She invited him and our family to her engagement party. She was fine being around him at the haunted house. I heard a rumor they were having business meetings.

But she just sighed. “Why don’t I hate any of them?” she asked. “I guess when you hate someone you don’t have to hate them forever.”

But it wasn’t okay. How could she trust him? How could she forgive him?

“I don’t excuse what he did,” she said, hesitating for a moment, “but…I don’t know. I see a chance in there. I can’t explain it.” And then she continued, “Michael, Kai, Will… They have never disappointed me since.”

I didn’t know what they’d done to her compared to Damon, but I knew what he did to me compared to her. I would never forgive him.

“He hasn’t hurt you, has he?” she asked, like she expected he wouldn’t really.

Another hard question to answer. Was he forcing me? No.

Was he threatening me? Playing with my head?

“The mindfucks are a little rough,” I told her.

She scoffed, sounding like she understood. “Yeah, they are good at that.”

The director was shouting on stage, giving direction, and then the piano started up again as I heard a dozen pairs of ballet slippers hit the stage, the musical number beginning again.

“The only good memory I have of Damon when we were younger was when we were kids,” Rika told me. “I was like three or four—the memory is faint but I remember the gist—and we were at the library. Another kid pushed me down and stole my pop-up book.” She laughed a little at the memory. “Damon stole it right back and gave it to me. He never talked to me, and my mom invited him to come sit with us and read, but he had to leave with his nanny, I think.”

I pictured it in my head, Damon doing what he did and taking control of the situation. I wasn’t sure why she told me that, as if an endearing little story would make up for who he was now.

“I didn’t start to fear him until high school.” Her voice sounded thoughtful as if she were figuring something out herself for the first time, too. “After everything that was happening in that house happened to him.”

“It’s no excuse,” I pointed out.

And she agreed. “No, it’s not.” she said. “It’s a reason. Plain and simple. There’s always a reason why things are as they are.”

I returned to the house late, sliding out of my shoes and unwrapping my scarf as I entered my bedroom. I hadn’t seen Damon for almost two days, and I wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing, but I was tired.

So tired.

I undressed and slipped into one of my sleep sets, the cool silk of the shorts and shirt refreshing on my exhausted body, and I plugged my phone into the charger, ignoring the notifications from my mother.

I reached my mom yesterday morning, confirmed she and Ari were safe again, and when I asked how she could leave me and when she’d be back, she paused just a little too long, and I hung up. Let her get her excuses straight and leave me a message.

Had she honestly believed that shit he told her? About us being in love and needing time to reconnect?

Or was it what she wanted to believe, because it was easier than fighting back?

I locked my door and lodged my chair under it before sliding into bed and setting my alarm.

But as tired as I was, sleep wouldn’t come.

Doors opened and closed quietly downstairs as Damon’s security moved about, circulating around the property and keeping an eye on the house while he was away.

At first, I thought it was guards for me. To hinder my coming and going and report back to him on what I was up to. And those were undoubtedly some of their orders, but no one gave me any hassle when I wanted to go somewhere, and I never got any instruction to stop doing that or stop going there.

A driver chauffeured me, doors were opened for me, and if it wasn’t them or Damon creeping me out the other morning or in the theater, I actually felt a little safer with them here.

When he was gone.

I clutched the sheet, resenting the thought that wormed its way in. That a part of me wished he wasn’t gone.

Where was he? It had been days. Did he still have Mikhail?

Or did Damon go to the Maldives after all? A pang of jealousy hit me, and I drew in a deep breath, pulling my shirt away from my neck, because I felt stifled.

Fuck you.

What the hell was I doing? The sex was good, so I forgot that he was a lowlife? What a cliché.

I didn’t care that he defended Rika when she was four or that he was abused as a child. Plenty of people grew up shitty.

I’d fucking loved who he pretended to be, but his lie negated everything that happened between us. He humiliated me.

Why was it so hard to remember that whatever he made me feel had been a lie, too?

The haunted house. The fantastical fear. The pulse in my veins.

But then I remembered his strong arms around me.

I loved the danger. The way he brought me to life.

My fingers rested on my stomach, against the sliver of skin where my shirt rode up, and I glided my hand along it, throbbing between my thighs as my nipples poked through my shirt.

Tears burned my eyes. I hated myself.

Because I wanted him.

He lied so well, didn’t he? That I wanted to feel everything he convinced me of when he was in my bed when I was sixteen.

A tear fell, but I tried not to cry. I wanted to feel him again.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t let him win.

I heard a heard a car pull up outside, the door open and slam shut, and then the door downstairs slam.

I froze, the pulse pumping in my neck as I listened.

Footfalls on the stairs.

A creak in the floors.

The slow whine in the floorboards getting closer, and I heard Mikhail whine.

I closed my eyes. No.

He jiggled my door handle. When it didn’t give, because it was locked, he did it harder.

The door still didn’t open.

Everything was quiet for a moment, and I clutched the sheet at my sides, waiting, and then…

The door was kicked in.

I sucked in a breath as it flung open, the wood splintering, the handle crashing to the floor, and I heard my chair tip over and hit the wood.

I shot up in bed, shaking my head against the heat rushing my belly and the warmth between my legs. “Don’t,” I begged.

But I wasn’t sure if I was telling myself or him.

I didn’t hear him move, but I knew it was Damon. The cloves drifted off his clothes, and the security would’ve stopped him if it wasn’t.

A light sweat made the silk pajamas stick to my skin, and I pulled off the sheet, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

“Please, don’t,” I whispered. “I can’t think straight.”

His footsteps approached, he stopped in front of me, and I heard ice clink in a glass as he took a drink and cupped my chin.

He ran his fingers over my jaw, possessive.

“You don’t want to want it,” he said in a low, deep voice, “but you do.”

“Please.” Just leave. “Please.”

Don’t touch me. Don’t hold me. Don’t take me in your arms.

He set the glass down on my nightstand, and I heard him remove clothes, his jacket maybe, and throw it off somewhere.

“Lie down,” he told me.

“No,” I mumbled.

I heard buttons go flying as he tore off his shirt and then the jingle of a buckle as he unfastened his belt.

“Lie down, Winter,” he said sternly.

He’s not him. He’s not who I fell in love with.

He was my sister’s husband, and he wanted to make sure I was never happy again.

I put my hands on his stomach, holding in my sobs as he threaded his fingers through my hair, bringing my head in close. Bending down, his breath falling across my lips, he said, “On your back, Winter. Do it.”

And then his lips caught mine, biting, and I kissed him back, letting his tongue sink into my mouth and feeling the need for him course through my body.

But instead of lying down, I pulled back, touched his face, and pleaded with him as he caressed my cheek with his thumb.

“Just let me go,” I told him.

And he growled, throwing me off.

I cried, scooting away from him on the bed as he stalked around my room.

“Let me go,” he mocked me, repeating my words. “Why can’t you shut up? Why can’t you all just shut the fuck up?”

“I will hate you if you do this to me,” I fought. “I’ll despise you and never stop trying to escape you, because I could never love you. Because you’re sick, and I hate the way you make me feel! I could never love you.”

A clutter went crashing to the floor, and I knew he’d shoved everything off my dresser.

But I didn’t stop. “And I hate myself around you,” I told him, saying anything to hurt him. “I hate what I let myself do with you, because the only way I can get you away from me is to get it over with!”

“That’s not true,” he bit out.

I climbed off the bed, facing where his voice was coming from. “You’re such a little boy. A child who can’t control himself. A disease!”

More went crashing to the floor, and I heard my mirror shatter in his little tantrum, but I only grew stronger.

“So come on,” I dared him. “Fuck me. Do the only thing you know how to do, because it’s all you can take from me anyway, and I don’t give a shit about any of it! Take the house. Take the family who left me here with you. Take the fucking clothes off my back and make me walk out of here naked!” Sobs filled my throat, but I refused to let them loose. “I would gladly do it if it meant getting away from you!”

He rushed up to me, grabbing the back of my neck. “You were in love with me.”

“It wasn’t the real you. It was nothing but an act!”

I slapped his hand away and shoved him in the chest.

“You shouldn’t have killed her,” I said, digging deep for the worst fucking things that would ever come out of my mouth. “She was the only one who was ever going to love you. She was the only one who wanted to touch you and take care of you and be around you!”