“Let us out here, please.” I sounded as if I’d smoked five packs of Winstons a day for the past year.

Swallowing hurt. Speaking hurt.

I hurt.

My driver Frank didn’t balk, nor did he joke, which was rare for him. We weren’t buddies yet, but we weren’t enemies either. With my current track record, anything other than physical violence or threats of death felt like a hug.

Not that I didn’t deserve what was coming to me. It was just harder to accept the coldness from all directions than I’d even guessed.

Especially when it came to the woman sitting beside me in the back seat of the car, her gaze fixated out the window and her hands tightly clasped in her lap.

“Whatever you say, boss. You need a pickup?”

I started to say no—wishful thinking, really, since the graffiti on the wall said all I needed to know—when Zoe interrupted.

“Give him two hours,” she said quietly, not looking at me.

“There you have it.” I tried to sound cheerful, for no reason I could discern.

Just another mask I wore. Anyone could see the marks on my throat or hear the rasp in my voice. I couldn’t hide those realities any more than I could pretend Zoe was shooing me out because she was tired and wanted some sleep.

She wanted a rest, all right, but it wouldn’t be improved with eight hours of shuteye.

Frank flashed me a glance in the rearview mirror. It was rife with pity. “I’ll be back.” His soft promise was nearly enough to make me bow my head in gratitude.

I’d be riding back to my motel, but at least I wouldn’t be alone.

Not entirely.

I trailed Zoe inside without making any of my usual comments about security or the nearness of the beach or anything else. None of that was appropriate.

What was appropriate between us now, other than goodbye?

She tapped her code into the keypad and we walked up the hallway in the same silence we’d entered the building with. She unlocked her door and stepped inside, almost immediately undoing her hair from its braids. Thick rivulets of blond and purple hair spilled down her back as she moved toward her small kitchenette. She opened the refrigerator and took out a jug of sweet tea before pouring some into a glass. Then she reached into a cupboard for a bottle of Crystal Head vodka.

Since she’d never before served me alcohol, I could tell this conversation was going to be a doozy.

“I saw you holding a bottle of this in one of the many pictures of you that surfaced online.” She traced the glass skull with an odd sort of detachment. “I wanted to try it, to see what it tastes like. That’s been a problem for me with you since the start. Glass?”

“Please.” I would’ve preferred to swig it straight from the bottle, but I feared I wouldn’t be able to swallow—and not just because of my brother’s penchant for trying to kill me.

She took a glass down for me and set it down without pouring my drink. Instead of doing the honors myself, I just clutched the skull against my belly, probably looking as if I was a boy in search of comfort. It wasn’t far from the truth.

“I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”

She didn’t speak for a while, just stood and sipped and stared off into the distance. “I believe you,” she said finally. “You didn’t want to hurt me.”

The slight question in her statement nearly broke me. “No. God, no. I would hurt myself a million times over rather than even risk hurting you.”

“Which you did. You could have come clean to me and alleviated your burden at the very least. But that’s what you do, right? Drown in the pain, make the guilt part of your DNA.”

“It was my burden,” I corrected. “And I wouldn’t have come clean to you and made you complicit in what I was involved in. You’re too good to be sullied by the likes of me.”

“That’s for me to decide.” She slammed down her glass and I realized she’d already drained it. “You don’t get to drag me into a world not of my making and then pretend you’re chivalrous by keeping me blindfolded. What if it had been me they’d taken instead of Margo, Ian?”

I shut my eyes. “My worst fear,” I whispered.

“Yeah, and I know that’s what finally made you come clean. I know you care for me, but—”

“I don’t simply care for you. I love you more than my own life. You’ve given me my life. A reason to care about still breathing.”

“And that’s wrong too. It’s all wrong, Ian. Can’t you see that?” She grabbed my forearm, her nails digging in until I had no choice but to open my eyes. “You would have sacrificed yourself and you didn’t even think of me. Didn’t even think about what it would do to me if—” She broke off and threw up a hand when I reached for her. “Don’t. I can’t stand you to touch me right now.”

I dropped my hand and stared at it as if it was on fire. I could smell it burning just like the ashes of what I’d almost had.

And lost.

Always lost.

“You think the ends justifies the means. If you save Margo, it’s worth the loss of you.”

“How could I do anything else?” I asked helplessly. “If not for me, she wouldn’t have been in that situation in the first place.”

“I don’t know everything about that situation, and I may never know it. Gotta admit I really don’t want to hear all the details about how far you fell. How little you cared about yourself that you’d mortgage your future—and your brother’s and his wife’s.” Zoe’s throat moved as she swallowed. “And their child’s.”

“I didn’t have a clue about any of that. I swear to you.”

“I know you didn’t. But that isn’t a get out of jail card. You were playing with people’s lives, just as they played with yours. You were just their pawn.”

Shame burned up my spine and I opened the bottle of vodka so I couldn’t feel the singe as it sheared straight through to the bone. I took a long drink and wiped my mouth, then did it again.

Zoe simply walked away.

I didn’t follow. Like the coward I was—the pawn—I stood in her small kitchen and drank until the worst of the pain filling my head dulled enough for me to function.

To get through this conversation that would kill the only thing I loved.

If it wasn’t dead already.

After I’d cleared a third of the bottle, I left the glass behind and walked into the living room, still clutching my vodka. The exhaustion and fear from the past few days was hammering at the base of my skull and I swayed on my feet.

She didn’t see me. She faced away from me where she sat, looking so small and burdened, on the sofa.

“If you thought I’d fight you on this, you’re wrong.” My words were a little slurred, though that could have been from earlier combined with just enough alcohol to make everything fuzz out of focus.

If I hadn’t been so bone-deep tired, it wouldn’t have affected me so. Or if I’d eaten…well, anything. My stomach was hollow, my head and chest too full.

She let out a brittle laugh and covered her face with her hands. “Of course you won’t fight me. Because that’s not what you do. You lay down and let them drag you under. Isn’t that what—” She stopped and let her hands fall away, her face blanching of color.

“Isn’t that what what?” I stared at her, not understanding, until her expression told me the direction of her thoughts. “Isn’t that what my burning myself is about? Or my trying to end it all?”

“Ian, no.” She rose. “I have no right to judge. What you’ve lived through is beyond my scope.”

“But you love me. Loved,” I adjusted quickly as she averted her eyes. “Even with all our differences, we found a way to matter to each other. God, Zoe, you matter to me. So much more than I ever mattered to myself.” I tipped the bottle to my mouth, barely noticing as vodka splashed my shirt. “You’re right. I didn’t fight. Oh, I did early on. But eventually, I grew weary and decided it was easier to submit. The less of a struggle, the less it hurts. Except you know what? It fucking hurts. I fucking hurt.”

“You hurt because you can’t make yourself not feel. It’s not possible. You’re so strong and vibrant and with every bit of yourself you shut down, you were slowly killing yourself. As surely as if you’d bled out.” Tears smeared her cheeks as she gripped my shirt, shaking me as if she could make me see.

But I already did. At least I was beginning to.

Through it all, there was Zoe. She’d been the beginning of a new life for me. A reason to see myself as more. To start to believe it deep down. Maybe that spark was just a flicker, but it was real and it existed.

Because of her.

“I’m bleeding out right now. But I’m still on my feet. I’m still here.” Saying the words was a strengthener, infusing my voice with a power it shouldn’t have had. Not when it was as broken as the rest of me. “I’m not laying down anymore.”

She pressed her face to my chest, her shoulders shaking. She was still holding on to me despite everything.

At least for this last moment, she was still mine.

I cupped her cheek with fingers that weren’t steady and eased her back. “Once more. Please. I need to carry your memory with me.”

Her wet amber eyes beseeched me. As if she was asking me not to make her do this. To make it easier for her to break free.

She thought I was so eager to submit? Perhaps the old Ian had been, once time had worn me down. Now? I’d fight dirty if it meant one more hour with her.

Inside her.

Hell, one more minute would be a gift. And I might be ashamed later I’d resorted to such tactics, but I wouldn’t regret it.

If this was all there would ever be of us, I intended to make it count.