The restaurant is small, a breakfast house that’s mostly empty because it’s close to noon. They serve lunch, too, but that’s not what people come here for.

Not that I have an appetite. I’m too damn nervous to consider eating.

I walk inside, see her in the last booth that bumps against the wall, sitting so she faces the doorway. She lifts her hand in greeting, but otherwise there’s no expression. She looks stiff. Worried.

The slightest bit annoyed.

I make my way toward the back of the restaurant and slide into the seat across from her, my head turning when the waitress stops before us, her gaze on me and a silver pitcher covered with condensation clutched in her hand. “Something to drink?”

“Just water, please,” I tell her, and she pours me a quick glass before she takes off.

“You’re late.” Her voice is sharp, accusing.

I meet her gaze. “By only five minutes.” I’d left fifteen minutes early but was delayed by unusually bad traffic, not that she deserves to hear my excuse. She’d just shit on it anyway.

“I thought you weren’t going to show up.” The smile she flashes me is brittle. Fake. “You have a bit of a reputation for disappearing at times, according to my sister.”

Brenna Watts faintly reminds me of Katie. Same face shape, same eyes. Even their voices are similar, but otherwise, that’s it. There’s an edge to this woman that Katie doesn’t have. A sort of weariness hangs over her, implying that she’s tired of . . . everything. “What did you want to talk about?” I ignore her dig, which I’m sure infuriates her further.

She leans across the table, her bluish-gray eyes steely. “You need to stop trying to contact my sister.”

I raise a brow. I haven’t reached out to Katie since our messed-up meeting at the coffee shop, and that was days ago. I was trying to let her cool off. Trying to get my head straight. “Are you dictating who she can or cannot see?”

Brenna slaps the edge of the table, the sound so loud the both of us jump. “You don’t get to ask any questions. You don’t get to act like you know what’s best for her or that you care. You continually tear her heart out and rip it to shreds, and I hate the way you toy with her. Leave. Her. Alone.”

Taking a sip of my water, I try to calm my own racing, bruised heart. I don’t want a screaming match to explode between us and I can tell she’s dying for one. Once that happens, Brenna will run and tell Katie everything. I’ll look even more like a bad guy. “She’s an adult. If she wants to see me, she’ll see me.”

“Please. Katherine doesn’t know what’s good for her half the time. She’s lived scared for most of her life and doesn’t know how to do it any other way. Her blind decision to start a relationship with you proves that her judgment isn’t sound. She came to me crying about you and she was such a wreck. She told me everything, all that you’ve done to hurt her. Betray her. Yet I don’t think she’s over you, even after everything that’s happened. I’ve had enough. Katherine’s had enough.” Brenna pauses, her gaze never flickering away from mine. “You’re nothing but a monster, toying with her emotions, her body. Her heart.” Another pause. “You’re just like your father.”

The insult is a direct hit, stabbing me in my already battered heart, and I have the sudden vision of myself bleeding out all over the chipped Formica table between us. Taking a deep breath, I let my head hang for a moment, my arms propped on the edge of the table. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about, you prick. Your father destroyed my family. Ruined my sister, devastated my parents, and turned me invisible.” I lift my head to find her glaring at me, her eyes full of fire. “Then you come along years later and it happens all over again. My father’s dead. My mother doesn’t know how to help her and no one gives a shit about what I think. What sort of sicko are you?”

“I’m in love with Katie,” I tell her, my voice low. Quiet.

Brenna gapes at me for a moment, just before she starts to laugh. Though the sound isn’t filled with a lick of humor. “I don’t think you know what love is. How could you? Look who raised you.” I part my lips to answer but she cuts me off. “You’re obsessed. You’ve been obsessing over her since you two first met, when you were both children. It’s messed up.”

“No one else has experienced what Katie and I have,” I tell her vehemently. “The trauma we suffered together bonded us.”

She raises a brow. “I sometimes can’t help but wonder if you did participate in her kidnapping. Did you hold her down while your father raped her? Did he let you abuse her, too?”

Anger penetrates my skull, white hot and nearly blinding. “Take that back.”

“Katherine’s denied it all along but there are too many unanswered questions, especially with you back in her life, sniffing around her.” Brenna’s gaze turns dark. Heavy. “Did you want another taste? Was that it?”

Clearly she’s trying to provoke me. I refuse to take the bait. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re damn right, I wouldn’t understand. I can’t fathom why you would want to reconnect with Katherine. Date her. Kiss her. Have sex with her—to the point you’re now claiming that you’re in love with her.” Brenna tilts her head to the side. “What did you see next, hmm? If this would’ve worked between you two, did you really envision a future with her? Did you see marriage? Babies?”

Swallowing hard, I reach for my water glass and drain it. I have no answer. And I have a feeling I know what she’s going to say next.

“Don’t you think you’ve fucked with her head enough? A future with you is impossible for Katherine. Marrying the son of the man who raped and almost murdered her is insane. Having his babies is even worse. Aaron Monroe would be their grandfather. Can you imagine?” Brenna grimaces. “That’s disgusting. Your children wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Her words chip away at my soul, one by one, bit by bit. Worse, she’s saying things I’ve already thought myself. I may be in love with Katie, but what’s the point? How can we carry on when everything between us is so fucked up? “Is that what Katherine thinks?” I ask tightly. I need to know.

“What?” Brenna frowns.

“Is that what Katherine thinks about us? About our relationship.” I curl my fingers around the edge of the table, so tight I’m afraid I could snap it right off. “Does she think I’m a monster?”

Brenna leans back in her seat, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Well. You’re the son of one.”

I’m paralyzed, waiting for the rest of her verbal attack, but nothing else comes. Deep down inside, I know I deserve to hear every horrible thing she has to say to me. About me. Brenna Watts will gladly tear me down. Tear me apart.

But she says nothing more. And it’s in those deathly still minutes when I realize her single statement hurts far more than anything else she could have said.

You’re the son of one.

I can’t change who my father is. I’m stuck with that burden no matter how much I try to ignore it. I can change my name, change my looks, and move to another country, but the fact still remains.

I’m the son of a monster.

“Is that all you wanted to say, then?” I ask when she remains quiet.

She blinks, seemingly shocked. “Yes. I suppose so.”

I slide out of the booth, Brenna never taking her gaze off of me. Like she expects me to make some random threatening move toward her and she needs to be on the defensive. “Then we’re done,” I tell her before I exit the restaurant, never once looking back.

It’s not until I’m outside in the parking lot, rounding the driver’s side of my car, that the nausea crushes me in its grip. I bend over, retching back up the water I drank, my throat raw, my eyes watery. I walked in with an empty stomach and the muscles spasm, trying their damnedest to expel nothing. Resting my hands on my thighs, I hang my head, spit onto the ground, and close my eyes against the onslaught of Brenna’s horrific words still spinning in my head.

The truth is hard to face. Everything Brenna said is true and I can’t deny it. When it’s stated so boldly, laid out before me in all of its unflinching glory, her worry for her sister is validated, as is her disgust.

Memories come at me, one after another. The memory of when I first found Katie. When I ran from her. When I came back and she didn’t believe I wanted to help her. The fear I saw in her eyes, the hesitation. She didn’t trust me. In her eyes I was a monster.

I’m still a monster. I’ve just taken on a different form. I don’t hurt her physically, just emotionally. And how fucked up is that?

There’s nothing else I can do.

I need to leave Katie alone.