Everything felt wrong. I knew that the moment I stepped inside Summerland’s and Ironside ushered me into the dressing room. He didn’t threaten me, but there was a hint of warning in his voice. He wanted me to make Ransom happy.

“Give him a good show,” he’d said.

But that orto had no idea what it would take to make Ransom happy. Ironside didn’t know that Ransom was stuck in perpetual numbness and not even me dancing for him, hidden again behind that tight blonde wig and the large fanned mask, would pull him from it. What I didn’t say to the bata as he watched his girls disguising me with thick makeup and long fake lashes, was that I wanted Ransom happy. It’s all I wanted. I wanted him to smile, to laugh and mean it. I wanted to take that shade from his eyes. I wanted him to kiss me and not feel guilty for doing it.

Ransom wanted the dancer. Ironside had said as much to me as I stood behind a thick bamboo screen and slid into the corset. “He badgered me for weeks about you.” But it wasn’t me, was it? It was the dancer rubbing against him, the one Ransom probably thought couldn’t get inside his head. The one he didn’t have to look at in the daylight. The one he could sex up and then walk away from.

I had been told my entire life to sacrifice what I wanted for everyone else. It was expected. It was something that I thought was normal, that I believed was just the way of things—that women submitted, and were glad to for the men that took care of them. But my father hadn’t taken care of me because I reminded him of what he’d lost. So I stopped believing that submission was what all good women did. If that’s what they did, then I never wanted to be a good woman.

But I would be. For Ransom. As stupid as it sounded in my head, he was the only person who’d deserved my sacrifice. That was a one-sided, unbelievable decision that I hoped he never discovered. I would dance for him if it meant he’d find a release. If it meant he could step away from the punishment he subjected himself to, and smile a real, honest smile, just once.

“You set?” Ironside asked, leaning against the door.

I managed a final glance in the mirror, shaking my head at the long, fake curls on the wig and the deep red lipstick. It was all smoke and mirrors, meant to hide me from Ransom. Meant to give him the illusion of seduction that he could feel blindly, without any thought. It was an art form expertly executed, but I still hated it, hated why it was necessary.

The auditorium was packed as I walked through it, avoiding the crowd brimming with happy football fans still reeling from CPU’s win. The smoke was thick, the laughter like a buzz in my head that echoed. My heart raced, pounded hard as I moved around the crowd, catching no one’s gaze but the woman overhead, swinging from the rafters like a half-drunk green fairy.

No one stopped me as I walked backstage toward the private room and only the faint, quiet buzz of that crowd greeted me behind that curtain. This was the moment Ransom had craved, the same moment I dreaded. He would touch the dancer, not me. That anonymous face would greet him because it’s what he wanted. And as I twisted the silks around my arms, it was Ransom’s desire I thought about. That and the small hope that this hidden dance would heal him, if only for a little while.

The deep, electric vibration of a bass guitar, those slow, seductive moans of a sultry alto voice and I closed my eyes, tried to push away the thought of Ransom as I’d known him for over a month. I didn’t want to think about how wide his smile became when his little brother jumped on his back and weaved his arms around Ransom’s neck, refusing to let go, or how he’d stare after his parents like they amazed him. They had real love. And I guessed, as I took a breath, waited for the curtain to rise, that this small thing I did for Ransom was something like love too.

Maybe it was the thing I’d told him I never wanted starting to brim and grow inside me. Maybe I did love him. Just a little.

Ransom sat in that plush wingback, slouching like he had no energy left. He let his legs splay open, was relaxed and held his loose fist against his mouth. But his eyes were eager, hungry as I spun around on the silks. I caught the bright, anxious light in them and how steadily they followed me as I flew over that small stage.

Tonight, Ironside wouldn’t watch, I was going to make sure of that: as the beat continued, more of The Weeknd’s “Same Old Song,” I glided to the front of the stage and let the silks fall behind me. That fabric whispered over my skin and I moved, offering Ransom one glance, to the bar console and pulled off the tablecloth spread out there, walked to the small window next to the door and fitted the cloth around the molding, never once glancing at Ironside standing on the other side.

Ransom had turned to watch me as I ensured our privacy, and now that eager light in his eyes shone brighter as I moved back to the stage, to stand in front of him. That gaze didn’t dull. He expected me to take control, likely wanted me to and so I took up my position again in front of him, swaying, letting that music move me, hoping that he enjoyed the small show.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding toward the window.

That voice was low, deep and as he spoke, Ransom’s gaze caught on my subtle dance, moved with each slow grind of my hips. He was distracted, lifted his eyebrows toward me as his eyes focused on my body and with one deep dip that brought me closer toward him. Ransom’s eyes slipped up and over my body, then finally came back up to my face.

My heart raced when he licked his lips, when he rested one hand on my hip and slumped back like he needed something he couldn’t voice. “Come closer.” His voice was off, deeper than normal. “Please,” he said when I didn’t move. “I need you closer.”

I blinked, inhaled, trying hard to remember the deflection I desperately needed to keep my mind from flashing to the memory of his kiss or how Ransom was when I was Aly and he didn’t expect me to perform for him. This wasn’t how I wanted things to be with him. This wasn’t how anything should be for me at all.

But Ransom had a way of making even a request sound sweet and he pulled me toward him with the stretch of his hand and the downward cast of his dark eyes. That look had me moving, drawn to him because I cared. Drawn to him because he was all I wanted.

He took my hand and I straddled his wide legs, fitting against him as I had the first time. But the music did not lull me now, it didn’t move me like it had before and this time Ransom’s voice wasn’t calming me, telling me how it would be okay, to pretend that we wanted each other because Ironside watched. This time, he wanted me. Or rather, he wanted the anonymous dancer.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, sliding his hands over my hips to rest on my lower back. “So fucking beautiful.”

In the back of my mind he wasn’t speaking to the dancer. There was no war paint hiding my skin, no wig protecting who I was from this man. I heard Ransom whispering to me, Aly, like he meant it, like he knew who I was and still thought I was beautiful. But it was a dream, a lie I chose to believe because I wanted him. This wasn’t real, and even though I desperately wanted it to be otherwise, the way he touched me, his deep focus on me, didn’t give me nearly the same pleasure it had before.

So I pretended again because he needed me to. I willfully forgot everything else and inhaled, steeling myself to simply perform, letting the music take me away from that small, private room and the man who believed I was someone else.

The song lowered, slipped into another track and I steadied myself on the back of the chair, keeping my eyes shut tight as I came to my knees and worked a smaller, more intimate dance over his body. My hips rolled and popped, rubbing against him, and I got a little lost then, slowing my movements when the melody crawled, when that breathy background music slipped across my skin.

Ransom’s fingers stayed steady on my hips, but he didn’t guide me, didn’t seem able to do anything but follow my body, maybe needing that touch to keep him centered. I turned my head, still lost in that music, but glanced at his knuckles, and the small scratches across his skin reminded me of the day before when he’d been tortured by the roses and the reminder of Emily’s birthday. In the guise of the dancer, I reached out and pulled his hand to my lips, kissing each mark, hoping that somehow it might help to heal him, might let him know this was more than just a performance.

But it was foolish to think that this simple, gentle gesture would be able to break the spell of the powerful eroticism of the dance; Ransom’s breath came out not in a sigh of relief or pleasure, but in a lustful grunt, and he moved his fingers away from my mouth, to grip my hips again, tight.

“I love when you touch me,” he said, voice a little loud with the hint of restlessness in his tone. “Don’t stop.”

It was like taunting a starving lion with the freshest cut of bloody meat. A little groan moved in the back of my throat and I slid my fingers in his hair, closing my eyes and he pulled me close, his mouth came to my chest, hands gripping on my waist. And the faster I moved my hips, trying to keep up the pretense that I did this all the time, the harder he touched me, like he was needy, like only my skin would cool his burning fingers.

“God, I need this. I fucking need this so much,” he said, running his tongue beneath my collarbone, dipping his nose in my cleavage. “This is, okay. This is…this is fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself that touching me, having my body under his hands wasn’t wrong. Like he needed to convince himself that he was not broken. “Just…just you…only you touch me,” he said, fingernails smoothing down my back. “She…she won’t be mad.”

I stopped moving. The sensation of his large hands on me, his breath dampening against my skin felt cold. Ransom looked up at me, likely wondering why I’d pulled away and I saw the same desperation in his eyes that had been there when he’d left his car and all those red roses behind him. He wasn’t with me. He wasn’t with the dancer. I was a body to hold on to while his mind warred and debated with the memory of Emily and the guilt her loss had created.

He blinked twice and kept his hands on my waist as though he wanted me to speak, like it had to be me who gave him permission to keep touching me. But I couldn’t. Not another second. This broke me, completely—Ransom being so lost, so blind to what was right in front of him, to the happiness I could give him because he’d never let go of his guilt. It would always be there. So would Emily, and the realization toppled me hard, so that I felt the foreign burn in my eyes, tears that never came from me, stinging behind my lashes.

I stood, awkwardly scooted away from him, but he didn’t let go of my waist. “I can’t do this.” He let me pull his hand free, but still sat up, coming closer as I stepped back. “Not with you.”

“Why?” Ransom, said, reaching for me. “What’s wrong with me? Didn’t you like the way I touched you the first time?”

It had been all I’d thought of for days afterward. Ransom touching me deep, making me feel something besides worry and exhaustion; modi, why not just say it? Making me come, and come hard. God, I’d loved it. But this? Right now? No, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. Not when I knew, to him, I wouldn’t ever be anything but a replacement.

His expression was worried, eyes squinted as though he didn’t understand why I stood away from him, why I wouldn’t let him touch me. I knew the second I explained myself that this would be over. The same kind of moment I had when I decided to leave my father’s home and never looked back. Hard, but necessary. I was good at taking care of myself. I had to be and though it would kill me, it would break me in so many ways, I could not be around him if he could never fully be with me. I could not be constantly reminded what I could have given him, if he’d only have let me.

I’d tell him the truth and break my own heart in the process.

“Ransom,” I started, leaning toward him so he had to rest back. I took a second to look over his face, wanting to remember how dark his eyes were, how those faint freckles on his cheek were shaped in a triangle. He let me touch him then, and the pain throbbed deep, knowing he’d wouldn’t resist the dancer’s fingers against his bottom lip, but would have never let me do the same thing. “I’ve always liked everything you do to me.”

His confusion was evident in the way he frowned, how those black eyes widened when I reached for my mask and peeled it away from my face, then reached back and pulled the wig from off my head, loosening my bound up hair and letting it fall around my shoulders and down my back. With nothing to hide me from him, Ransom’s confusion slipped to slow realization.

“I don’t…what… Aly…it’s…. Aly?”

I didn’t bother with an explanation. He wouldn’t hear it anyway.

I shrank two steps back, moving out of his way as he stood, clutching the mask and waiting for his temper to explode.

“Aly? I…I don’t understand…”

I could have said a hundred things just then. I could have told him how often I’d watched him when he wasn’t looking. I could have explained that I’d spent so many nights thinking about him, devising ways to slip past him in the hall just to catch a whiff of his cologne or hear his laughter when Tristian made a joke. I could have reminded him that it was me he kissed that night in the studio, that it was me he couldn’t stop kissing that day in his car. But none of that would matter. It wouldn’t take away this betrayal. And that’s what it was to him. I saw that in his expression and the shadow of disappointment that covered his face.

He stared at me, his top lip quivering as though he couldn’t control the anger. I expected him to shout at me, to insult me with more than just this hard glare. I didn’t expect his voice to be quiet or his question to be so simple.

“Why?” he said, his hands dropping to his sides.

What could I say? This time, it wasn’t about the money. But that wouldn’t matter anyway. The why was pointless. Instead, I settled on the truth.

“I wanted to help you forget.” I looked at him then, not caring that there were tears in my eyes. “Just for a moment, I wanted you to forget.”

Ransom was imposing all the time, but just then, with his frown hardening and his jaw tight, he was damn scary. I knew he’d never hurt me. Not physically. Ransom wasn’t the abusive, simple kind of guy. I just didn’t think he could wound with a look or tear me to pieces with a head shake.

I didn’t expect that he’d destroy me just by walking through the door.

But, he did.