I’ve been bored out of my mind the last two days. I try to ignore how much I like Penny’s kitchen.

Nothing to do but cook—the one thing I’ve always enjoyed doing, the thing I remember Louisa enjoying. Our mom never cooked. Her meals were generally liquid with only a bottle for company.

If my sister and I wanted food, we had to make it ourselves. She taught me to cook. I don’t know how she learned. Probably YouTube. But it was fun for her, and for me watching her, trying to make what we could afford into something that tasted good. Sometimes it was awful. Sometimes it was great. I would sit and watch her moving around the kitchen, hear her singing to herself, see her smelling the food and telling me how good it would taste.

I eat, sleep, run, and wait for Penny to come home so I can torture her some more.

Or more like torture me. This morning I couldn’t keep away from her. I had her flat on her back, underneath me, on the couch, before she even left for work. And she let me. My excuse: so that she won’t be able to focus all day because she’ll be thinking of me.

It’s not an excuse. It’s a distraction.

Distraction from what I really want. What I want more than my next breath. What I’ve needed more than my life since I was fifteen—

For someone to believe me.

She still doesn’t.

I don’t know why but all my years of failing to get others to hear me have come down to this one woman. I’m pinning all my hopes on her.

My gut contorts and lurches with anxiety. I know how to make her believe it. But I don’t know if she can handle it. Which shouldn’t matter but it’s more—

Can I handle it?

Sitting around debating, pretending I’m planning when really all I’m doing is putting off the inevitable—it’s got to stop.

I need something else to do.

My adult life has been spent searching, seeking, gathering every speck of detail I can on the Vandershalls and on what happened to Louisa.

There’s nothing else left for me to figure out.

Except there’s never such a thing as knowing everything.

I open Penny’s laptop on the desk, and when no password protection pops up, I pull up the browser. Googling the law firm where Blake Vandershall works isn’t the hard part. The hard part is finding out when he’s there.

Getting a job at his law firm, my usual infiltration method, is a non-option. He already knows who I am. Judging by the sophistication of the website, doing a walk-in with my flip-flops and shorts isn’t an option either.

I eye the shopping bags Penny gave me, still sitting on the table days later. Those clothes should be good for something.

I dial the law firm’s number on Penny’s landline. “I’d like to make an appointment with Blake Vandershall.”

“What’s this regarding?”

“A restraining order,” I respond. “Someone is harassing my wife.”

* * *

So that Logan can’t hear me, I press my mouth closer to the phone. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.” If I can convince Logan to get in the car.

Amisha says, “We’re already at the bar and you haven’t even left yet?”

“Well, things are . . .” I glance at him, still switching TV channels, like he has no plans to leave the condo, ever. “ . . . taking longer than expected, but we’ll be there.”

“If he’s not coming, say so and come anyway.”

“He’ll come.” He has to. There’s no other way.

He’s watching me. In between when he teases me with his hands and his mouth, never giving me what I want—like last night on the kitchen counter or this morning right on that couch—his eyes follow me around the room.

He’s getting angrier every day, his shoulders and jaw tightening, his voice more clipped, his growls lower. It could be because my brother won’t give him the money. Or maybe it’s because his torturing me is actually torturing him and he’s got balls as blue as the sea.

Maybe both.

More likely it’s because I still won’t believe him.

I don’t know why he keeps trying. I won’t believe anything bad about my father. At some point Logan is going to accept that.

I sit in my chair across from him. His eyes heavy on me, intense, calculating, and filled with the dark lust he oozes whenever he’s in the room. I can’t decide which he wants more: to punish me or have sex with me.

I’ll take either. Or both.

My thoughts are so far gone I don’t know if they’re mine anymore. I can’t call them his thoughts because he’s not inside my head, but it’s like he’s shaping them, retraining me how to think.

I like thinking his way.

I like this game he plays with me. He’s like having a bomb living in my house, I never know when he’ll explode. I want to make him lose his temper and come at me, to unleash all that brooding frustration on me. Maybe I am stupid, but his manipulation is working. I’m ready to pretend I believe his lies so he’ll fuck me already.

Well, maybe not quite that, but I am ready to tease him into giving me what I want.

Leaning back in the chair, I let my skirt ride up my legs. His eyes flick downward as though I’ve directed them there.

All my life, everyone has wanted me to be kind and adorable, feminine and lovable. He wants none of that. His mission is to rob me of it. It’s supposed to be a bad thing. He’s doing it to hurt me. But I like it. I like being his idea of me.

Taunting him my way, I let my knees fall open. It’s a tight skirt. The fabric stretches across my thighs and if he looks, he’ll see . . .

“What are you doing?” His gaze flicks from under my skirt to my eyes, back and forth.

I sit up but don’t close my legs. I lean on my elbows and let the neck of my shirt gape open. I don’t have much to flash up top, but it’s more the temptation than the goods, going by his eyes.

“I know you want to,” I tease and let my voice drop in imitation of his sexy growl.

“To what?”

“Go out and show off to my friends how I’m yours.”

His brows perk. “I’m going nowhere.”

“Do you or don’t you want this money?”

“What does meeting your friends have to do with me getting the money?”

“My brother’s going to be there.” Maybe. I don’t know for sure.

He sits a little straighter. “You didn’t say that.”

“Because I don’t want to invite him unless you agree to go and show some . . . some . . .” Saying the words around him is awkward.

“Some what?”

“Affection.”

“I can’t.”

“Learn. Pretend. Act. My brother has to believe that . . . that . . .” Oh boy.

He rolls his eyes. “Quit with the Miss Prim and talk.”

I mirror his glare. “He has to believe you’re in love with me.”

He snorts and looks back at the TV. “Then we’re not going.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s not possible.”

I stand. “I can’t do all the work. I can tell him you love me over and over and he’ll never believe it.”

“Because you’re a horrible liar. Learn. Pretend. Act.”

“He thinks you’re manipulating me.” Which is true. “So even if I lie perfectly, unless he sees it from you, he’ll never believe me.”

“You really think I could act like I’m in love with you?” The annoyance in his gaze is like a barb in my chest. I shouldn’t be insulted. But for anyone to think I’m unlovable, even him, hurts.

I stare at the ceiling to cover it. “All you have to do is be nice to me. Don’t insult me. And maybe touch me a little.”

“Touch you?”

“Yeah. Like hold my hand. Play with my hair. Brush my cheek.”

He turns to me, fully away from the TV, with a gloating smirk. “You’ve thought about this.”

“Well, yeah. Doesn’t every girl?”

“You want me to do those things?” His upper lip peels back in disgust.

I fling up my hands, frustrated. “You want this money. I’m telling you how to get it. But if you refuse to do it, I’m the one who’ll get fucked over in a week if you still don’t have it.” Saying the reminder makes me nervous.

I spin a circle and think aloud. “Maybe you don’t really even want the money. Maybe the whole point of this is to manipulate me for your own sadistic ends and then expose my father to the world regardless. I have no proof that if you do get the money, you still won’t spew all of your lies.”

I feel him before I see him.

He breathes on my neck. “Are you ready to listen?”

I turn to him, and I’m hit with his smell.

I hadn’t realized it, but I’ve memorized it. I smelled it on my clothes last night when I went to bed. He must spend time on the beach every day because I smell the ocean, which is my favorite smell, but underneath it there’s more. It’s a heavenly, devilish smell, like life and death. Like something that’s been burned, then frozen.

A thick blend of sinful and destructive, but also something deeper, richer. Something I don’t recognize.

“Listen to me,” he repeats. “Hear what I have to say.”

“I’ve listened enough.” I say it quietly, against his shirt.

“Soon you’ll have to. You’re not going to like what happens.”

“Even more reason for me to pretend I can’t hear you.” My nose presses to his shirt. My fingers grip the fabric and caress the muscle beneath.

“Penny.” I expect him to push me away or grab my hands and hold them down like he always does, but he doesn’t.

His hot breath ruffles my hair, and his chest rises and falls under my hands. I flatten my palms and run them over his shoulders that go on and on, and I realize—this is the first he’s let me touch him. Not fingers digging into his hair while he kisses me like a starving wild man, but gentle touches, caresses.

I trail my fingers over his neck, the column of his throat, his warm skin, the corded muscle, the hollow at the base, the hair at his nape. His lips in front of my eyes. I move to touch them.

He catches my hand. “Are you done?” The liquid green of his eyes contradicts the darkness of his tone.

“No.” Touching his hair is too tempting. I lift my other hand and stroke the strands curving over his cheek. “How come you don’t like to be touched?”

He pushes my hand away. “Why do you ask all the wrong questions?”

“What are the right questions?”

He growls and rolls his eyes. “Do you want to go out with your friends or not?” The sting of his words is tempered by the lightness of his eyes. “Penny?”

I jump. “Okay. I’ll get my purse.” I have no idea what changed his mind, but I smile to myself. I got my way.