She’s lost everyone. This I knew, but to hear it said out loud stirs up something indescribable inside of me. There is a forceful brutality to life. A cost in our pain that lives deep in our bones; when the day comes for it to set the swirling currents battling inside of you free, our spirits lift. Our pain loses its control, and we can go on living. This has to be a fact in Adriana’s case. She has been through enough already. I know I’m adding to it. I’m a selfish man. “Adriana, the way you feel has to be natural. I can’t help you with that. What I can do is be your friend. Hold you like this and listen. You may not see it now. However, I do. This strong woman who has lived in hell needs to keep on living. They would want you to. But you have to want it, too, Adriana. Don’t convince yourself to give up.” Fuck. I have no idea if what I’m saying is right, if it’s helpful in any way or damaging her further. I knew she was suffering, but being blindsided like this is doing its best to fracture me. “I think my grandmother knew she was dying. I didn’t get to say good-bye. I didn’t get to thank her for taking care of me. For doing everything she could to help me with Alexis. I didn’t get a chance to tell either one of them how much I loved them. And I didn’t with you either. That’s the worst part of it all.” Shit. “They knew. You know they did. You’re grieving the loss of them. They both loved you as much as you did them.” I’m not sure about her sister, but I know her grandmother did. The woman was a saint. “I know they did. But what about you? You claim you love me, and yet you made me believe you died. That’s the hardest thing for me to understand.” Fuck. My mind races with rising and falling perplexity. She’s caught me off guard. I know what I need to say, but she’s too fragile to hear it. Goddamn it. “I do love you. I’ll tell you that every day for the rest of our lives,” I answer quickly. My brain is full of lead. The words that should be said are pounding against my skull so hard that they’re falling down one by one and halting at the tip of my tongue. “Then why didn’t you bring me with you?” Double fuck. “I don’t know.” I do, but please don’t call me out on it. Not now. “Yes, you do. Earlier you said we could talk. If you can’t be honest with me, then you

haven’t really come back at all.” She’s right. Every knife-piercing word is the truth. “Oh, Adriana. You have no idea how many times I wanted to come back to you, to have you with me. To not have left in the first place.” My beautiful wife lifts her head from my chest and looks at me. Her swollen eyes blaze with raw rage and excruciating pain. Dear Lord, stop me, because I desperately want to kiss her. To make her shut up. Silence falls on my ears. Her shaking body is slowly settling back to normal. Please don’t pull away. We can stay this way forever, but only if you grace me with that incredible smile of yours. “Then tell me why. I deserve the truth. I spent years loving you, Blake. I gave you everything I had to give. I want to know what I did for you to throw what I thought was true love away.” And there’s the smart girl who tore her way through my soul. God, how I’ve missed her. For a woman who was breaking apart a few minutes ago, she sure is pulling a strong one on me. I internally gripe when she climbs off my lap and settles herself up against the window next to me. Her long legs are stretching out and grazing against mine. Her hair is flattened down on one side. She’s Goddamn beautiful. “Are you sure you want to hear it?” I ask. If we’re going to have this talk right here on the floor, then I suppose there isn’t a better place to start. We may as well sweep some of the dirt and grime away. Toss it out. Leaving the biggest crumb hidden. Because if I have a say—and I do—we’ll be starting over. She’ll come back to me, and I’ll make her pain go away. A distant memory. My intentions will be front and center in her mind by the time I’m done. I don’t give her time to answer me. I dig my heels in. “I did throw our love away, Adriana. I knew it the minute I walked away from you. It was because I love you that I sacrificed. What I didn’t do was stop loving you. I left you behind, planned my death all because I was too weak to just walk away. I left you behind because you were stronger than me; bringing you with me would have made you weak. You’re so strong that you took your strength and put it all in helping your sister when all she did was take from you. I sat by and watched her drain the life right out of you. And yet you continued on. The love you had for her never failed. You tried, gave, and you broke in half. I was not going to be that half that you someday deserted because I took you away from her.” She winces as if I’ve struck her with my fist. The fact remains that me professing this only adds another emotion on top of her tortuous pile. The weight that has been lifted off me by saying those words weighs her down now. This will be a pre-test for her to realize how strong she really is. Because one of these days, I’ll have to drop the bomb. “I… I guess this is one of those times when we say love wasn’t enough. I needed you, and you needed me. We left each other.” “No,” I snap, push up onto my haunches, and lean toward her. I cradle her face in my shaking hands, more out of wits than a minute ago. “You never left me, sweetheart. You merely drifted in the direction your heart needed to go. Your sister.” I pause. I’m used to having my words calculated to the tee in my head. Ready to attack on a drop of a lie. My words need to be contrite, a wrong that needs to be right. “I remember the time when she came into the store to work for you. On our anniversary. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. You burst apart that day, Adriana. I couldn’t take seeing you self-destruct. I had

watched you bleed out for years. I couldn’t do it anymore. She was stealing you from yourself. I had to do what I needed to protect all of you. Guilt has eaten away at me this entire time. There isn’t a damn thing we can do about it now. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I wish I could take it all back when we both know I can’t. What I can do is say I’m sorry. Beg for you to forgive me and make you understand that other people’s actions are never anyone else’s fault. Love should have been enough. Believe me when I say that.” I could stay here and continue to cast blame on myself. Tell her she wouldn’t be hurting as much if I hadn’t done what I did. But it would be a lie. She would have seen Alexis hit the dead-end road she had been wobbling on regardless. Her grandmother would have still passed away. But we wouldn’t be on this floor. I wouldn’t be staring into eyes that are focusing on me. I wouldn’t be able to make her the woman she was born to be. She would have ended up hating me, and I couldn’t have borne it. Hate is such a powerful word. It destroys. But love… That word has an endless meaning. Our love would have been destroyed along with her. As selfish as all of that may be, I’m not going to live in regret anymore, and neither is she. I’m going to do everything in my power to make her come back to me. We both deserve to live.

SIXTEEN

ADRIANA

When you bring up the tragedies in your life that you’ve kept hidden for so long while you scramble and claw your way through a dark, lonely tunnel in search of hope, pretending to everyone around you that your life is fine, what do you do? How much can you be pushed and pulled before you break? The people you love know that you’re lying, they know you’re faking, and they know everything in your world isn’t fine. What you end up doing is breaking. Your brain speaks to your heart, and you lose control, and words that have been waiting to be exhaled fall out of your mouth in order for you to breathe fresh air. To feel alive. To see yourself for who you are through someone else’s eyes. Heidi started my climb to reality when she told me she could see me; and Blake has reached out for me to take hold of his hand. To help me heal. He broke me down. Listened. Confessed. I’ll admit to myself I feel lighter. I still have miles to go, but at least I’ve taken a small, wobbly step. I heard every word he said to me. Until my head couldn’t take anymore and my heart slowed down. Its steady beat clashing with the conviction in my brain. All these years, I’ve been withdrawn in one way or another, and in a matter of days, Blake has confiscated my lack of worth and started to turn me into the woman I once was. I feel like I’m breathing deeply for the first time in years. I swallow the debris in my throat. The pain in my chest slowly breaks away, and if I didn’t recognize the truth bleeding from the man on his knees in front of me, I would’ve been forced to live the rest of my life in a web of lies and betrayal cast on me by him if he had taken me with him when he left. Even though I may never agree with his reasoning, I see it for what it is. He sacrificed his love for me so I could take care of Alexis. So I could be with my grandmother. He chose to disappear the way he did for me. I knew he loved me. Everyone saw it. The women who used to come into my grandmother’s store were jealous at the way he would stand and watch me work. Those long, lean legs of his crossed at the ankles as I posed the women, then shoved him out when it was time for them to take off their robes to shoot. He doted on me. Worshiped me in the bedroom, pushed me to desirable limits I never knew existed. God, I love him so much it scares me. However, like he said, there isn’t a thing we can do about the past, so why dwell on it? Why worry? I wish I could admit to that being true when it comes to those hideous men from his past. I can’t. Not yet anyway. There’s something big he’s hiding from me that is connected to those men. I have to figure it out.

Opening up to him like this is by far one of the most difficult conversations I’ve had. I told him what Heidi has been trying to get out of me for years. This is what marriage should be. One person’s pain bleeding into the other. The same way as happiness does, love, agony, hurt, and anger. I should be embarrassed that he watched me come out of my comfort zone for a few minutes when he saw me dancing, too. The last time I danced like that was for him. It was a hard day for me. The first time I sat behind my grandmother’s desk since she died. I had to pay bills. When Daniel showed up to help Heidi and me, he demanded we were going to have a good time. So, he cranked on some music. I got into the groove, painted my lady in style. “How do you deal with the fear of those men finding you?” I have to get all of my own troubles out in the open, or I will never be able to move on with this man. “I’ll always live with wondering if they’ll find out, Adriana. You will, too. It’s inevitable. The thing is, I’ve had years to adjust, years to tell myself that this is what life had planned for me and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to change it. What I did, was focus on what I have. I’ve put my heart and soul into this place. I’ve taken something small and turned it into what it is today. I had to trust in Hunter and his sons. I had to believe in Mason. I had to stay behind the scenes. Learn to live without letting the fear control me. It hasn’t been easy, and it won’t ever be. You read about the vineyard, Mason, and the winery. I told you I own part of it, and I do. So does he. But my face, my name, they don’t appear anywhere. This life isn’t easy. In fact, it’s lonely as hell. But I’ve chosen not to let fear rule my life. If I do, it will kill me. The fear I’ve lived with over those men finding me holds nothing over what I’ve lived with by losing you.” He leans in closely; both of his hands palm my cheeks, stroking them tenderly with rough, calloused hands. Blake’s eyes stay glued to mine; his warm, comforting hands remain on my skin. I flush, feeling my body heat up everywhere. “I know this is hard for you; it’s hard for me to see you this way. The suffering you’re going through will ease. You have to trust me, sweetheart. Trust that the people who helped me get here know what they’re doing. Trust is what belongs here. Not fear.” “My life hasn’t been any better than yours. Both of our lives have remained one constant fight after another. We’ve been apart, and yet our hearts have remained glued together. I get it now, the choices we all have to make. I love you. I’m so, so sorry,” I tell him. It was a choice on his part to leave me, one I’m willing to overcome. However, the love I have for him I cannot. It overrides my hurt, fury, fear, and weariness. I love him. I won’t lose him again. We both deserve to be happy. The easy part is telling him I love him; the hardest part is going to be forgetting what he did. Love isn’t a battle. There are no winning individuals. In love, there’s only a winning team. We’ve both lost once, and that is all it has taken for us to see we were cheated, threatened in some sick, twisted way by men who are still out there. Men who think my husband is dead. “You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s all on me.” What he did, yes, it’s on him. Everything else is on me. I should have opened up more to him, to everyone. “We’re together now, right? Let’s just enjoy the holiday season. Do you remember our first kiss, first date, the first time we made love?” Subtle, admired words glide across my face. My

willpower to take this slow is deteriorating. One intake of his breath against my skin, and his intoxication is instant. His lips brush mine. Not innocently but hot, sweltering, passionate, and demanding like the way he took control the very first time we kissed. I want to pull away before I lose myself any more than I already have. At this moment, my senses are being seduced, my body is bending, and fear evaporates in the air. I can no longer think about anything. “Adriana,” he whispers slowly, prolonging each letter as if to savor them. I smile, my heart beating steadily at the sound of his voice. I clasp my hands on either side of his face. “I want to fuck you until it’s physically impossible to fuck anymore. I want these lips wrapped around my cock, and I want to eat you until we fuck.” Oh, dear God. Here comes his mouth. He isn’t relenting when it comes to what he wants at all. Pleasing, dirty sexual memories begin skirting around in my head. I can’t control my way of thinking about sex any more than I can control the fear of something happening. I’m with Blake. I have presents—and one I still want to make for him—and this man who used to love to watch me strip and dance while he stroked his cock until he came all over himself or begged me to finish him off with my mouth when I’d strip down to reveal a piece of lingerie I had to have has bled his soul to me. I’ve done the same. “I remember everything. Especially our fourth date.” I ignore his sexual comment and enter into a stare down with him. Both of us lost to the memory of the night that tied us together. Tonight was our fourth date; me and this gorgeous man who I can’t seem to get out of my thoughts. It took a hell of a lot of persistence on his end to get me to go out with him. An entire month of seeing him around campus. His flirtatious eyes were always peeking out from under his baseball cap. I wanted this relentless man who swept me off my feet. A law student covered in ink. A man who had no worries, no fears, not a care in the world about what other people thought of him. I knew he had been with others before me. It didn’t matter. I could tell he cared; he wanted me for more than what I could give him. He wanted me for me. We had just gone out dancing and partying with friends; now I wanted to be alone with him. Not a damn soul to interrupt us. I desperately wanted to make this night memorable for both of us. Especially for the man who had clearly gotten under my skin. On our first date, we had walked all over the city, talking. I told him about my parents’ death. How close I was to my grandmother. How my sister lost sight of herself and turned to drugs. He told me about his mother abandoning him. How he was raised by his grandparents until both of them passed away. A father he never knew. A man named Hunter who took him in. It was wonderful and awful at the same time. I’d told him about my grandmother’s store and how I danced when I decorated the windows. All he kept talking about on our next two dates was seeing me in lingerie. Having pictures of me and watching me dance. My plan of seducing him started out as a spark; the fire began to smolder the minute I swiped my tongue across his bottom lip. His dirty words of what he wanted to do to me melted me in the palm of his hands in ten seconds. “Your smooth skin needs dirtying up,” he growled when he stripped me down to reveal the sexiest bra and panties set I had

brought to college with me. “Jesus H. Christ, Adriana. If I didn’t want to see all of this body, to taste you, to make this first time the best experience of your life, I would leave this on. You’re the best present I’ve been given in my life.” My heart soared. He reached down between my breasts, unclasped the black silk-and-lace bra, slid my panties down my legs, and pebbled my skin with flickering eyes that became the lock to my heart and I was holding on to the key. I may be a matted mess on the outside, but the inside feels the best she has since that night. It was the first time he said he loved me. The first night I knew my heart would always belong to him. Thanks to him and everything we shared, I can begin the process of healing.

SEVENTEEN

BLAKE

“You have to tell her,” Hunter voices his opinion harshly over the phone. “I know.” I’m trying to make my own diversion of the truth for what it is. Knowing things that will hurt her when she never gave up on Alexis. It’s going to be like flipping a coin, choosing one side or the other, all the while realizing as you stare at your opponent’s face that no matter what side you choose, you’re going to lose. “You didn’t see her the other night when she broke. Years of built-up hurt slipped out of her. I caught glimpses of my wife, Hunter. This could set her back forever when she finds out.” Just like I told her, though, we can’t start our new beginning on a lie. I only wish it weren’t the damn holidays. I honest to God don’t think I can tell her before Christmas. I continue with my frustrations in my head when neither one of us says anything. The quiet might be the crucial part I’ve been searching for in order for my brain to catch up. I have to talk about the part of my life I wish I could forget. But I’m skating around the real truth of what will hurt, bleed, and never heal. It’s hard enough for me to deal with it, and I’ve known it for years; for Adriana, it wouldn’t be the same, and the first aid to fix her is dead and uncaring. A ghostly memory I wish to fuck I could forget. Hell, I wish none it fucking happened. “It tore the hell out of me when she stood up to go home when all I wanted to do was comfort her, to get it all out in one night. Do you have any idea how fucked up it is to hear your wife tell you she has to go home to sleep, and that home isn’t the one the two of you share? I’ll tell you how it feels. It’s shards to your gut, to your heart, shards that splinter repeatedly.” When Adriana left the other night, I leaned against the door for the longest time hoping she would come back. I wanted to beg her to stay even if she only let me hold her. My burning heart dropped to the floor in a near charred-up state. When I glanced at my watch, the watch she’d held on to for all those years, it was well past midnight. I went straight to bed and stared at the ceiling with long-lost memories floating through my head. My reality blurring the lines of my past. There’s one thing I have to tell her, and there are other things I wish I could take to my actual death because it’s something I will never share with anyone but her. Not even Hunter. My uneasiness about having to share this with her at all eats away at my gut. Calling me back to how fucked up her sister was.

I had just pulled into my parking spot in the garage. Adriana was working late. I was exhausted from work. All I wanted was a beer, dinner, and my wife. It was our last weekend before Alexis was due to get out of rehab, again. Something I wasn’t looking forward to at all. It was against my better judgment to let Alexis stay with us in the first place. However, I couldn’t deny Adriana the right to try and help her. Alexis may have gotten her shit together when she went into rehab, but the woman came out with a hell of a lot of jealousy in her eyes. That’s why I kept my instincts trained on her when she was around. Kept every damn thing of value we owned locked away. Because those eyes of hers, they watched, her ears listened, and I didn’t trust her as far as I could spit. My eyes were wide open to the snake who would brush up against me when Adriana wasn’t looking or would walk around in her short sleep shorts and tight tank top when she wasn’t home. Alexis not only was addicted to drugs, but she was also obsessed with wrecking Adriana, and the one and only way she knew she could was to try and use me. So, regardless that she made my skin crawl, I kept my nose clean. Remained polite and oblivious to the way she acted. Ignored her taunts, turned her down when she asked for money, and did my best to make her see that whatever she was trying to do, it wasn’t going to work because I loved my wife and my wife loved her sister. She faked her way through her bullshit. Recycled Adriana over and over again. Wheeling into her good graces, promising she would do better all the while her conscious knew she was deceiving. She didn’t give a fuck if she extinguished the hope she had lied many times building. Had them believing she was well on her way to being normal when she was far from it, and then she’d disappear; Adriana, their grandmother, and I would be long forgotten. Couldn’t say I wasn’t thankful because I was. Couldn’t say it didn’t rip me in half when Adriana would worry because it did. Couldn’t say there were times I wished she never returned because that would be the biggest lie I’d told in my life. She had everyone right where she wanted them, and we all knew it. They say to love the addict and hate the addiction. I never knew the real Alexis other than the addict, never met the woman Adriana would tell me she missed. Found it hard to believe a woman like her ever existed. All I saw was the one who ripped a hole through her sister’s heart. Deceived her, used her. And to this day, I swear she hated her more than she loved her drugs. Alexis would soar high, while my wife burrowed further into hell every fucking time. I should have said something about how she begged me for money a few times. How she told me she would suck my dick and I could fuck her whenever I wanted. She vowed to never tell as long as I gave her money. I laughed in her face. Walked away every damn time when all I wanted to do was kill the bitch. I couldn’t tell Adriana what she was doing. I loved her too much. Plus, she never gave up hope. It was all she had left, and there was no way I was going to take that away from her. It didn’t mean shit to the fucked-up bitch that Adriana loved her more than she loved herself. That all she wanted was her sister to come back. I wasn’t going to hurt the woman I loved when the very person she was trying to save was out to hurt her more. She would have to make a choice and fuck that shit straight to hell; I would never play her against her

sister. Alexis could play her game with me all she wanted; I could take it if it meant protecting not only Adriana but their grandmother as well. That woman was a saint. Besides, I knew nothing would happen between us, no matter how hard she tried. “What the fuck are you doing in my bed?” I yelled, wishing like hell I had grabbed my sleep pants before I showered. I was standing in the middle of my bedroom with a towel wrapped around my waist glaring at a half-naked Alexis in my bed. Made me want to burn the bed. Fuck, her being here made me want to burn my entire house down. I couldn’t fucking stand the way this woman was looking at me. God, she had no shame. No respect. She was a lot smarter than she led people to believe. Fucking bitch. “Oh, so it’s your bed now. Not ours. As in, my sister and yours? Are there problems with the stiff little princess, Blake?” she probed as she ran her nasty fingers up the insides of her thighs. “Even if there were, which there aren’t, I would never touch you, Alexis. You’re my wife’s sister. Jesus Christ, woman, pull your shit together and have some self-respect. Now get up. What the hell are you doing out early, anyway? Never mind answering that. I don’t really care why; the fact that you’re even here makes me ill.” This woman could easily manipulate people to do whatever the fuck she wanted them to. I was tired of trying with her. I was over her the first day I met her. There are times when a person can push another too far. This woman had overridden her welcome in my eyes a long time ago. I felt sick, violated. God, I hated her. I really fucking did. If Adriana didn’t love her so much, I would wish the drugs she desperately craved would kill her instead of wishing that one day she would come out of rehab and be the sister she should be. “Not what you’re thinking. Good behavior. It’s only two days, Blake. Is she working?” she asked, swung her legs off the bed, and strutted my way. Her eyes were deprived and starving. I didn’t want to know what she was insinuating about good behavior. She was a crafty fucking witch. “Come on, Blake, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” My skin crawled from the sound of my name coming out of her mouth. It flaked off until there was nothing left. I needed her out of here before Adriana came home. She would never understand if she walked in on this. “You’re hopeless if you believe that shit spewing out of your mouth. I love her more than anything. She loves you. How in the hell can you stoop low like this? I don’t fucking get it. Are you high right now? Did you bring drugs into my home? If you did, you may as well leave now.” I knew it was ridiculous to try and reason with her whether she was fucked up or not. She was out to hurt. To drive people to the same misery she was in. Only, she never would. She was delusional, as fucked up sober as she was when being high. She was downright fucking crazy. A wild animal that should be locked away for good. There were times I felt sorry for her. No person should have to go through hell like this. Addiction had overtaken this woman, and I’d done my best to remember that, up until now. Not only did she come into my house as if she owned it, she came into my bedroom and climbed onto my bed. The one I held sacred with my wife, and that alone made me lose any sign of hope she would be cured. She didn’t fucking care. Christ, I hated myself for thinking this way. I honestly did. She’d driven me there, and I couldn’t help it; it was

the way I felt. Alexis used to be a pretty woman judging from the pictures I’d seen. She was stunning at our wedding. Adriana was not only happy about us getting married, she was thrilled that day to see her sister hadn’t ruined it for her. While me, I couldn’t have cared less if she even showed up. Sort of wished she wouldn’t have just so Adriana could see how hopeless she was. “Not sure where she is. I don’t keep tabs on her. It’s called trust, Alexis. Ever heard of it?” She rolled her eyes; I turned to back out of my room. She could stay here all she wanted. I’d much rather surprise Adriana, watch her dance while she worked. See her bite her bottom lip when she was deep in concentration. My dick started to get hard just thinking about that mouth. “Trust? I lost trust in people a long time ago. Especially my sister. She’s a spoiled little brat who has everything I wanted. She has a career, a business, our grandmother, and you. She did this to me. She’s the one who makes me crave because she took it all away from me. If you don’t give me money, I’ll tell her you’ve been coming onto me, and we’ll see who she trusts more.” Oh, fuck no. She did not just threaten me. “You fucking bitch.” I whipped around and jerked her arm, nearly loosening it from the socket. My towel fell to the floor. The grip I had on her didn’t faze her in the bit. “Well now, it sure doesn’t appear he has the trust you claim to have.” Her eyes drifted down to my dick. I bent for the towel at the same time she flung her free hand out to grab him. When she wrapped around him tightly, he instantly went flaccid. Her disgusting hand started squeezing hard. Vomit rose, my head spun, and all I could see were my hands around her scrawny little neck. I felt dirty. “Take your fucking hands off me, or so help me God, I’ll fucking kill you.” I jerked away from her and grabbed my suit pants from the floor while picturing Adriana walking in on this. I pulled up my pants and shoved my hands in my pockets to prevent me from following through with my threat. I wanted her out of my sight, out of my home, and out of our lives. “Get the hell out of here. Haven’t you done enough?” I seethed at this woman who was so messed up she was making another unsuccessful attempt to destroy her sister. Fuck, I’d never wanted to hit a woman until now. “You’re an asshole,” she sneered. The leech backed away with a slew of curse words flying out of her nasty mouth. “And you’re the whore who is killing her sister, your life, and everyone who cares about you. No one did this but you.” It was no use trying to reason with her. She had nothing but hate expelling out of those junked-up veins. “You wait. I’m going to find a way to get my revenge on her, and when I do, you’ll lose her the same way I’ve lost everything.” She raised her hand to hit me. I stopped it mid-air. I couldn’t believe she would do something like this to her own flesh and blood. Didn’t surprise me, though, seeing that she didn’t give a fuck about herself. It sickened me

to the point I wished she would disappear. Forever. “Last fucking warning. If I find out you opened your lying, fat mouth, I promise you’ll be back on the streets. You’ll be left with nothing. You should be thanking me right now for what we’re doing for you, or you’d be in the ground next to your parents. Get the fuck away from me and take my warning with you.” It didn’t matter that she was the one who stomped on the help we were offering her. I just overstepped my bounds with what I said. Guilt ate away at my tongue like acid. I should have never said that, not when Adriana claimed the loss of their parents was what started Alexis’s use of heavy drugs in the first place. Right then, I couldn’t find it in me to care if she snapped again. She had me so pissed off I could have choked her. That was the last time she attempted to coax money out of me. It was the first time she threatened me. The only time. And she meant every word of it. I just didn’t know she would go as far as she did. “I can’t say I know what either one of you are feeling, Blake. What I can say is, you’re a better man than you’re giving yourself credit for. That woman not only put Adriana through hell, but she did you, too. She put her sister and you in danger. Destroyed her in an unforgivable way, and despite what Alexis did, you still put your wife first when she didn’t. To me, to Adriana, who knows you better than anyone, that’s a sign of a better person. A bigger person. And no matter how much it hurts you or her, I would think that the love you two share is much larger than you think.” His words are filled with truth. They’re also filled unknowingly with the secret I can never tell him. I need to shove it behind me, bury it with her sister, or it will eat me until I expose myself. “Love is the root to all of this, Hunter. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love her more than anything.” My heart rests heavily in my chest. Why I feel like I’m the villain in all of this beats the fuck out of me. It has to be the love I have for her. She’s been hurt so much in her life that all she deserves is happiness. “It is. After all this time, I think you’re finally grasping what I told you a few days ago. Something brought her here. Something made her grandmother choose this place. It’s not up to you to figure out what that something is, Blake. It’s up to you to quit blaming yourself in the same way she needs to.”

EIGHTEEN

ADRIANA

“I have some presents for you, at my house. I thought maybe we could spend Christmas Eve at your place and Christmas Day at mine together,” I express loudly through the speaker in my phone, throwing us both off guard. I need to get this present finished for him, and it’s already late into the evening. I locked up after Jenny went home, and now I’m working in my darkroom. Processing, editing, and all the stuff I used to do by hand before technology completely took over. Excitement spreads across my face when I lift a picture and tilt my head to study it. I don’t recognize myself in any of these. “I’d like that,” he responds. I place the picture where it needs to go by the others, pull off my gloves, and lean against the counter. He either has something on his mind, or he’s hiding something from me. Either way, the short, clipped tone of Blake’s voice worries me. I should say ‘okay,’ hang up, and finish. Yet I don’t. In fact, I should do a lot of things when it comes to the man who is now known as Blake Mitchell. I should thank him for lifting up my spirits some, for pushing me to talk, and for being honest. I will. I just want to do it in person. “Is everything okay?” I enquire on a half-smile, knowing full well no one can see me. I suppose I want him to hear in my voice that I’m smiling. He’s making me happy, and I’m thinking of things I never thought would be possible. I’m also thinking clearly, wisely, and my opinions are crossing over each other, tying me up in a knot. No one knows our story but us, so why should I let my true feelings get in the way? Why should I not be happy with the man I love? I shouldn’t. The only people who know are the ones who care about us, and that should be all that matters. The irony isn’t lost on me that I’m not alone anymore. I don’t have to be again. I feel fortunate and disappointed at the same time. A big bag of different emotions than I’ve felt before. It’s unbelievable that he’s even here, and yet he is. I’m so happy he’s alive, but my heart is telling me I forgave him too soon for putting me through what he did. He broke my heart, and as much as it’s healing, it doesn’t take away the broken piece that may never heal. Our confessions, they were a start, I suppose. I don’t know. I wish my mind would shut off and let me forget. I wish we could start over without things hanging over our heads. Like the fact I have to tell him something that will hurt him. And there’s also me wanting to know who found out and gave away his name as the witness to that murder. He

knows who it is. I’m positive of it. That’s the missing piece I need to put the past to rest. I remember my grandmother telling me on my wedding day that there isn’t a better feeling in this world than being loved, and I feel it whenever I’m with Blake. I always have. Don’t we all search for that perfect reason for everything? We judge, we hurt, we bleed, and we love. I will always be overridden with emotions. I need to choose the ones that make me happy, not the ones that continue to drag me down. I need to listen to him, to me, and let go of the guilt from all angles. I need to let go of the hurt, too. I will always have his heart. He still has mine, and I don’t want it back. I want him. I want to make him happy, give him the chance to show me what I see in his eyes. He wants to give me the world in an entirely different way than we planned. I think about how far I’ve come since I found out he‘s alive. How he’s single-handedly beginning to collapse my barriers one by one. And it isn’t his unspoken dirty words he’s locking away that make me nervous. It’s the whole-hearted ones. The ones he said to me when I broke down that have me smiling. “Not unless you won’t unlock the door and let me in.” “What? Are you here?” I stutter, push away from the counter, and check my blotchy face in the mirror. Suddenly, I’m staring at an entirely different woman than I did a few minutes ago in the picture. I’m a freaking mess. Sweaty from being in this room, makeup streaked, my hair a wild, untamed mass piled on top of my head. I don’t care. All thoughts and misguidings of it being too soon are long gone because he’s here. “Hi.” Something comes over me when I push open the door to see him standing there with a bag slung over his shoulder. I grab him by the collar of his coat, pull him to me, and kiss him. My hands start weaving and fist in his hair, my tongue eating every part of his mouth I can find. I would keep going if it weren’t for the cold chill of the air hitting the exposed skin between my shirt and jeans. “God, I missed those,” he admits. “Me too.” I appreciate the fact neither one of us speaks any more. I just want to stand here with his arms wrapped around me for as long as I can. Finally, I pull back, run my hands across his scruff, and look suspiciously from his bag to him. “Don’t look at me that way, Adriana. It’s early on Christmas Eve. I’ll sleep on the couch if I have to, but I’m spending the holiday with my wife. In fact, if I didn’t have something I want you to see in the morning, we could go to your house tonight.” I smile so wide my face tingles. Yeah, he definitely has something planned. “What time is it?” “A few minutes after midnight,” he says casually. “Shit. I’ve been busting my ass for six hours. I’m not even halfway done. Did you want me to see the view?” The thought of being in his arms all night is all I can think of right now. That and how his body has me throbbing. “I do. Plus, I want to show you something else.” Now my throb is pounding. “Well, I definitely don’t want to say no to that.” He steps a little closer. My head tilts

up to look at him. God, my insides seem to turn to liquid; my eyes are seriously doing all the talking right now. I’m this close to violating his body right here in the open doorway. I simply don’t care. “I don’t want you to say no either. Please tell me you’re almost done working?” Disappointment hits his eyes when I pull away without answering. I step aside to allow him in, lock the door, and make my way to the back of the building. An idea for my own little surprise pops into my head. “I’m not really working. I’m making one of your presents, which means I have to say no. It also means you can’t stay here. I’ll never get it done if you do. I can take a break, though.” His expression is guarded when I turn around. He’s tense. Something is definitely bothering him. “Have a seat.” I run my hands over the smooth leather of my office chair. A Christmas gift from Heidi and Daniel. I doubt very much she’ll care what my first fond memory will be when I think of it. His eyes darken. I do my best to avoid them. I’ll lose my courage if I don’t. When his brows lift and his feet shuffle forward, I swallow. What a fool I was to think we didn’t know each other anymore. Blake is very familiar with what I’m doing. I surprised him many times with the same words, the same posture, and the same stare in his office. What I do know is that the sexual tension between the two of us is so strong it’s working triple overtime. There’s only one tiny little obstacle in our way. His damn zipper. I lower myself to the floor in front of him and run my hands up his thighs. His breath hitches, his eyes diverting to my mouth. “I missed everything about you, Blake. The way you made me feel. Protected, loved, and adored. The way you let me do the things I wanted. The way you trusted in me. Held me regardless if the reason behind you holding me wasn’t simply because you wanted to. But this, the way I made you lose control, was one of the things I missed about you the most.” “Fuck, Adriana.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back while I unzip him, his cock hard and ready. My mouth and lips are quenching in thirst for a taste. Blake’s hands leave the arms of the chair to cradle my face, his thumbs skimming down my cheeks and running across my lips, tugging the bottom one down. “No touching, remember?” I lift up to run my finger down his chest, feeling his heart hammer underneath my touch. “Oh, I remember, alright. You might want to as well,” he growls. “I do. Your paybacks are a pleasure. The same way this is.” I nip his jaw, his neck, while I continue sliding my hand down his shirt, my eyes following until I reach his throbbing, angry dick just waiting for my mouth. God, he’s beautiful. “Fuck,” he roars, eyes heated with a fire underneath that spurs me on. I grab hold of his fly, push it all the way open, and reach for the base of his thick erection, my eyes glued to his closed ones. I want him relaxed and fighting the urge with knuckle-white hands to touch me.

I smirk, swirling my tongue around his tip, and pull him into my mouth. “God, that feels good,” he groans as his eyes turn into a blazing inferno of isolated heat. I concentrate on pulling, licking, and snaking my tongue around the head of his glorious cock. The protruding veins down the length of him swollen in the palm of my hand. Twisting my mouth one way and then the other down the length of him repeatedly until he’s bucking up into my mouth. Eyes clenched shut, hands resisting to grab my head and fuck my mouth the way he wants. He’s swearing worse than I’ve ever heard him before. “Goddamn, that fucking mouth of yours. I’ve always loved that mouth. Fuck, it’s incredible. I’m going to blow down your throat, sweetheart. And you’re going to take it all.” I look up at him, his mouth still hanging open after his admission. I have him right where I wanted him. Peaceful and powerful. Relaxed and reduced to submitting to my mouth. Naughty and wicked. And I’ve missed this part of us more than anything. This raw, primal connection of two people in love who unleash on each other in all kinds of ways. “Jesus motherfucking Christ. Fuck.” He throws his head back, eyes rolling to the back of his head. I suck, lick, and struggle against not putting my hand between my legs. I need to come so badly. It’s not going to happen, not tonight. This night is about him, because knowing my husband, he’s going to pay me back in a sinfully delicious way. His tense body is surrendering to his orgasm. His arms go lax, his chest heaves, and when I suck him repeatedly from base to tip, he yells my name as he falls apart from the working of my mouth. BLAKE DIDN’T RELENT when I asked him to leave. He did, however, run up the street to a neighboring bar and get me something to eat. I ended up finishing at four this morning. Came home and crashed. And now, I’m trying to figure out why he even showed up at my shop in the first place. I’m not buying the fact of him only wanting to be with me on the holiday. I believe it’s true. I wish he were here with me now. There’s just something else besides missing me that has him all tensed up. Sure, what I did relaxed him, and he became serious and eager to see me again. Made me promise I would stay tonight, and we even talked about the two of us having the week off together. I told him how I wanted to see his winery, and he told me he wanted to ice skate on the lake. Whatever it is has me worried. I’ve seen the look of guilt written all over my own face for years. It was the same look he was wearing when he stood in my bedroom doorway the first time I saw him. He’s having a hard time telling me, in the same way I’m having difficulty telling him what I’m hiding. Our secrets might be different, but in the end, they’re going to hurt. Sting. And yet something tells me they will strengthen our bond even further. “I don’t know who it could be, Heidi. I doubt very much it’s anyone I know.” I rarely had time to make friends with work, a husband, and constantly chasing after Alexis. Thinking of her name is one of the reasons why I called Heidi. This time of the year depresses me. The onslaught of memories when we were kids waiting for our parents to wake up takes over every thought. Waiting for our grandma to come over; all the pictures…they roam around in my head. Her smile, her laughs. Our sharing. “Maybe he just wants to let it go. Move on. The man has been living with a shit ton of ghosts for a long time now. Don’t get frustrated. I’m sure whoever it is, the name won’t

mean a thing to you anyway. It’s not like you or he will look the person up.” She’s right, as always. Still, I want to know. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I basically want to come clean with everyone about everything. I owe it to Blake to tell him about the baby first. Then maybe I’ll tell Heidi and Daniel, or maybe we’ll keep it to ourselves. My two friends have dealt with enough sadness. Breathing in shades of guilt or shame hasn’t done a thing for any of us except interweave our insides all around. “I think you’re going to be okay, like really, really okay, if you get what I’m saying. Like you-better-sort-your-underwear-drawer kind of okay. Make room for his kind of okay. The man pursued you relentlessly until you finally went out with him. Shit, he had you seduced with his words and on your back before you actually fucked him.” She couldn’t be further from the truth about Blake; he’s going to want to move in together. I puddled every time at his feet, too. His dirty talk was a part of him I loved. The sweet side of him as well. I miss him sleeping next to me so badly I want nothing more than for him to be wrapped up around me. His hot breath up against my neck, his arms holding on to me tight. God, this is still unbelievable. I’m trying so hard to not think about those men and what could happen if they found out. “Ha. I already did.” I’m kidding, but if he wants to move in, then he can. There isn’t anything stopping us from being together. I’m not going to let these men take my happiness from me again. “I knew you would. I didn’t tell you this, because I didn’t want you hurting anymore, but you didn’t see his face when you ran out of the room. He stood there completely defeated. I watched as his heart followed behind you. What he did was a selfless act. I’m so happy for you. You have no idea how much.” If she’s as happy as I am, then I have a fairly certain idea I do know. “I know,” I mutter. “Do you? Not so sure. Maybe cut him a tiny bit of slack. Be nice. He could be hiding nothing, you know.” God, I want to smack her now. There is one hole to be plugged in this story that all my free time is spent wondering who. If it were a police officer or someone else in law enforcement, he would have told me. I’ve lain in bed staring at the ceiling trying to figure it out. I come up blank. My mind starts rolling back to a time when he was there for me. Holding my hand, stroking my hair, and telling me everything was going to work out. “I have to go, babe. Call me tomorrow.” “Me too. I need to get ready. I love you guys.” “Merry Christmas. Be naughty.” She has no idea how naughty I want to be, how badly I do want to give him slack. To believe he isn’t hiding anything from me anymore. I disconnect, grab the box containing the pictures of my family, and do what I’ve done every year since my parents passed away. I close my eyes and pull out the first picture my hands land on, then the memory forms. “We should open that one first.” She pointed to the big one wrapped in bright red foil

in the back. “I don’t know. That’s the only one with both of our names on it. We should open it last and together. What do you think it is?” I looked up at my pretty sister. She was a teenager now, had been for two years. Both our birthdays were in the summer, which meant I had a little over six months to go until I was thirteen. I couldn’t wait to be a teen. Mom and Dad said I could wear a little makeup. I wanted to wear it the same way as Alexis. She always looked so pretty. Grown up. It wouldn’t be long now until she’d go off to college and leave me. “I think it’s ice skates. Purple for you and pink for me.” Her eyes glistened from the twinkling of the lights. Her hair shined, and her lips parted on a heavy sigh. Alexis really wanted to learn how to skate. In fact, there were a lot of things she wanted to do but never tried. She always said I was the one with all the talent. Which was a lie. Where I excelled in dancing or moving gracefully around the rinks, she could move a mountain with her looks. The way she did her hair and makeup. Her skin was always flawless. Not a teenage pimple in sight. I had them all the time. Once a month with my dumb period, they became worse. “If it is, you better let me teach you.” I leaned against her shoulder; she always smelled like daisies. Fresh and clean. “Let’s go do your hair. We never know when Mom and Dad will get up. Plus, we have two more hours until Grandma gets here.” She stood, grabbed my hand, and yanked me up. We covered our mouths all the way up the stairs trying not to wake our parents up with our giggling. God, I was so blessed to have her as a sister. If I could have picked any girl out of a line of a million, I would have picked her. I just knew I would. “Have you kissed a boy yet?” she asked when she came out of her bathroom with her brush, comb, and all kinds of hair products. “No. Have you?” I sat up quickly. I knew that look. It was her sneaky look; it was her look that she gave when she was about to tell me something I couldn’t tell anyone. “Alexis. What did you do?” I said a little more angrily than I should have. Of course, she would do something the minute our parents let her stay out later. Every boy in school wanted to go out with her. She was just that pretty. “I didn’t let them go all the way, if that’s what you’re thinking. They touched my boobs.” She smirked as if letting them touch her was okay. “Wait? They? Alexis!” I scolded. She was only fifteen, and even though she was in high school and I was still in middle school, I heard stories. I knew what they called girls who messed around, and my sister not only messed around with one but two, or more. “It was Landon and Logan Joseph. You know I’ve been crushing on them for a long time. I had to choose.” She sat behind me, started brushing my hair as if what she told me was no big deal at all. It was a big deal. A very big deal. “Alexis, you can’t do that again. Those boys are seventeen years old. They could get in trouble, not to mention, they don’t care about you and they do drugs.” Even though she was gentle with my hair, I could tell she was angry by the way she huffed. I bet she rolled her eyes at me, too.

“Stop it. I’m not going to do anything with them. When I do, it will be with Logan. He’s a much better kisser, and they don’t do drugs. They smoke pot. I’m not going to smoke it, so don’t worry. I’d like to be in control of my thoughts. Boys are my thing. Not drugs. That’s a big difference.” No, it really wasn’t, not when it came to those boys. My shoulders sagged in defeat. The last thing I wanted to do was argue with my sister, let alone on Christmas morning, so I let it go while she braided my hair. All the while, my mind prayed she wasn’t lying, because if she was, this was a secret I might not be able to keep. It wasn’t until two days later when our mom had dropped us off at the park to skate that I caught my sister in the lie. It was the first one I remember her telling me. She never skated that day. In fact, she never did at all. She smoked pot with both Landon and Logan Joseph. She also did a lot more than that with them over the years. Both of them. Together. Almost a year and a half after her death, and the mourning still hasn’t run its course. The heaviness in my limbs doesn’t come close to the weight in my mind. Things Alexis used to say or do only cause a deepening of the pain. “She hated life, and I will never know why.”

NINETEEN

BLAKE

“This is incredible, Blake.” Yeah, it is. It took us less than a minute to drive around the back of my house and through the plowed-out path to where we are now after a light dinner. No more past to worry about for the next couple of days. No more holding back on lies. Her either. Once this holiday is over, we’re both telling each other what we’re hiding. This wasn’t part of my plan until she brought up staying at her house. For several reasons, I want her to stay here tonight. The view of this place is stunning in the morning; I insist she sees it. She’s also given her entire life to others, therefore, after the breakthrough we had the other night, there’s not a chance in hell I’ll have her give up the home her grandmother bought for her. She deserves that house. And three, I’m not sleeping anywhere where she isn’t again. Which means this might be the last night I stay here to appreciate the scenery myself. “You have no idea how incredible it’s about to get. We have several holidays to make up for, and by the time I’m finished with you tonight, we’ll have made up for only a handful. Unless you still want to take it slow. If not, then I’m going to be buried deep inside of you until morning.” I’m joking about the slow part. Her mouth on my cock last night told me all I needed to know. “I’ve changed my mind. I think we should take it very slowly. Slow and steady.” Those last words catch in the back of her throat. My cock stirs to life. “Too fucking bad. I’m switching gears from low to high in a matter of minutes.” For long, slow-drumming heartbeats, our eyes latch. They lock. I can almost hear them click into place. I want to control, and she knows it. “We’ll see about that. There’s an awful lot of wine down here. Are you going to get me drunk?” she taunts. “We’ll definitely see. And, no. You get drunk, and I’ll be pissed. We’re going to play a little game and make sure that genuine smile on your face remains there.” “You’re crazy. This place is old and charming. Do you come down here much?” She has questions when all I want to do is get her fucking naked. I watch her walk around the private wine cellar that’s never been used since I’ve been here. There hasn’t been a need to. Its pristine design is set in rich earth tones of gold, burgundy, and mahogany wood. The walls are covered with units similar to bookshelves lined up behind glass doors. Hundreds

of holes, each holding a chilled bottle of wine. The furniture catches her eye, and I can’t help but smirk knowing she loves that era. Vintage, aged, and worn, and I’m about to ruin the material in about five fucking minutes. Never in my life did I think I would get her down here to see this; now that I have, an idea pops into my mind. I’m about to give her a Christmas present she’ll never forget. “Not in this room. The cellars where we keep barrels of wine stored, and my office in the house is where I spend a lot of my time in the winter. This was here long before Hunter bought the place. The owner before him built it for his wife. She used to test the wine in here with her friends. Or so we’ve been told.” “A tasting room for his wife. That’s a beautiful story.” “It is. Though not near as beautiful as you.” I shuck off my coat, slip out of my boots, and feel my dick grow hard as her flushed gaze travels up the length of my body. Her eyes stop at the wrist on my left arm. She hasn’t said a word about my tattoos yet, but she’s about to get a full front view of them when she’s riding me. “Let me take your coat.” I extend my hand, take it from her, and toss it on the floor by mine. I drag my fingers up her arm under the material of her loose-fitted shirt until I hit her shoulder. I run a line across the top; her flesh breaks out in goose pimples, and her breathing becomes slightly erratic. Seduction. I can control her body, feast on her skin, and please her. I’m no longer a helpless, dreaming man. “I’m going to bring all kinds of pleasure to you, Adriana. Sit. Let me teach you all about my wine.” This time, I don’t worry about the type of wine I want. I open one of the coolers, reach inside, and grab one of the bottles, walk to the other side, and do the same. “My irresistible need for you drives me crazy, Adriana. I’ve missed the connection we had. The taste of your skin, the way you smile, your smell. You sleeping on the other side of the bed that’s been cold for too long now. I’ve missed your mind, your body, and the pure heart of giving you hold so close to you. All of you, sweetheart. I’ve missed you so much that the quiet nights were more than I could take at times. Your laugh echoed throughout my house. Your frustrated gaze when trying to decide what you wanted to wear for the day stared back at me when I looked at the empty side of a closet where your clothes should be hanging. The praising sigh out of your mouth when you figure it out. For years, that was all embedded in my skull, and I know, Christ, I know this scares the shit out of you, because it does me, too. I will never stop telling you I love you. What you told me, your fears and worries, is something I never want to hear again. Because that part of you I honestly don’t miss. It’s the raw pain I saw etched across your face that told me you blame yourself for Alexis’s death. I can’t take those memories away from you any more than I can convince you that you weren’t responsible. What I can do is start over with you, make you the happiest you’ve been in your life, and promise you I will never do anything to break that beautiful heart of yours. We’re done with the heavy stuff. Now, strip.” I set the bottles of wine down on the table and and catch my breath. “I need a minute to let all of what you said take root. That was beautiful and tragic at the same time, Blake,” she wheezes out. I stand here waiting for the tears to fall. There are

none. Everything inside of me screams for her to hurry up. When she leans forward to unzip those black boots, her shirt giving me a peek of what’s underneath, I groan. She stands and shimmies out of her leggings, her hips swaying, her eyes never straying from mine. She can continue to stare at me all she wants, but my eyes are roaming over the creamy-white skin of her legs. The silk-and-lace panties covering up my heaven. Her fingers go to her shirt; her stomach is exposed, then her breasts, and it’s all I can take when I lift my eyes to meet hers once again. She shakes that wild mane of hair. Her mouth parts, her nipples erect, and for one split second, I see the young girl who stole my heart. She looked so damn happy out on the dance floor. Her body swaying to the music. Her lips parted, eyes never straying from mine. And fuck if my brain and my dick didn’t work together to find that a huge turn-on. My imagination tore through me faster than the speed of light. My dick had never been this hard to be inside of a woman in my life. And I’d been with a lot of women. But I hadn’t wanted one as badly as I did her. I hadn’t taken one out on more than a few dates, and I sure as hell hadn’t waited this long to fuck one. She was worth savoring. She was worth keeping. She was about to become mine. I brought her home with me that night with every intention of fucking her raw. Goddamn, this woman made me work for a date, too. Her plump lips drove me crazy, that mouth that was always coated in a constant shade of red. One that needed to open wide. Preferably with my hands in her hair while I fucked it with my tongue and then my cock. It was the first night in my life I made love to a woman in my bed. The first time I made love to anyone. It was the last time I wanted anyone else. No one. Not a woman in this world was as perfect on the inside as she was on the outside to me. I fell that night, and I haven’t stopped since. “Lie down,” I demand. I grab the bottle of red, uncork it, and take a long swig while watching the rise and fall of her chest. “This is our best seller. A rich Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc are combined, aged in oak, to produce this. Did you know that just about everyone who works here is in hiding? Our winemakers, secretaries, everyone except the men and women who work next door to you.” I move to fall to my knees beside her. Grab the back of her neck and let her taste. Fuck, her eyes are wide. I can see her absorbing what I said. She may have read the file, but there’s so much more to tell. “I didn’t.” She licks her lips, smiling slightly. I take a small sip, dip my head, and dribble the wine down her chest. The sound of her gasp from the chill goes straight to my cock. I follow the trail of wine with my tongue. Lapping her skin, nibbling, biting, and enjoying the taste of the exotic wine mixed with her flavor. Goddamn, I need to be inside of her. Not yet, though. Not until I wash away the last bit of her fear. Or in this case, lick. “Did you know that all of us watch each other’s backs? We know each other’s stories. Faces and places where the danger of our pasts lurk. Some of us are more open about what brought them here. Some stay secluded like I did because they, too, had to leave someone behind. They, too, struggle every day with what they lost. But not a one of them has had the luxury of their past finding them.” I reach around me and grab the bottle of white.

She’s so damn quiet. So caught up in my story that I have to look to make sure she isn’t crying again. “Blake.” My name spilling out of her mouth has me corking the bottle quickly. Setting it back down and tugging the same pair of panties down her legs, like I did the first night I took her. I grab her by the ankles, twist her body upright. Her legs spread effortlessly for me. Her pussy is bared to me. Fucking hell. This belongs to me. “This is our best-selling white. A floral Riesling. Its rich, satisfied taste leaves a mark on your palate just begging for another sip, another taste.” I take a swig, sit the bottle on the table, and listen to her loud moan when I place my hands on her thighs, dribble the sweet flavor across her pubic bone, and shove my tongue as far as it will go inside her pussy. “Oh, hell,” she screams. Nah, baby, this is heaven driving away hell. This is real life. “More, please. God, Blake.” I peer up the length of her body. Her head is thrown back, her mouth wide open. I’ll give her every damn thing she wants. I bring my hands up; one tucks under her ass, the other blends the wine with her juices, spreading them down the crack of her ass, my finger swirling around her tight little hole. She lifts her ass, shoves it further in my face; my heart expands over the knowledge of her silently asking for what she wants. Her eyes slam shut when I thrust a finger inside her warm pussy, curl it forward, and wiggle. Sluggishly opening her lids, she pleads on a barely coherent murmur, “I need you to make me come.” Her request disengages me. I start fucking her with my tongue, while her hips are moving. I watch her fears fade and her body submit. I want to bring her up and relaxed, balance her on the edge, and watch her tumble over right in my mouth for the rest of our lives. Going as deep as I can, I pull on her rock-hard clit with the middle of my lips. Swirl my tongue several more times before she lets loose and comes in my mouth. “Watch,” I tell her, stand, and tug off my boots, toe off my socks and undo, unzip, and yank my jeans off. My cock is thanking me for freeing him. Her lazy, heavy-lidded gaze stays perched on my cock until I lift my shirt and it drifts to the sleeve adorned for her. “You…you, finished it,” she stutters. Her fingers that were resting by her sides come up right along with her body when she reaches forward, and I bend down for her to touch me. Tulips don’t grow on vines, but they do on my arm. “This is wonderful.” Her fingers trail around the tulips, the law books, and the grapes all up and down my arm. It took over six months to outline this. Six more to color it in. “The pain in my chest hurt more than the needle from the gun. I thought it was going to be all I would have left to remind me of what I lost.” I suffocate those tears wanting to fall by smashing my mouth to hers. I lift her in my arms; legs so velvety smooth wrap around my waist. I could sink into her now, but I want her on top of me. I need to see her clearly when she comes on my dick. I twist around, sit on the loveseat, and unclasp her bra, my mouth zooming in on her nipples. I slide the garment from her arms. My fingers hit her pink pebbles. So hard, so peaked and eager for my greedy digits to tweak and pinch.

Her tongue sweeps my bottom lip, her wetness coats my shaft, and I need inside of her badly. “Ride me,” I request. My dick is so fucking hard the pain in my balls is shooting up my spine. The second she lifts and lines me up, I’m grasping her hips and driving inside her in one brutal thrust. My eyes roll back in my head. “Jesus Christ, you’re perfect,” I groan from the pull of her tight little body sheathing my cock. “I will never stop loving you. Never stop protecting you.” “I know. I feel the same way about you,” she points out. I can almost see all her troubles being gathered together. Her mind working feverishly to rid herself of them. She’s holding something back from me, though. I can see it in her eyes. I lose the thought when she grinds her hips, lifts up, and starts fucking the ever-loving hell out of my dick. I meet every hard push with a thrust of my own. Every moan, pant, and slapping of her ass up against my legs become out of control. I’m grasping and clawing at all I can to not come. I can’t clutch onto a damn thing except for the way she’s grasping hold of my dick. My eyes roam from her flushed face to her bouncing breasts. They stay glued to our connection until the desire for me to take over thuds to my skull. I grab a handful of her hair and yank her head backward, my mouth attacking her delicate neck. I take full advantage of how she’s right here for me to do with as I please, and for her to take from me. The urge for me to come builds the tighter she clenches her muscles around my cock. When she halts, her scream of ecstasy pulls me in. It missiles straight through my limbs, connects to my cock, and I tip over that edge with her.

TWENTY

ADRIANA

“Merry Christmas and good afternoon,” the sexiest voice I’ve heard whispers in my ear. Sensual, hard to soft hands brush my hair away from my face. And when I open my eyes to see Blake fully dressed, his blues full of love for me, I want to choke up. Everything hits me at once. His words, those tattoos, his body, the wine, all of it. He’s made a life for himself here, and I’ve missed so much of it that it angers me. Not angry at him but the men who did this. I’ve beaten back the traps of life, and yet regardless of what Blake told me last night about being protected, I feel that claustrophobia noose around my neck. I’m scared that whenever the walls close in on me, my fists—or even he—won’t be able to knock them down. I trust him; I really do. But when my mind searches for ways to escape, my heart starts pounding erratically and my stomach leaps into that giant volcano. What happens when I want to scream to let out all the fear that’s been building inside me for so long? A scream so loud it becomes a cry of horror, a giant crack of thunder that will scare it all away? I just can’t imagine what would happen if those men found us or if the people his friends are hiding from found them. What would we do? Where would we go? Would they kill us? Leave us be? Challenges and choices. Ruckus and rewards. I have got to have hope. Have to live and revel in having him back, or I’ll be shackled once again. “Same to you,” I say, doing my best to clear my head. By the time we crashed back into his house at three in the morning after making up for four missed holidays, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. I didn’t permit my mind to think about anything but him last night. The only thing that kept sneaking out of the corners was the baby and him telling me about all the people who work here. I shoved them back in. No matter how many questions I have, I’m deciding right now I will not let it ruin what we’re building. I lie there in his bed, warm, his smell all around me. My fingers slide from under the pillow to the tattoos on his arm, down to his wedding band. “I remember when you got this one.” My chin trembles, and I close my eyes to stop myself from crying as my mind drifts back in time. “This is my wedding present?” I glanced from my husband’s face to his arm. I was beginning to think he was losing his mind. We’d been married for less than twenty-four hours, just checked into our room to start our honeymoon, when he stripped out of his

crisp white shirt to reveal a long-stemmed tulip inked on his arm. The man was going to be covered in them if he didn’t stop. “No. I’m your present and you’re mine. I wanted to get this thing started, thought I’d surprise you. Jazz said she could fit me in the night before last. What can I say? I’m addicted.” He shrugged, turned toward me, and stiffened. I wasn’t sure if he realized what he’d said or if it was the tears falling down my face that had him gripping my hands and shaking his head. “Goddamn it, Adriana. I’m sorry.” I was sure he was, but it didn’t make what he said sting any less. It didn’t make the pain stop. My shoulders shook, my stomach lurched, and I ran into the adjoining bathroom and threw up. This was the first time in my life I was going to be out of her reach if she needed me. Our grandmother was getting too old to deal with her by herself. I’d tried to convince myself that me being gone was no different than being home because I never knew where she was or how long it would be before she showed up. Sometimes she’d be gone a few days, sometimes several months. The only constant I had with her was that I knew she’d return. What if she returned this time when I wasn’t home to help her? To clean her up, feed her, clothe her, and try to get her back on her feet. She could disappear for good. There was nothing harder than watching your sister fade away from you. To see her in pain when she didn’t really know she was. Not once had I enabled her. I didn’t give her money, nor did I condone what she did. I couldn’t give up on her, though. If I did, she’d have no one to save her when she realized she was worth saving. “I have to try calling her again.” I pushed myself up off the floor, cleaned up my mess, rinsed my mouth, and exited. Blake was sitting on the bed, his shoulders slumped forward, head down. I could sense that he was hiding something from me. I wanted to push him to tell me what it was, but the words wouldn’t come out. They stayed buried inside of me along with the fear that if I pushed him far enough, he would eventually leave me, too. “Adriana, I will never ask you to walk away from her, but there’s going to come a time when you’re going to have to let her go. You can’t help her if she’s not ready,” he spoke with contempt, so much of it that it was sliding off him and landing at my feet. This was what he was hiding. His fear that when the time did come, I’d break. He was right. I ignored him, this man who struggled himself. He loved me and hated her. Blake didn’t think I saw the way I caught him looking at her with so much disdain, so much contempt that I’d been afraid I’d have to make a choice. He never said a word; he didn’t have to. He supported. Encouraged me to stay strong for her. It was odd, though, that he would bring this up now when he should have brought it up the minute he felt this way. It was actually funny and yet it wasn’t that our first argument as husband and wife was over her, when all he’d done in the past was support every decision I’d made when it came to try and help the only sibling I had cure this damn disease that had taken her away from me. Away from herself. “I will never give up on her. Ever.” I fought back the wave of nausea that hit me again when his words slammed me in the gut. “I’m not a fucking idiot, Blake. We have certain

boundaries with her; we give her a roof over her head, food, and clothes when she needs it, and that’s it. But the one thing I will always give her whether she’s with me or not is love and hope. Hope that she will see how much she means to me. Hope that she will see how much she should mean to herself. I feel the same way about her as I do you. I won’t let either one of you go, no matter what you do.” He stood and placed his hands on his hips. He was angry. Well, good, so was I. “I didn’t say you had to give up on her. I would never expect you to do that. I’m on your side, even though it kills me to see what she’s doing to you and your grandmother. I love you more than anything, Adriana. I won’t bring it up again.” Coward’s way out. Both of us. “No. You don’t get to do that, Blake. You’re hiding things in order to protect me. You don’t think I know you don’t like her? I understand why you don’t. I do. There are times when I don’t either. But don’t you dare stand there and tell me you’re on my side. There aren’t sides here. Family doesn’t have sides. They stick together. Support. You don’t have to like her. Just please don’t ask me to let her go. I can’t do it; if I do, she’ll never come back to me.” “Adriana, come here, please.” I went to him, and we talked it out. He never admitted what he was hiding from me. I never pushed him to tell me either. It had everything to do with how much he hated her. He just didn’t want to hurt me by saying it. It’s the same vibes I’m getting from him now. Whatever it is he’s hiding, he thinks it’s going to fracture me. I never heard from Alexis until I returned home and went to see her at work. How she kept up her act with her clients and co-workers was beyond me. How she even found job after job beat the shit out of me, too. I should have realized by then it was too late to save her. However, my marriage I won’t be able to come back to fully until I know what he’s keeping from me. “I love this, Blake. It means so much.” My fingers stroke their way around the corded vines permanently etched in his skin. The unwanted tension in this bed is irreversible. I can feel it all coming to an overboiling head. This is a place where there should be none at all. But there is, and just like times before, neither one of us speaks of it. We chicken out. We remain quiet. And he just lets me carry on with my thoughts while stroking the beauty of his skin. “I won’t be the least bit disappointed if we stay in bed all day. I’m not talking about having sex. I’m talking about holding you in my arms, running my fingers through your hair, our bodies so close to each other that all I feel is you. All I see is my wife in my arms. I don’t need anything more than that.” I sigh. Blake has always been able to flip our moods on and off like a switch. He can go from sweet to serious to naughty in seconds. His expression is guarded today, though. I was a fool to think we didn’t know each other anymore. We can still read each other the same way someone can find a page, recite a quote out of their favorite book. The knowledge will stick with you forever. He knows I’m hiding something, and I know he is, too. “Something tells me you’ll have plenty of days to do that, Blake Mitchell.” A smile

rips its way across those lips that ate up every inch of my body last night until the corners of his mouth lift. God, he’s handsome. I’m changing gears as he did. I don’t want to bring up what I have to say any more than he does. The crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up he’s wearing is waving my surrender up against that muscular chest. I want to strip it off and devour him. To just forget everything I don’t want to believe. I can’t have her ruining another holiday, especially when she’s not even here. The thing is, my head won’t stop talking to me until I hear him tell me. “I hope for a lifetime of days and nights with you.” He winks, drags me to him, and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Get dressed. I’ll start our vehicles.” “I missed the view,” I say disappointedly. Our day is bound to be ruined. I can feel it. I stretch and climb out of bed, straightening the T-shirt he gave me to sleep in. “Something tells me you’ll have plenty of days to see it, Adriana Jensen.” I don’t turn around to let him see the sadness on my face. I’ll never have the same name as him again. I don’t think I want to either. God, this is more complicated than I thought it would be. Everything hurts all over again. Trust, time, and the truth, Adriana. That’s all you can wish for, all you can hope for when it comes to those things. With the other thing, it cannot. I place his shirt on the bed after taking a quick shower and getting dressed. As I take a look around, my heart sinks to the floor. There’s nothing in this room or his bathroom from his past. I’m not so sure why it hurts so badly, but it does. I need to get him to my house so he can see all the surprises I have for him today. He may think all he wanted was me for Christmas, but he’ll change his mind when I give him back the most important parts of his life. I sigh. My heart is heavy and aching. People who hide things carry a heavy load saddled with thick, heavy masses. As horribly tightening as they wrench when the burdens become too much, the moment we allow someone to help lift them is when we’re finally free to live. It might not be seamless; it might not be how we dreamed our life was going to be. But you realize how truly lucky you really are. How incredibly blessed the life you thought was cruel has shown you an entire world of difference. That’s how I feel, that’s what I think about as Blake helps me into my coat, grabs his bag, and follows me home. I have to let her go. I’m nervous as I pull into my garage and look over at his truck pulling in beside me. I swallow, push open my door, seal us in, and let him into my home. I’m trembling and shaking. “I see you’re still into collecting things.” Blake is standing in my living room when I return from changing my clothes. The mental talk during the drive over here was a waste of brain cells. I told myself everything was going to be fine. That the decorations, the tree, and all the last-minute things I did were what we could talk about. As I watch him now, see him in the place where I assume we will live, I’m not sure what to do or what to say. For now, I say nothing. I admire this strong man who protected me. I’m stronger than he thinks. Stronger than I think. And I really don’t think I can make it through another day without telling him.

God, he’s tall. It’s been so long since I’ve studied him like this that there are many things I remember and many I don’t want to. I remember many late-night discussions over being opposites when it came to decorating. It was one of the few things we argued about. We were talking about building a new home together once we paid off loans. Blake was always into the more modern trends. Whereas me, I was into shopping around at garage sales, antique malls, and flea markets. Almost everything I owned before was sold. I only brought my grandmother’s desk, my outdoor patio furniture, and a few items that belonged to Alexis. She didn’t have much to begin with. The few things I did keep are all I have from the one person in my life I will always remain bonded to. I still see and feel my sister everywhere. God, this is going to be brutal. “I am. That wooden table and my bed are my favorites.” I run my fingers across the front of my clutch that I tossed on the kitchen counter when I realize what I said. Why? I have no idea. Especially after everything we’ve done. I know better than to use the word ‘bed’ in the same sentence when it comes to talking to Blake. The man has a one-track mind with that word, and it doesn’t involve sleeping. And that is something I didn’t realize turned me on until I started dating him. His blunt approach to what he was going to do to me when we got back to either one of our places would have me squirming in my seat by going on a desperate hunt to relieve the pressure. Half the time, I did while he watched. “This table.” He runs his index finger across the distressed wood. My stomach tightens. I exhale. I’m lost in following his finger run across the light blue strip, dip underneath and back up again. Good Lord, he’s seducing me on purpose. He knows how that long index finger of his used to manipulate my body into a pliable form all for him. Pushing me over the edge until I shook, my muscles weakened, my body spent, only for him to pull me up and do it all over again. I breathe out slowly, bringing my clutch up to my chest. He’s trying to distract me from asking. What he’s doing right now is what has me saying what comes out of my mouth next. We jumped too fast. Went straight into high gear without talking everything out. “Blake, what are you doing?” My voice is a mere whisper. I’m burning up for this man and those deviously talented fingers. I’m not giving in to him this time. He doesn’t see me as a doormat the way my sister did. He isn’t using me. He wants me. He loves me. But he wants to save me from more pain. Save me from something in our past once again. I’m not that person anymore. I don’t need saving. I need his words to hurt me so I can forgive. He says nothing as he sheds off his coat, pitches it on my couch, and stalks toward me. He isn’t going to slow down. Not this man; he’s going to try to plow right through me. He’s sinfully good looking. I’m getting wetter between my legs with every tick of his square jaw, every stride of his legs. When he leans toward me, maintaining a devilish grin, a wicked glee in his eyes, I swear my breathing comes out in erratic, tiny puffs of air. Stay strong. “I’m doing this.” He releases the hold I have on my clutch, grabs my right hand, and slides a ring on my finger. I gasp when I see the leaf-and-vine tulip-flower ring with a dark purple stone in the middle

I hold my shaky hand out. An overwhelming sensation gushes through me. I want to laugh, cry, and tell him that all I need is him. But I can’t. This ring symbolizes so much of our past, present, and future that it shakes me to my core. It tears me open. I expect to cry, but when the tears don’t follow and the opening in my chest is filled with the power of love, I can’t help but smile. Because with love comes hope, and hope is the foundation that has me standing on solid ground. “I take it you like it.” He entwines our hands and brings them up to his chest. “It’s beautiful, Blake, but I can’t accept this.” I glance from the ring to his eyes. They’re so blue today I can almost see his soul through them. “What? Of course, you can, and you will.” “No, I won’t. Not until you tell me who the person was who found out it was you. That’s what you’re hiding from me, isn’t it?” I see right through those eyes that say he’s scared of telling me the truth. It was staring me in the face this entire time. I can guess by the intensity from the way his back stiffens, his features go from soft to hard, that I know the person. I can guess who without him telling me. This is going to be far worse than I imagined. I take the ring off and place it in his hand.

TWENTY-ONE

BLAKE

“You won’t take my gift because I won’t give you a name? That’s low, Adriana, especially coming from you. What hurts even more than you denying my gift is that you know who it is. I can see it in your eyes. You just want me to confirm it.” Fucking hell. Why does she have to discuss this now? I saw the desperation to unveil the one thing I don’t want to talk about the minute she opened her eyes this morning. Exhaling, I force myself not to peer down into her serious eyes, the eyes to my soul, the eyes that are accompanied by a whole lot of determination. I’m not sure if I should be happy that the woman standing before me has every bit of the fight back in her from the day we first met, or if I should kiss the hell out of her for standing her ground. For not cowering in her comfort zone in order to shield herself from any more pain. She is not going to back down from this. It won’t matter if I plead with her to let this go; she won’t because she knows what I’ve said is the truth. “After everything I’ve been through, I deserve to know it all. Every wretched detail. Is that wrong of me to ask? Because to me, it isn’t. To me, the innocent one in all of this has the right to know why my sister would do this to me. Why she would take the love I had for her and throw it all away. To force my husband to make a choice when she knew how much I loved you. When she knew that by her going to these people, she would put you and me in danger. So, if what you claim I’m doing is low, then I guess I could say the same about you. About her. The way I see things is, this is me fighting for us. Fighting for what we need to be complete. We’ve been caught up in each other since you told me everything. I’m not complaining about the way we’ve dealt with everything up until this point whatsoever. However, you know as well as I do we’ve both been keeping a secret to protect the other. I’m tired of it. I’ve left it alone because all I wanted to think about was you when we’re together. The problem is, when we’re apart, it runs around in my head. It doesn’t stop. It spins and spins. Heidi told me to give you space. To adjust to us being back together. I listened to her, let her convince me it was the right decision. It’s not the right decision for us. Honesty is. We’ve been living a lie for far too long. Don’t you think it’s time for the truth, whether it hurts or not? The truth is the only thing that’s going to set us free. It’s funny how a few weeks ago, I second-guessed that saying. We’re both avoiding the truth because we don’t want to hurt each other.” She catches her breath, sits down on a stool, and reluctantly shoves the clutch out of her way, placing her face in her hand, and sighs.

I battle with the truth. How much to tell her all the while standing here wondering how much she thinks she knows. There’s not a chance in hell she’s strummed up the knowledge about the couple of verbal encounters Alexis and I had. If she did, she would have brought them up. I rub my hands down my face and inspect her closely. She’s holding out on hurting me as well. Am I going to shove those emotions I’m fucking terrified of fighting in my mouth when she tells me what she’s hiding? Sure as shit, I will. Unlike her, I haven’t given what she’s hiding from me much thought. As I try to pick her mind, to see into her heart, I know it’s going to dice me up. “It’s not a matter of want anymore. It’s a matter of need,” she pleads. “Bullshit. You don’t need to hear what I have to say, just like I don’t need to hear what you’re hiding.” Damn it. I don’t want to tell her this. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me, Blake, or is this your way of stalling? The truth is going to come out. It may as well be now.” I scoff. Alexis sure as hell knows how to ruin Christmas; even from the damn grave she still has her claws in me. “You want the truth? Well, here it is. You’re right. It was your sister. She wanted to destroy what we had from the beginning. She was jealous of everything you had. Everything you were and she wasn’t. Is that enough of the truth for you?” For the love of everything this woman has been through, let it be enough. She drops her hands to her lap, closes her eyes, and her breathing slows. When she opens them, they are filled with regret, remorse, and sadness. So much of it that it has me declining the urge to tug her to me. The initial need to protect her is overwhelming. I’d love nothing more than to have her in my arms right now. To fight back those sensations that seem to be hanging on. The more I hold back, the more it hits me that this is what she does need. She needs to let go the tarnish that Alexis has left on her bruised soul so she can heal. Soar and lift her spirit completely. And she needs to do this on her own. “I don’t believe you. She was never jealous of me. How could she be when she didn’t know what she was doing half the time?” There’s that denial. Always lurking her Goddamn head when it comes to rationality involving Alexis. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? If anyone wants to fight, it’s you. You’re actually going to sit there and call me a liar. She knew what she was doing, and that was playing on the love you had for her. Adriana, your sister was sick. It went far deeper than being a drug addict.” Fuck, that had to hurt. “I don’t know what I’m calling you. Wasn’t it you who told me a dead person couldn’t talk? She’s not here to defend herself, is she? Why didn’t she tell me her side of this? How do you know all of this other stuff about her anyway?” Her tone increases with every spiteful word coming out of her mouth; those searching eyes are holding mine captive. She’s a fighter. More prepared to hear what I have to say than I’m ready to tell her. I wanted to avoid this as long as I could, and I sure as fuck didn’t plan on talking about it today. My jaw ticks. All I see is her sister’s satisfied glare as she raises her head in winning glory from the depths of hell. Her snarl. Her tongue running over her lips that are fighting to say she told me so before she throws her head back in evil fucking laughter.

“People do desperate things for what they want. I never wanted you to know any of this. Not a damn part of it should ever grace your ears. Let me tell you the truth. The whole entire thing. Your sister, the one you broke your back trying to help, never wanted help. She wanted me; she wanted your life, Adriana. She came onto me more times than I care to think about. I knew that bitch was out to destroy us before we were married. She wasn’t who you thought she was. Not even before she started using. Every time she walked away, she knew it would hurt you. She didn’t care about anyone but herself. That’s the type of person you’re defending to me. The woman I caught in our bed one night. The woman who told me she would somehow find a way to pay me back for not giving her money. For not bending to give in to her demands. Let me educate you on the type of woman your sister really was.” Her face pales. I’m standing here walking a tightrope that’s too small for my feet. My smart, brilliant wife needs it all; well, she’s going to get it all. I watch her sink and rise up through my own swirling pool of desperation. The push against the pull on what emotion is going to win stacking higher against me with each collapsing breath I take. She still doesn’t want to believe me. I’m not angry; I’m hurt. Hurting just as badly as she is. That doesn’t stop me from continuing. I may as well jab the knife into our chests further. Tell her everything so she can move the hell on with me and get rid of all the guilt she has held on to for years when it comes to her that wretched woman. So, I tell her about that night, about how I sat in the dark with a bottle of whiskey in my hand after I found out what she did, hoping Alexis would come and talk to me like I’d demanded. How I sent her several texts for two days straight telling her if she didn’t show up at midnight sober, then I would come find her, drag her ass out of whoever’s bed she was in. I didn’t give a shit if it was Damon’s or not. “Her Goddamn bullshit with you was ending. The minute she walked through the door, I confronted her, asked if she had any fucking idea what she had done. She had the nerve to smile at me. You have no idea how I wanted to slice her smile off her face. I held myself back because what I had to say to her was all I had left. Even though I was sitting there drowning in despair, praying like a bitch, gauging her movements to make sure she was sober enough for her dysfunctional brain to hear me. I was left with no other choice but to sit there and go through the eye of the storm with her before it calmed. She was going to strike out before I hoped like hell my words struck her. “She was taunting me, telling me she’d warned me she would get her revenge. But she didn’t stop there. No, not that bitch. Asked me if I was waiting up to fuck some sense into her, to tell her she’d ruined your life for good. I still hear her words. ‘They’re coming after you; you know that, right? They’ll beat the shit out of you, scare you away so you won’t talk,’ she said. She was so smug. You don’t even know the kind of anger that spread through me. I wanted to kill her. To make her suffer in ways she had never heard before. All I could see was you and the price you were going to pay for her vengeful behavior. “She was leaving me with no choice but to move on in order to save you. She is the reason for me doing this. The woman you loved more than anything turned against her own sister for drugs. “Alexis was a despicable, vengeful, and hateful woman. And when I looked her in the

face, I couldn’t believe she was your sister. The two of you were nothing alike, and I hated her. I will always hate her. I have every right to. “She was a sociopath. Had the signs of it vibrating off her in waves. Her brain was so fucked up from the abuse that it never had the time to balance itself out. “I said nothing for the longest time, sipped my drink while running my fingers down the neck of the bottle. She had me trapped. It was either disappear with you and live our lives constantly looking over our shoulders, or fake my death. As much as I hated her, I knew you loved her with all you had. You had your grandmother, too. Like I said, you along with them were reasons I chose what I did. “I told her she didn’t get it, that they didn’t just want to beat my ass until I promised them I wouldn’t testify. That they wanted to kill me. That those types of people don’t work that way. They’d kill people for less than that. They’d threatened to kill you. I yelled at her, told her she hadn’t won a game that should have never started until she it made it one. That what she did do was help a man go free for killing an innocent woman. That she brought her revenge down on a family who would never have closure, would never have peace because of her. I ranted at her that it wasn’t me who bailed her out every damn time she got into trouble, it sure as fuck wasn’t me who wanted her better. I couldn’t stand the sight of her. If I’d had it in me, I would have killed her before she ended up killing herself. She fucked up, Adriana. Fucked up royally. Death was going to be on her hands, and I didn’t give a fuck if somewhere down the road she ended up better and the guilt over all of that would eventually kill her. I wanted her to die. The only thing I regretted not being able to see before she did was watching her suffer. I told her Damon and his men were coming for me, were probably coming for you, your grandmother, and even her. I didn’t give a fuck what they told her when she ratted me out. I didn’t give a fuck how she found out it was me. If she thought for one second they were honest with her, then she was an even bigger fool than I knew her to be. “I was trying hard to make the guilt eat her raw. I wanted her to see what she was about to do to you, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t. No, that stupid bitch kept on taunting me, disgustingly so, asking if my stamina lasted as long as my speech, called me a hot shot attorney, saying I couldn’t scare her. Then she sat down across from me, and for the first time since our wedding, I saw a glimpse of the real Alexis you always talked about. She was running her mouth off at me because she was scared. An apology was right there on the tip of her tongue just waiting to slip out. But she was too afraid to do it. Too fucking gone. I didn’t care whether she apologized or not. I didn’t fucking want it. Not after what she did. The only thing I wanted was for my words to sink in. I doubted they would, but I couldn’t walk away from you without trying. “So, I tried one more time, told her I wasn’t making shit up, that I was speaking the truth. She sought her revenge, and she got it. I told her to get the fuck out of my house to test her mental ability to hear me out. I didn’t want her to leave. Knew she wouldn’t. Not when her lips kept trembling and she kept staring at the file in my hand. And she didn’t. But in true Alexis fashion, she kept spewing her shit at me. She didn’t get it. She wanted to keep her eyes on you, wanted to see your reaction when they fucked me up. Warned me she would scream if I tried to make her leave. In that moment, I wanted her to scream, so I could shut her up by crushing her fucking skull in. I saw red, Adriana. My anger was

boiling into pure fucking rage. But did she stop there? No, she didn’t. Of course, she didn’t. “Said I wouldn’t touch her, that I’d made myself perfectly clear on that. And yes, sweetheart, I know you don’t believe me, but she’d tried to get me to fuck her. She was dumb enough to think I would and get her revenge that way. She underestimated my love for you. I never touched her; the thought alone turned my fucking stomach. Fuck!” I roar when I see my wife sitting there, tense and unmoving, her eyes wide in disbelief and shock, tears streaming down her cheeks. So many tears. And so much unveiled hurt, which tells me that part of her believes me. I can see the conflicting thoughts running through her eyes as her mind decides what to believe. But she’s smart; I know she will realize I wouldn’t make this shit up. I believe in her, in her trust in me, even if she doesn’t. I know it hurts her to hear me say this, to make her see who her sister really was, but she was right. She needs this. All of it. I wish I could hold her while I tell her all this; my arms are aching to embrace her, but I know this is something she needs to do on her own. A conclusion she has to come to by herself. And trusting that she will once she has it all, I continue, even though it breaks my heart to see her like this. “She thought I was trying to guilt her into an apology. To make her feel bad for what she’d done. Sarcastic bitch asked me if I was wired, if the cops were down the hall in the laundry room. Said she would set me straight. Apparently, when she told Damon, he thanked her. Said he promised her he wouldn’t touch you; that you had nothing to do with it. That it was me they wanted. If I couldn’t talk, then all the charges against him would be dropped. She wanted me to look like a fool. To have my holier-than-thou attitude torn off my face, and for you to suffer while you watched me heal. She wanted to slip her kind of drugs to me, get me addicted. To make me feel the burn, the desire for more to course through my veins until I want to scratch off my skin. She was convinced because nobody said a word about death or threats, I was exaggerating, being dramatic. She was clueless. Oblivious to the way our world worked when she wasn’t high. I’ll guarantee she was all up in his face doing whatever shit he gave her while she spilled her guts out when she told him it was me. “I didn’t want to argue with her anymore. What was done was done. She demolished the only good person she had in your life. The only one. I told her I hoped after it was all over, she’d be there for you when you needed her. That needs are much bigger than wants. That she of all people should know that. “When she still didn’t believe me, I showed her the file. I surveyed her face turn every shade of color. I scrutinized the tears leaking from her eyes as they hit every picture she pulled out to make sure they were real. I observed as her body shook, her head swaying back and forth, and I watched her crumble with the guilt before I had the chance to finish planning my fake death. “’The latest one attached to the sister you hate so much. That’s a promise, Alexis. They’re threatening to kill her if I don’t disappear,’ were the words I said. That’s when it set in, when she realized I wasn’t lying. And still the bitch only thought of herself. Said it would kill you if I left to save you, that you weren’t strong enough to lose me, and you were all she had left, that she needed you. Bullshit. All she needed were her drugs and her men. Not for one fucking second did she think about you and what losing me would really

do to you. All she cared about was you taking care of her, and how you might not be able to do that if me leaving broke you. “All this started because she wanted you to hurt. She’d told me time and time again how much she hated you, how she wanted to see you suffer. I didn’t love her like you did. I didn’t have the same blood running through my veins. I didn’t give a fuck if she walked out of there and died. That bitter and hateful bitch. She tried shifting her emotions onto me, but it didn’t work the way it did on you. She was a damn junkie. A woman scorned by what life had done to her, whereas the woman she claimed to hate—you—had walked down the same dark path as she had, and on top of struggling with losing your parents the way you did, you also struggled with losing your sister, and now you’d struggle with losing me. Because of her. That’s what this all boils down to. It was pathetic in a way when you think about it. The woman who has caused you more pain than anyone else is the person I was hoping would take care of you when I was gone.” I shake my head and take a deep breath before I finish with the last part of my story, glad it’s almost over. Relieved yet terrified at the same time. I lower my voice and spill out the rest. “She asked me not to go to the police. That as a lawyer, I could find a way out without having to leave you. I scoffed in her face, stood to leave for the reason that my intuition told me she was about to become loud and go off on me the same way she would you when she was pissed off. But there was something in the way she spoke. Something calling out to me in her tone. Something I had never heard from her before. I heard the truth in her voice. I heard pain. I thought maybe, just maybe, what she had done might be what would finally bring her back to you. “So, I sat back down, pushed the bottle toward her, and listened. Thought she might need the courage to carry on with whatever truth she wanted to say. After all, the truth sets you free, right? I owed it to you to try and reason with her, to try and make her understand without telling her what I had planned, knowing that for the first time in her life, she was going to need to step up and be the sister you needed. I knew I was wasting my breath on her. It was like talking to a brick wall. The hatred she possessed inside of her was thick and heavy. However, she was the one who put me in the position to be sitting there for over an hour waiting to chew her ass out, then begging her to take care of you when I knew deep in my twisted gut she wouldn’t. I would have much rather have been upstairs buried inside of you. Reaffirming our love over and over, because loving you was the only truth in my life I had left. When we made love, it blocked this entire life-changing situation out of my mind. I could have gone to Heidi and Daniel and told them. The thing was, I knew they would be there for you, but I also knew what was important to you and what mattered to you most. She did. “Alexis shoved the bottle back and told me something I would have never believed if she hadn’t lifted her head and given me eyes that looked exactly like yours when you were determined to make me see what you had to say was important to you. “She said she was sorry, that she didn’t know why she felt the way she did. That she honestly didn’t hate you but loved you more than anything. You were her sister, the only good thing she had. Said she didn’t want that for herself, the constant need to dull the pain, but that she couldn’t help it. She didn’t know what I had planned. The only thing she did know was that if I left you, it would take you away from her. That she’d never get you

back. “I begged her to fight it. Fight it every second of the day if she had to. Fight it for you and for her. What she had done couldn’t be reversed. The choice she’d made was irreversible. Unlike her, who still had the choice to make things right with you, the opportunities to make her life better, I was left with only one choice, which wasn’t really a choice at all. I chose my wife. I chose you. I will always choose your safety over mine. I will always put you first. You’re the best woman I’ve ever met, have the kindest heart and love people even when they don’t deserve your love. I told her she didn’t deserve your love, she didn’t deserve you, but you deserved her. You deserved to have your sister come back to you. I wasn’t going to ask her to promise me to get better. All I could do was hope.”

TWENTY-TWO

ADRIANA

I close my eyes, the tears running freely, wishing the depth his words have taken in my chest away. It’s when I open them to look away from him and stare at the snow that I know he’s speaking the truth. As cold and disbelieving as those bitter words are, the anger bangs all over the place inside of me, trying to drag me down. Pull my head under the freezing snow. A whole heap of disbelief at every word he said tries to strangle me. It tries to squirm in and make me lash out at him for keeping this from me. Up until now, I blamed myself for not being strong enough to help her when all along my strength has kept me going. My love for her gave that to me even when she gave me nothing in return, except the desperate time in my life when I needed her. We could stay here all day, let her ruin our holiday, but what would any of that do when she’s gone? One single word out of everything he said singles itself out. Hope. I should hate her for what she did to me, to him. But I can’t hate her any more than I could hate Blake for what he did. All I have left is hope that when I finally set her free, I’m the woman I once was. It’s too late to hope she’ll get better; she’s gone, and I can’t bring her back. I can’t even strum up the image of her coming onto him. Of her saying those things and the possibility she would follow through with them if he gave her what she wanted. The thought of it makes me sick, and yet here I am, willing to forgive a woman for begging my husband to sleep with her. The Alexis I choose to remember, the one who in her right state of mind would never have done or said those things knowing how much it would hurt me, that is the Alexis who loved me. I know she did. I believe it with everything I am. If I lose sight of that, I will die a million deaths until I come face-to-face with her again. The bottom line is and will always be that Alexis was my sister. I loved her. Blake’s confession will hurt me until I take my last breath. But until I let her go, until I tell her I forgive her for blaming me, for saying she hated me, for being jealous, for ratting him out, I can’t live the life I deserve. The same way Blake can’t live his until I own up to him myself. I hope that all the times she told me she was sorry, she meant it. I would forgive her over and over even if I didn’t understand what I was forgiving her for. I always strummed up her rambling to the drugs when it never was. But I understand now. She blamed herself

for what happened to me all the while hoping I would catch onto her words that made no sense to anyone but her. I could sit here and blame him for her not trying, for him dumping guilt on her. But none of it would do any good when she was already too far gone. Her addiction was what brought the guilt on her in the first place, and that is something I can’t blame anyone but her for. “She didn’t fight for me, for her,” I mumble. My eyes are still dripping with tears. The walls that have held me up all threaten to crumble. They have me dizzy and wobbly even though I’m sitting down. I can’t let them. I can’t do anything but live on. Put this all into perspective for what it really is. It wasn’t losing Blake that held me back from living. It was her. Deep down inside of me, I knew it all along; I simply refused to believe it. I always knew Blake loved me, but with Alexis, I had my doubts. I had my fears and this constant nagging of rejection that I didn’t realize I felt with her. There is stillness in my head, the side effect of this constant fear, the everyday stress I’ve lived with over guilt, and it’s all because of her. I’m smart enough to know it, strong enough to realize that all the times I would remember the good and the bad times with Alexis, the bad always won out. The evil trumped over the kind sister I will always cherish in my heart. “Is there more?” I ask calmly when all I want to do is lash out at him for going to another person and not me. None of it matters anymore. Not a damn word of it. The lies, the deceit, those men. Nothing matters but the man before me and the life we deserve. “No. She shoved the file at me and left. I couldn’t trust her with that information, Adriana. I wanted her to get better. I wanted her to be your sister when everything inside of me knew she wouldn’t. Still, I couldn’t leave you without trying to give you back the once piece of your heart that I knew would make you whole.” I love this man so much for trying to get her to come back to me that my heart swells and more tears threaten to fall. I swipe them away. All the pain needs to go with them. I hear him loud and clear. She was a broken-down mess. A guilty party to all of this. Possibly more than anyone else. Missing my sister, her laugh, her sisterly touch reigns over what he’s saying. I miss her so much that I want to drop down to my knees and sob like a baby. Ask her to forgive me for failing her. How can I do that when the truth is staring me in the face? She didn’t want my forgiveness. Not when she couldn’t forgive herself. “Knowing this now hurts more than I can explain. The fact she didn’t try angers me. I loved her. I will never stop. Loving the addicted Alexis was very difficult for me. You know this. I chose to stay by her side even though it was destroying me in the process. I obsessed over trying to make her better. No matter how angry I would get or how many times I’d try, she didn’t care. She went about her life and watched mine fall apart.” “Yes, she did. She did love you, though. You have to believe that.” “I know she did. Loving her hurt so much, but not loving her, giving up on her, would have hurt me more. I’m not going to apologize for the things she did or said to you. Not this time. Not today. Not ever again. You don’t have to protect me anymore, Blake. She’s

gone. You and I are here. We’re starting over.” I stand and open my hand. Hope shines triumphantly in his eyes when he digs into his pocket, pulls out the ring, and places it on my finger right where it belongs. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” I twist it around. The design is perfect for a new beginning to our adventure. “I laid some pretty heavy stuff on you. Are you sure you’re okay?” His statement is laced with guilt. I’m tired of negative emotions living inside both of us. The positive needs to live here. Hope needs to be fully alive, and it won’t be until I tell him about the baby. “I’ll be okay. We both will be. But I have something to show you.” “Not yet.” He takes my hand, pulls me to sit on the couch, and kneels in front of me. I gasp when he pulls the familiar box out of his bag and lifts the lid to reveal my wedding rings. The horizontally set oval diamond shines brightly. The band attached that matches his symbolizing our devotion takes the air out of my lungs as it stares back at me. Doubt is gone. A lifetime of new memories takes its place. I want so much with this man that my finger itches for him to put the vintage-style rings where they belong. “Love comes before anything else, Adriana. I married the woman I love. It’s time for me to love her the way she deserves.” I let him slide my rings on while thinking back to the morning he left. The promises he made to come home. The words I spoke for him to be safe. The way he kissed me as if his life depended on it. It did. The things he confessed to me about Alexis, about him sacrificing our love to protect me. My secret needs to be told before we can have the best Christmas we’ve ever had. “I had something to tell you before you left that morning. The weather was part of the reason why I didn’t want you to leave. The other part was…” I take a deep breath, try to imagine how hard it was for him to come clean with me. “I was pregnant, Blake. I lost the baby.” He drops my hands. Shakes his head as a detached, loud cry falls from his mouth. I reach for him, but he pulls back, straightens himself up, and runs his hands through his hair while walking backward, not once taking his sorrowful eyes off me before he sinks down to the floor in front of my windows, shoulders sagging, head dropping to a thud against the glass. In the past, Blake always comforted me. Saw me through the demons that never went away. He didn’t try and shield me from the story he just told. He let me deal with it on my own. This, though, this part of our past that carries into our future is something he can’t ride alone. I won’t let him take this on by himself. Pushing off the couch, I wind around the table, press my palms to either side of his face, and force his head up, so he’s looking me in the eyes. “No, you don’t get to check out on me after all of this. We’ve come back to each other, Blake. You would have never walked away if you had known. Things would have turned out differently. Like everything else, there’s nothing we can do. I know it’s a shock, I know you feel guilty, because I did, too. We have to take the good with the bad. Living in the past has to end here. Please don’t blame yourself for this. Please.” I’m not elaborating on how our lives would be completely different if he had stayed or taken me with him. Both of us know the outcome would not be us sitting here with a second chance to spend

our lives together. I probably wouldn’t be breathing if he hadn’t left. He more than likely wouldn’t be either. “I’m sorry you went through so much alone,” he says, his face framed in sadness, his tortured voice laced with pain. My lips tremble as I remember the blood, the pain in my stomach and chest over losing the only thing that tied me to him. I squeeze my eyes shut, taking a deep breath to absorb the thoughts flowing through me. “I wasn’t alone. Alexis stayed sober. She rarely left my side, Blake. She was with me when I needed her. She did do what you asked. She took care of me.” He scoffs while I smile. “Yeah, well, it should have been me. It should have never come down to us sitting here talking about losing our baby. We should be rejoicing in watching our child play with his or her toys. I should be swearing up a storm while trying to put shit together, and you should be rolling your eyes at me for swearing. How far along were you?” He sighs as he places his hands on top of mine where they still rest on his cheeks. “We have time to do all those things, Blake, and so much more. I was a few weeks along. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. It would have happened regardless. You asked me to trust you with our future. Now, I’m asking you to trust me with something that was out of both our control. I’m also asking you to trust me when I tell you if you hadn’t talked to her, I don’t think she would have given me those days when I had a glimpse of her to remember. So, in a sense, you were with me. You fought to give me what you knew I needed, and I needed her. Don’t blame yourself, her, me, or anyone else for this. From this day on, you and me, we start over, Blake Mitchell. We make our love stronger than it was before. We laugh, we love, we fight, and we go to bed, wake up the next morning, and do it all over again.” None of this is funny. It hurts. It stings, and it’s a wound to my insides. However, I’m fighting to contain how blessed we are, while he appears to be drowning in guilt. “This isn’t just your cross to bear. We both lost things that day, and I can’t allow you to shoulder this alone. I don’t blame you. You need to know that.” I feel freer than I have in a long time despite what he revealed, and that alone is enough to make me smile. “We can try again. We could be pregnant now, for all I know. We did have unprotected sex a few times. I’m not on anything.” A small smile dances around his lips; his eyes are filled with mischief. I’m selfish in wishing I’m not. The two of us need time to adjust to one another again before we bring a child into this chaos. I need to feel comfortable, try to not look over my shoulder all the time. Pick up the pieces of my past and let them go. “Maybe we should skip opening gifts and stay in bed all day,” he repeats his words from earlier, his face turning serious. His body leans in slightly to touch his soft lips to mine. Stress lines mark his handsome features. I wish I could take them away as much as I wish our lives were as simple as he spoke of. “We could. But then you wouldn’t get this,” I speak softly. “I really want you to open this first.” I drop my hands, slide over, and grab the few presents I have for him. I’m anxious, excited, and happy that our secrets are bared. Our souls are well on their way to

healing.

TWENTY-THREE

BLAKE

“I’m debating if I should prop this up against the couch and stroke my cock, or if I should have you hurry the hell up and put that on so I can admire you for about ten seconds before I rip it to shreds,” I point out sincerely as I angle the collaged picture exactly how I want it at the end of her couch and watch her hips sway, her ass in the air as she bends to pick up the wrapping paper. “As long as I have your cock and see you smile, we can do whatever you want,” she returns with a playful laughter in her voice in place of weeks of sadness or those familiar words of why coming from her when the only gifts left under the tree would be the ones she bought for Alexis. “You’ll be getting it all day and night,” I prod, the torn part of my heart from her earlier confession tearing a little more. Our child should be here today. Hell, two of them could be. She could be pregnant with another. Bouncing on her toes while keeping them entertained. “Let me grab some snacks to go with one of these bottles of wine. Put this on, and I’ll meet you in the bedroom.” She bends down to give me an innocent kiss, which I turn into more by nibbling her bottom lip until she opens briefly for me to dip my tongue inside. “Thank you for this, the gift certificate, the rings, and for being here. Our holidays will only get better from this day forward.” She holds up one of the bottles of wine I gave her, takes a glance at the gift card to a local nursery where I was reassured they would stock tulip bulbs in every color, slings the green lace and satin one-piece sexy lingerie I stole from her store the night I took her pictures over her shoulder, and tips her head to the side in order to study my face with concern to make sure I’m okay. I’m not, but I will be. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here. Holiday or not, Adriana. I’ve been wishing to have you back in my arms since the day I left, and now you are. This is the only place I want to be.” I kiss her one last time, grab a handful of her ass, and hold back the rage burning inside of me. She doesn’t need to see all the anger I’m hiding. The fault I feel for not being there for her during a time when a husband should be there for his wife. “I know, Blake. Everything’s going to be alright. I know it is.” Her face lights up, and her eyes sparkle as she wanders into the kitchen to gather what she needs. I turn my attention to the black-framed collage she gave me holding years of our lives

together, each photograph filled with happy memories. A picture of me as I’m just waking up, the two of us standing in front of our house, gazing at one another right before I carried her across the threshold and fucked her up against the door. The one I took of her sleeping in my lap after a crying jag over Alexis. She looked so peaceful, so untainted, and unaware of the evil lurking in our lives that I couldn’t wake her. There’s one of her walking down the aisle toward me with happy tears in her eyes. One of me with the admiring expression over how stunning she looked on my face when I caught the first glimpse of her, and dead set in the middle is my favorite. Her head is on my shoulder, our hands are clasped over her heart, and our smiles are sincere instead of broken. My fingers itch to trace the outline of the two pictures I took of her. All that gorgeous hair around her, head thrown back, eyes slightly closed. Besides giving me all of her, this is the greatest gift she could give me. I continue to stare through a cloudy haze as I overthink all the words spoken today. How strong she was when I expected her to fall apart after hearing my revelation. How she talked over me, never allowing me to choke. Never allowing me to fall to the responsibility of losing something I never knew existed. Adriana never ceased to amaze me before our world went to hell; she drew me in the minute I met her, and in this short time of her finding out I’m alive, with everything else that’s been tossed at her from every direction, she’s sturdier than I realized. Tougher than I am, if I’m being honest. How she coped with losing our baby beats the fuck out of me. I can’t even wrap my head around it, and that’s what she wants. She doesn’t want me to feel the burn of losing so much more than her. She doesn’t want me to mourn something we created together. But I am. My actions cost me everything. I will never get them back, but just like her, I have to go on. I have to look at our future. Create new memories and put our past behind us. A tear slips down my cheek as I imagine our child. Being someone’s father. A role model to a creation we made together. “Don’t.” That one word falling from her lips takes my attention away from the dark and turns it into light when I see her sitting in a deep red velvet chair at the mouth of her hallway, her legs drawn up and chin resting on her knees. She’s exquisite despite the deep frown lines of worry on her forehead. “I’ll be alright, Adriana. I needed to feel all the emotions without the excess of breaking down completely. This tear”—I reach up and swipe it away—“is my way of grieving for everything we’ve lost, not just the baby. Years, the time taken away from us. Are you alright?” I ask, knowing she will be in the same way that I will. “Yes. I’ll be even better if we spend the rest of the day in bed.” Her reassurance is all it takes for me to stand, make my way to her, and lift her in my arms to carry her to bed. I lay her down, pick up the tray filled with finger food, and laugh. “What? You don’t approve of my Christmas dinner?” She props herself up on her elbows. Her nipples, her stomach, her pussy all showing through the sheer fabric. My cock goes hard.

“I approve. Although this isn’t what I’m eating.” I set the tray down on the nightstand, grab one of the glasses of wine, and hand it to her. Her brows lift in amusement. I take the other one and down it. The urge to be drunk on her is taking over. I take her glass from her outstretched hand after she finishes, gaze down at her as she brings up her other arm and opens them wide, her wedding rings catching my eye. I’m not ashamed to admit to myself that putting those back on her finger today meant as much to me as it did the day she became my wife. I pull my sweatshirt over my head; her eyes move from my chest to the tattooed arm designed for her. “God, I will never get tired of seeing those tattoos, Blake,” she whispers. The sudden shift in our moods stirs the urge for me to devour her. To make love to her all day and night. To exhaust ourselves in one another, because the way I see things, this is what a married couple with no fears, no worries over a sister not showing up, no sadness because she didn’t, should be able to do. “Something tells me you have a lifetime to admire them, sweetheart.” I open the fly of my jeans, tug them off, and drop down into her arms. “I’m done talking,” I say then take her mouth with mine briefly before tucking my hands underneath her ass. Our tongues collide. I feel the beauty of our future that lies ahead in her eyes until she closes them and her arms go up and around my neck. She pulls me in as close as she can get me, breathing in the same air as me. And Christ, I take her mouth in a ravishing tangle of lips and tongue. Spinning. Strong. Sharing how we feel about each other. She’s more than my wife. This woman is my life. She is every damn thing I’ve ever wanted. I let go of her ass, tangle my hands in her hair, and flip us over without breaking the connection. I kiss her until I can’t see straight. I consume her until she’s all I ever want to taste again. I can’t stop kissing her. My tongue travels around her mouth. I’m taking pleasure in her and demolishing everything that tried to break us at the same time. We’re both breathless when I pull away, tugging her higher up my body. I dip my head to trace a line with my tongue down her neck, her chest, and nip a hardened, peaked nipple in my mouth. I don’t speak, not until I have her straddling my face and unsnap what challenges me to taste her sweet pussy. “I love you so fucking much.” The snaps hiss in the air, then the garment is gone and she’s completely naked on top of me, hair in her face, her hands cupping her breasts, fingers tweaking her nipples. Fuck. Her eyes flare when I swipe a finger along her slit. She gulps. It’s insanely sexy watching her fall apart. She’s aroused, wet, and all mine. Her smell annihilates my senses. Fuck, I need to taste her, and then I’m going to make slow, tortuous love to her. We both need it with all that’s been said and done today. I’m going to tip her over the edge, though, watch her completely lose it with my touch. I’m going to devote, admire, and watch her fall apart under my hands. My tongue. My fingers. I press a finger inside, stroking her gently, while my tongue plunges inside of her. Licking, sucking, and taking control of her body. My dick gets even harder when she slides her fingers down her stomach, one of her thumbs pressing on her clit. “Goddamn,” I shout. Then my tongue goes back for more. My lips, face, and chin are dripping with her

taste. “I’m coming,” she screams, thumb circling her nub, pussy tightening around my fingers. I grab her ass and bury my face as far as it will go. Her back arches, hair whispering across my hands. I have never witnessed anything as erotic as her when she comes. Nothing more beautiful. “On your back,” I demand. My cock is so fucking hard he’s ready to explode. I need to be inside of her badly. “Let me taste,” she boldly states. “Fuck, no complaints there. I’ll give you anything you want.” The first swipe of her tongue across my lips has me breathing more unevenly. The wicked woman turns me on even more when her teeth scrape lightly over my tongue and she sucks it into her mouth. I groan, taking control and crashing her lips to mine. She protests with a whimper when I pull away. Her closed eyes pop open when she feels the tip of my cock at her entrance. “I love you,” she declares. Those meaningful, powerful words settle in my soul long term. I rest my forehead on hers, push halfway into her, and pause. “Make love to me.” Fucking hell, those are the sweetest words, the most gratifying request I’ve heard in a long time. “Feel this connection, Adriana. It’s forever,” I whisper, brace my hands at the sides of her head, and sink all the way inside. I pull out, tenderly push back in, her body warm, her pussy wet, her muscles clenching with her upward-moving hips. “Goddamn, I’ve never felt anything this incredible in my life.” Then I’m moving greedily inside her. Those long, shapely legs are wrapping around my ass to hold me close. The sounds of skin against skin joining take over my movements with a desire deprived to hear them. I maintain my strokes, long and deep. Slow and powerful. I’ll spend the rest of our lives showing her just how much she means to me, how deeply she’s embedded in me. This woman, my wife, my entire fucking world, is back in my arms, and with each powerful thrust, I close the door on our past. My cock pulses and throbs; her pussy tightens and squeezes. I light up when she whispers my name. The low, blissful sound escaping her mouth the same time I recite hers sends me over the edge. My orgasm is tightening my balls and pouring inside of her. “We’re going to be okay,” she states, her words never truer. “Yeah, we are.” I pull out of her. Drag her under the covers and into my arms. “Now isn’t the best time to tell you this, but I have to go to New York. I have to say good-bye to Alexis.” “I know you do. You’re not going alone, though. I’m coming with you.”

EPILOGUE ADRIANA- ONE WEEK LATER

As we sit in the warmth of Blake’s truck, my eyes shifting to the small, plotted area that holds my family’s final resting place, my nerves jump to my throat. Not over what I’m about to do; it’s because it’s well past this place’s closing time, it’s dark, and we’re back in the state where our lives unraveled. My stomach shifted with every car that passed us, and the closer we got to New York, the more restless I became. It wasn’t until we pulled into Hunter’s home late last night that I started to relax. The fear of those men finding us disappeared when Blake took hold of my hand and swore up and down they have no suspicions he’s alive. I wasn’t about to ask questions. I’m over living in the past. Over a life without him, and most importantly, I’m over my fear. Staying with Hunter gave me the opportunity to apologize to him. And just like the loyal man he is, he accepted. I’m not pregnant either. I started my period the day before yesterday. Which, in light of everything we’ve been through and the adjustment lying ahead of us, we’re both okay with. Our family will grow when the time is right. I believe that as much as I believe in us. “I’m proud of you.” I’m not about to tell him he doesn’t have to be proud of me. Especially when what I have to do has been a long time coming. More importantly, this is a time when I can say I’m proud of myself, too. It took the words of this unselfish man to make me see that this is something I need, and it couldn’t wait another day. I don’t feel burdened down with guilt anymore. I woke up the day after Christmas feeling lighter, happier, and for the first time in many years, free. And what better time than New Year’s Eve to let go and start a life I never thought would be possible? Blake and I have spent most of this past week talking. While some of it was done in bed, a lot of it was done while we moved his clothes and personal items into my house. He shifted his office to the house, hung up the collage I made him on one of the walls, and tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of our lives. Even though it hurts us both whenever we think of the years that were stolen from us, we both understand there isn’t a thing we can do to change it. What we can do, what we can focus on, is making our future what we want it to be. And that is for both of us to be happy. For our dreams to come true.

I’ve made peace with myself, and now I’m breaking off the last piece of the barrier that’s weighed me down for the past ten years. “I’m proud of you, too, you know.” I squeeze his hand I’ve been holding, release it, and meet him halfway for a brief kiss. I may not be able to see his smile through the darkness, but I can feel it, sense it, and know he’s proud of himself as well. “It hasn’t been quite a month yet, and look how far you’ve come. You went from a bitter man who disliked himself to a man who has forgiven himself for making a decision that caused those you loved pain.” He doesn’t have to acknowledge he hated himself. I know he did. Our circumstances may have been entirely different, but I’ve disliked myself for a long time, too. I’ve blamed and shamed myself for things that were out of my control. I’ve seen the look on his face when we sat staring at the morning view of the vineyard. He would be deep in thought. A lonely past flitting through his eyes one minute, and the next they would light up. Just like me, he was planning a future. A reality only lived in dreams. “I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if you hadn’t forgiven me first. We’re going to make it and come out of all this stronger than we were before. I love you so much. Go do what you need to do, so I can take my wife home. I’m here if you need me.” The crisp air bites around my ears, causing my teeth to chatter as I step out of the truck. The snow crunches under my feet. The darkness is mystifying, the moon sheltered underneath the gloomy clouds. While blackness surrounds me and my heart grows heavier with every step I take toward the resting place of the woman I have to set free, my heart feels lighter. My chest isn’t weighing me down, and my mind is clear. “The entire drive here I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to cry when I came to see you. You and I have cried enough, and yet I see your beautiful name etched into this marble stone, and I can’t help it,” I say before dropping to my knees in the deep snow. My voice is wobbly. My entire body is full of anxiety and despair. “I’m going to cry, possibly sob, but you’re going to listen to me this time, Alexis. Do you hear me?” I bow my head inhaling a lungful of frigid air. “I miss you, Alexis. I miss you so much that I used to blame myself for you not being here. But you see, I can still miss you without casting blame on myself, you, or anyone. I can forgive you without having to forget you.” I choke out a laugh. “I had this speech prepared in my head. All these big words with which I was going to scold you, ask you how you could choose something harmful over me, and yet none of those thoughts, none of those words are in my head. Every last one of them is gone. Gone in the same way you are.” I turn my head to where Blake is now standing next to his truck. And even though it’s dark, he’s still out in the open. Visible. Sacrificing again. For me. “Sisters are there for each other in the good times, but they’re also there in the times when we need them the most. I was there for you every time. I devoted most of my twenties to you. Whenever I got caught up in your world, I forgot how to live, Alexis. I forgot how to breathe. That’s what a sister does, though, isn’t it? She sacrifices her own happiness, and as your sister, I’m reminding you of that. I would do it all over again, Alexis, because I love you and you love me. You will always be my precious older sister. My memories of you are deep within me. The girl who tried so hard to accomplish things that meant something to her. The woman who became aggravated when she couldn’t, but

you failed to see one thing.” I give way to the enormity of my grief, sobbing into the gloves on my hands, the tears flowing freely now. They aren’t forced by anger; they’re required. Vital for me to follow through with what’s essential to my soul. “The drugs may have taken over the sister I once knew, but when the time came when I needed you, you came back to me, and that, Alexis, was your biggest accomplishment of all. You were there for me when I lost my baby. You cleaned me up. You took me to the doctor. I blocked most of that time out until Blake told me everything and it all came rushing back, Alexis. I knew you were there, I knew you took care of me, but I forgot about the things you said. You told me I was going to be happy again. You made me laugh when you said my happiness was going to sink into my bones and shake me all about. I am happy again. More than I thought possible. You know that already, though, don’t you?” I grip at the clutch in my hands. I may not need it for strength anymore, as my strength comes from within myself. The guilt, blame, and remorse from not being able to save her washes away with each tear that falls. “Your soul is free; your beautiful spirit is soaring. I’m letting you go.” I begin to cry one last time, each gasp tearing down my throat, and my heart begins to settle from finally being able to let her go. It’s a cleansing not fueled by anger but one fueled by the love I will always have for the woman who lost sight of who she was. “I’m not going to cry anymore. What I am going to do is let you go so you can rest in peace. I forgive you, and I will always love you.” I stand, brush off the snow, and begin to walk toward my future. My husband. “You okay?” he asks, pulling me straight into his arms. I lay my head over his chest, where I listen tentatively to the sound of his beating heart. “I have one more thing to say before I can be whole again,” I say, keeping my head right where it is. He doesn’t stiffen; he doesn’t talk. He listens. “Through all the bad times with Alexis, you never once faltered in your feelings for me. You never asked me to make her leave. You never put the weight on my shoulders to make a choice. You never stopped being my light. You never stopped loving me, Blake. Thank you for never stopping to want to come back to me.” Are you following me in all the right places? Newsletterhttps://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/a6r6g1 Instagram- @authorkcoopmans Twitter- @authorkathcoopmans Bookbub- https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kathy-coopmans

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AcknowledgementsMy husband Tony. You said I could do it and here I am living a dream all because of you. Gosh, I could go on and on about how much I love everything about you. However, I think the entire world knows by now that you’re my sexy man and I am the lucky one who happens to be the woman standing by your side. My sons Aaron and Shane. Keep on staking your claim in this world. I thrive on you being happy. My Panty Dropping Book Blog partners, Karrie, Heidi, and Kate. You three own a huge chunk of my heart. All my heartfelt thanks goes to every member of The Elite and The Cougars. You all have such HUGE hearts and I would not be where I am today if not for all of you. Julia Goda, my editor and boss lady. You have got to be one of the most patient women on this entire planet to put up with me. I LOVE YOU! Emily Kidman- Smith and Jill Sava. Two of the hardest working women in the business. Our chats inspire me. This list should be endless. However, it’s ending with the most important people of all in this industry. You, the readers, the bloggers, the authors. You have welcomed me into this world from day one and the only way I know how to repay you is by saying thank you. Thank you for all of your support, hard work and dedication. Life, as we know, is so darn hard and when you come across a hardcore group of people who are true, you hold tight and count every blessing you have, and I for one never forget a blessing.