I sit, stalling in the waiting room outside my brother’s office, and stare at the ring on my finger.

I thought Logan’s head was going to spin off when I charged the ten thousand dollar thing to my credit card. It’s extravagant, but neither Blake nor my friends will believe it for less.

My brother didn’t see us at the courthouse.

I got married.

To a man who scares me as much as he turns me on. Or turns me on because he scares me, or scares me with how much he turns me on. All of the above.

After he kissed me in his truck . . . If I can even call it a kiss. It was more like an attack of his mouth, a seek-and-destroy mission, a wrecking of every preconceived notion I had of what a kiss could be. If that was a small piece of what he keeps bottled up behind his brooding fury, then if he ever really lets loose, full throttle, he will finish me.

And Lord help me, I want it. No matter how much I shouldn’t want anything from him, I want him to scare me and hold me down while he . . .

I palm my face. How am I going to live with this man?

“Penny.” Blake blasts my name from his door. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I bolt to standing. But as I suspected, before he even looks at my face, his eye catches on my ring.

“What is—”

I brush past him into his office. “We need to talk.” I hide my shaky fingers behind my back.

He closes the door softly. “Is that . . .” His normally stoic face glazes with apprehension.

I need to be out of this office as soon as possible. “I got married.”

“You . . . ?” He chokes. “That’s a joke right? Some prank, like I’m still hoping your decision not to go to medical school was.”

“That was never a joke. I want to be a nurse. I like working with—”

“What is it you want? I haven’t been giving you enough of whatever you need. But I can’t help if you won’t tell me.”

“It’s real, Blake. I married Logan at the courthouse today.”

He gets closer like he wants to examine me, figure me out. It’s intimidating, though I don’t think he means to be. Blake is a foot taller than me. I’ve never been scared of him before, but he’s in my face too fast for me to get away. “Stop with the games, Penelope. This is a serious life decision.”

“It’s not a game.”

He holds my shoulders. “Why?”

“Blake, stop.” I try to get away but he shakes me.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you!” The confusion in his eyes is a fierce desperation, almost like fear peeking through.

“Stop it!” I can’t handle him so intense. I can’t handle any more of anything.

This whole thing with Logan, his lies about our father, it’s too much for me. There’s no way my brother, with his obsessive need to take care of me, could handle me being under such duress. I can’t tell Blake about the lies. He’s stressed enough taking care of my father’s estate and the problems with the retirement pay for the memorial hospital.

He spends so much of his time worrying about me. I can spare him this and take care of myself for once. No matter how much he disliked my father, he deserves better than to have the memory of a dead parent tarnished. It’s not like he’d be able to help me. My trust won’t allow the money out until I’m married, and we can’t allow Logan to go public with the information.

But I will forever be his little sister, six years younger. He will forever be my big brother, the support I needed when my father wasn’t there, even when he was still alive.

I expect Blake to push me away. But he doesn’t. For the first time since we entered his office, he does what I’ve wanted more than anything: he wraps his arms around me and hugs me.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs between curses. “I’ve done a terrible job at this. I don’t know what you need. I’m trying and nothing works. And now . . .” He puts a finger under my chin and lifts my eyes to his. “It’s true? You married the man I met yesterday?”

I try to nod. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without telling him the whole truth.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I can fix this. It was a few hours ago, right? I’ll get it annulled, and—”

“You can’t.”

He leads me to an armchair and sits next to me. “I’m a lawyer. I’ll get you out of this mess. That’s why you came here.”

“That’s not why. I don’t want you to fix it. I want—” I don’t want to say it.

He goes still, not breathing. I have to look up to make sure he’s still there. His eyes, as dark as Logan’s are light, narrow. They fill with something approaching rage. “Then why did you come?”

“Because . . . for . . .”

“For the money?”

I avoid his eyes. He’s going to hate me. “Yes.”

His hand clenches on the arm of his chair until his knuckles go white. “If you want money, all you had to do is ask for it. I’ll give it to you.”

But it’s as much about controlling me and my life for Logan as it is about the money. “It’s not like that.” I stare at his feet.

His voice stays low. “You didn’t have to marry him.”

“I—I—wanted to.” The lie rings false, and I think he hears it.

He sighs heavily, and he runs a hand over his face. “I’ve never told you and I don’t think he did either.” He as in our father. “You have a trust. And I don’t.”

Confusion reverberates in my head. “He didn’t give you a trust? Why?”

“What I have is what I make.”

“But I’ll share it with you.”

“That’s not the point.” He grits his teeth, trying to restrain his temper. “The point is—I’m not giving you control of the money.”

I swallow. “You have to when I get married. It’s a condition of the trust.” My father was chauvinist like that—believing if I had a man in my life, he could better take care of the money than me. I doubt he had Logan in mind when he made that rule. I’m sure he thought he’d be alive to make sure I married someone worthy of his approval.

“I won’t let you.”

“Yes, you will.” I know him. The same way he won’t take money from my trust because it’s not his, he’ll give me the money because it’s what the contract tells him to do.

I think.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.”

His intake of breath is as fast as mine.

I try to amend, “I mean, I want to. I mean, I love him.” My lies spout so fast there’s no way he believes me.

“No.”

“You have to.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes when he says. “Leave. I can’t help you if you don’t want to be helped.”

“Blake, please. Don’t be like this.”

His anger flares. “I don’t want to see you again until you’re ready to get rid of him.”

I sit frozen. With no idea what to do. I can’t leave here without the money. I can’t go home to that man. And live with him. He’ll destroy me. “Blake, I need th-the m-money.”

“I can’t help you. Go.” He points at the door, the outrage on his face too much for me to bear.

I run from the room. What will Logan say? What will he do if I tell him my brother said no? He’ll call the paper. He’ll tell everyone everything.

I’ll have to lie to him, tell him the money will take time. I can do that. Try again with my brother in a couple of days.

I trudge down the stairs to the parking lot, outside into the blazing sun.

If I wasn’t alone in this before, I am now.

I have no one.

Except the man who’s forced me to marry him.