I’m sorry, Jeremy. I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you. I’m in love with Conner and I want to be with him.

That’s what I’m going to say.

I’m going to tell Jeremy no. That we’re only twenty-five. That we have time to find someone else. That we’ll order him a mail-order bride from some sketchy internet sites if we have to. We’ll find a way, but that my mind is made up.

I’m not marrying him.

I’m choosing Conner.

But what about your mother?

What about the money?

Five-hundred million dollars in a lot of motivation.

The money is for my mother.

When Jeremy made me the offer, half a billion dollars in exchange for five years of marriage, I imagined giving it to her, telling her it’s hers, that she can have it, as long as she lets me go.

She’s never had any of her own and even though she seems content to run through my stepfather’s money like water, I know it bothers her. Spencer is twenty years older than her, and he’s made no provisions for her in his will. When he dies, she’ll be left with nothing. His children hate her. They’ll toss her out on the street before his grave is even dug and she know it.

It’s the reason she took me with her.

Why she insisted on plastic surgery and dental work. Finishing school and dermatologists. Clothes that I hate and a life I don’t want.

So, she could pimp me out. Find someone with money who’d want to marry me.

I’m her insurance policy.

And I let her because she was all that I had. Because I chose her. Let her take everyone else away from me. Because without Conner, none of it mattered. Who I married was irrelevant because whoever it was, it wouldn’t be him.

I remember looking at myself in the mirror, face bruised and swollen from where the plastic surgeon took a chisel and mallet to my nose. Mouth aching from hours in the dental chair and I didn’t see myself. I didn’t even see the person I was letting her turn me into to.

I saw Conner, his brow furrowed. Irritated with me because I wasn’t listening. Wouldn’t believe him.

I like your face.

If he saw me, he’d be furious.

Hate me for letting her change me.

No matter how angry he’d be or how much he hated me, it wouldn’t be more than I hated myself.

Don’t be childish, Henley. Do you really think someone who looks like Conner Gilroy could love someone who looks like you?

I thought about killing myself more than I like to admit. Because I was a coward. I couldn’t stand up to my mother but the thought of being forced to live her life was too much to consider.

Jeremy saved me from that.

That’s why I owe him. Because whether he knows it or not, he saved my life. Even if the situation we’re in now was designed for his benefit, even if he’s selfish and spineless and shallow, Jeremy kept me afloat.

So, I was going to marry him.

I was going to take the money and give it to my mother.

And then I was going to be free.

“Jeremy,” I call out, even before I have the front door to the apartment open all the way. I toss my keys on the counter and turn. He’s still in bed. Probably went back to bed after Conner left. “Jer—”

He’s not in bed.

Jeremy’s wide awake, sitting on the couch.

He’s not alone.

“Mother.” I’m surprised how steady I sound. How calm. “I thought you were in Paris.” I look at Jeremy, but he won’t look at me.

She’s standing at the window, her back to me. Hands clasped behind her back. Hearing me, she turns. “And I thought you were in Chicago.” Her gaze flicks over me, my jeans and sweater. My boots and my ponytail. “Imagine my surprise when I get a call from Janice Horne, telling me you were here.”

Janice Horne. Dalton’s mother.

The friend from New York I ran into my second night here. I introduced him to Conner. Told him the truth about me. Everything my mother worked so hard to keep hidden. That I wasn’t the daughter of some dead foreign diplomat. That my mother wasn’t a widow. That I didn’t go to Swiss boarding school.

“Mother, I—”

“Save it,” she snaps as me, her spiked heels sinking into the carpet as she crosses the room in long, angry strides. “You think I didn’t know?” she closes the gap between us, laughing at the way my mouth falls open and flaps like a fish out of water. “I’ve known since the moment you bought your train ticket, I just hoped some of Jeremy’s discretion had rubbed off on you.”

She knows.

I look at Jeremy. He still won’t look at me.

“Jeremy.”

“He won’t answer you.” My mother’s hand snaps out, fingers wrapping around my chin, hard enough to hurt. She turns my face, angling it under her scrutinizing glare, lip curled in disgust at my freckles. The mark Conner left on my neck. “And still with that Gilroy boy. You’re like a sad little homing pidgeon…” She clucks her tongue at me. “Would you like to know what Dalton told his mother?”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should.” Her fingers dig in, squeezing my face. “He told her that you let that trash fuck you in the bathroom in some sleazy bar, like a common whore.”

People knows I’m with Conner.

That we’re together.

I’m supposed to be ashamed. I’m supposed to be afraid of the scandal. Of what people are going to think, but I’m not.

What I am is relieved.

“Conner isn’t trash.” I shove her hand away, jerking my face out of her grip. “I love him.”

“Love him?” She laughs at me. “How stupid can you possibly be?”

“I’m not marrying Jeremy.” I say it out loud. “I’m staying here.”

I forgot how fast she is. How quickly she turns. Her hand lashes out again, this time she doesn’t grab me. She slaps me, hard enough to knock me back, into the wall. “Who do you think you are, you ugly little slut?” She glares at me. “Everything you have—your education, you face, your precious Spencer—you have because I gave them to you. You have nothing—you are nothing—without me.”

My heart twists painfully in my chest when she says Spencer’s name. He’s not my father. I’m nothing more than baggage that my mother carried into their marriage. I know he’s fond of me but…

“I’m not marrying Jeremy.” I shake my head, mind made up. “I’m staying here.”

I brace myself for another slap, but it doesn’t come. Instead, she smiles at me. Smooths her hands down the front of her skirt before folding them in front of her. “You will marry Jeremy. You will, or I’ll call his father and tell him all about Dr. Gregg Deaver.”

My mother must see my resolve crumbling because she smiles. “I have photos, Henley. Photos that will ruin both of them. I have several friends on the board of directors at Manhattan General. Friends who won’t want their hospital involved in a scandal of this magnitude. Your friend won’t be able to get a job at a free clinic by the time I’m through and Jeremy…” She casts him a pitying look. “Jeremy will be ostracized. No family. No friends. No money.” She looks at me again and shakes her head. “All so you can keep screwing a man who rotates tires for a living.”

“Dalton’s mother,” I say, grasping at straws. “She knows about Conner. She—”

“Janice Horne had been dealt with and so has her son.” She brushes her hair over her shoulder and smiles. “Everything is going to go on, according to plan.”

I look down at the ring Conner put on my finger this morning.

Not his ring.

Jeremy’s.

Don’t worry. You got what you came for and, in a few weeks, you’ll get to go home.

You can pretend I never happened.

I don’t want to.

I want to stay.

But I can’t leave Jeremy and Gregg to clean up my mess. My mother is my responsibility.

My mother gives me a rare, approving smile.

I don’t have to tell her she’s won.

She already knows.