She tried to act unimpressed with the penthouse, but it was still a shock every time she saw it. When Connor had first sent her the photos, she tried to brush it off as creative photography even as P squealed at the location. The first time she’d arrived with nothing but three suitcases stuffed with her meager belongings, it had taken her breath away.

“You like it?” Sam had asked.

“Uh, yeah,” she had said. Who wouldn’t?

Even now, as Sean trailed behind her and her anger simmered just below the surface, she caught her breath at the sight of the too-perfect penthouse. It was like something out of a magazine. Gorgeous, and she was all too aware she didn’t belong.

Harper hadn’t known what to expect when Sean emerged from the jail cell. Would he be excited to see her? Sheepish, but with that smirk that let her know everything would be okay? She hadn’t known, but she certainly hadn’t expected him to flat out ignore her. Sprinkle in the thorny heartache and their complete lack of trust, and it didn’t take long for a hurricane to brew inside her.

Harper strode through the living room, aware of his eyes on her back. Even at her biggest runway show, she’d never embraced so much height or taken up so much room. She tossed the keys on the sofa console table where they made a neat tinkle in the handblown glass bowl.

Immediately, Harper retreated to what she secretly called her side of the apartment. Connor knew what he was doing, alright. A penthouse with two master en-suites, equal in size and luxury, with a stretch of semineutral ground parading as the living room, dining room and kitchen.

Harper didn’t give a damn about the lack of bedding in Sean’s bedroom. She didn’t even peek when Connor dragged the big bag with a duvet, pillows and sheets into the other room. Instead, she’d quickly torn into her own bedding, gifted from Connor, of course, and set about making “her room” as personal and safe as possible.

She clicked the push-button lock behind her, waltzed into the posh bathroom, and turned on the tap. As she sank to the floor, the sobs came before she could even curl up on the warm tiles with the radiant heat.

You shouldn’t have yelled at him about the money, she chastised herself. After all, there were a million other things she could be pissed about—was pissed about. Screaming about his wealth just made her look like she was mad because he’d cut off any potential for gold digging when they’d been happy together.

Happy together. That was a funny thought. She shook her head and the tears splattered across the gray floor. Having money is hardly a crime, she thought. And he certainly hadn’t owed her any transparency in that regard.

She should have known, anyway. The fancy dinners, what had to be an unbelievable sum to enter the sex party, that night at the hotel—how had she thought he’d afforded it? Had she hoped he was so much of a bad boy that he was bankrolling that lifestyle on a stolen credit card? Laundered money, what?

Harper sighed. Hiding the money had just been the last straw. Her heart was already overburdened, and it wouldn’t have taken much at all to push her over the edge. When her tears had gone dry, she pulled herself up from the floor and examined herself in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and her lashes damp. Streaked down her cheeks were black rivulets of mascara that was supposed to be waterproof.

In the unfamiliar closet that smelled of a strange cleaning solution, she flipped through the few dresses, skirts and blouses that had made it from her earlier move-in. She pulled out a simple sleeveless black maxi dress.

“You can do this,” she told her reflection in the angled free-standing mirror. She looked like she was in mourning, and perhaps she was. “You can’t hide in here forever.”

Just as she’d pumped herself up enough to face him, she heard the doorbell ring and the click of the front door opening. Male voices mumbled, unintelligible from her quarters.

Harper stepped out lightly, barefoot, onto the concrete flooring of the living room. Two brusque parole officers talked to Sean as he sat on the couch. One leaned menacingly over him while one hand rested leisurely on a pistol. The other was crouched down to fit the ankle monitor.

She noticed Sean had changed out of the clothes he’d been arrested in. His hair looked slightly damp, and she gulped at the idea of him in the shower. Get yourself together. Something about the wornout denim jeans and the tight-fitting white shirt made her heart start to flutter. The officer rose up to reveal a clunky, blinking contraption that rested on Sean’s Converse high-tops.

Harper moved to the adjacent, matching loveseat and perched on the edge while the officers ticked off the rules. “ … home except for parole meetings … go outside the building and the monitor will go off … alcohol or drugs in your system will alert the monitor, too …”

Jesus. It really was house arrest. For the first time, Harper realized that meant Sean would always be here. If she were to avoid him, she’d have to leave. Suddenly the idea of it being “her home, too” seemed like a joke.

“What about AA?” he asked quietly. He’d positioned himself to face as far away from her as possible without pissing off the cops.

“We spoke to your sponsor about that,” the bigger cop said. “You can leave for meetings, as long as it’s at one of these ten locations in your area.” He handed Sean a slip of paper. “We know exactly when and where these meetings happen and how long they last. Given the radius, you have exactly twenty minutes from the official ending time to get back here. Understand?”

Sean nodded, like he’d been reprimanded by a schoolteacher.

“If you want to go anywhere else, it’s on a case-by-case basis. And your PO, me, needs to be notified at least forty-eight hours in advance. Got it?”

“I got it,” he said.

The officers never acknowledged her. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad omen. She watched their backs retreat toward the fancy entryway. It felt odd, to be in this multimillion dollar penthouse while parole officers fastened an ankle monitor to one of the tenants.

Sean shifted toward her, fast and unexpected. Their eyes met and she read it as a challenge. She wouldn’t look away first.

“Want to order some Chinese food?” he asked.

That wasn’t what she’d expected as his first words to her in “their new home.” But she shrugged in agreement. Hell, let him do whatever he wants.

He pulled up a number on his phone while Harper dragged her laptop off the coffee table. She’d left it charging there last night, not knowing how much she’d want to disappear from sight as soon as she arrived with Sean.

She went through her email and opened the Craigslist jobs section while Sean listed off way too much food for two people. She’d missed that gravel in his voice, somehow incredibly sensual even when he did something as mundane as ordering Peking roasted duck.

Harper shifted as she snuck looks at him from over her laptop. Her mind might be in a rage at him and her heart might be on the verge of shattered, but her body was still highly attuned to him. How can I hate someone so much and want them at the same time?

Okay, maybe hate is a strong word. But still …

She nearly smiled when she saw an ad with the headline “Beautiful but broke?” You got me, she thought. Harper briefly wondered how desperate she’d need to be before she forayed into the adult entertainment industry. Not that I really would, she thought. But in that moment, Sean had turned her on so much by doing nothing but ordering dinner. It had been three weeks since they’d last been together, and before that she’d grown quite accustomed to mindblowing sex on a regular basis. If I could just feel him one more time—

“What are you doing?” His gruff voice briskly pulled her back to reality.

“Oh,” she blushed and wondered if he could tell when she was wrapped up in a fantasy. “Looking for a job.”

“A job? Like a new campaign?”

“Like a real job because I got fired,” she shot back.

He blinked, and for a moment she wondered if it was the reaction she’d always feared. Is he disgusted by me now that I’m not a model? Is that downward glance really trying to gauge how fat I’ve gotten?

“Fucking idiots,” he said. “Why the hell would they fire you? When did it happen?”

“When did it happen? Oh, I don’t know. Sometime when you were in jail. I can’t recall the exact date, considering it was sometime in the past month.”

He looked hurt, but pressed on. “Come on, I really want to know. If I can help—”

“Help? How about this for some help? If you really want to know, I was on the way to tell you the fucking day you got arrested! Okay? That’s when it happened.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Sorry my little nothing news was eclipsed by all your drama.”

“Harper, I’m sorry. I truly am. I … I don’t know how else to say it.”

She looked at him for a long pause. For a second, she almost gave in. Just tell him it’s okay. She knew he’d take her back, at least momentarily, and she was so exhausted from being so scared, so angry.

But it’s not okay, she reminded herself. There was an ocean of a chasm between them that couldn’t be pieced back together. At best, we have a hell of a mess to figure out. She didn’t know if she could ever really see him the same again.

Harper snapped her laptop closed and stood up. “Goodnight,” she said.

“But what about dinner?” She let his voice get cut off by the slam of her bedroom door.