I ring the bell, then turn toward the driveway as I wait.

It’s chilly today, with temps in the upper forties. And it’s dreary, even for Seattle. A perfect mirror of my temperament.

Dark skies opened up an hour ago and it hasn’t stopped pouring since. Cold rain slices through the air at a thirty-degree angle and I scoot closer to the house to keep from getting even more drenched than I already am.

My jeans are plastered to my legs. Water drips from the tips of my hair, all from a quick run from my car to the front stoop. I reach up to wipe underneath my eyes in case my mascara is running. One look at my finger shows it is.

I try my best to make myself presentable, cursing the fact that the umbrella I usually keep in my car was taken along with my Fiat when Shaw had it hauled away. I haven’t gotten around to replacing it yet.

I stare at the black Audi and remember the day in his office when I tried to return it. The fierce look of possession that sharpened his jawline and darkened his eyes. The feeling of weakness when he demanded I strip and the feeling of power when I drew a long groan from him as he bent me over his desk. The sense of being owned and revered and consumed when he fell over me, replete.

I remember things I don’t want to remember but can’t force myself to forget.

Why can’t I get him out of my head? Why can’t I find that damn splinter and pull the fucker out so the wound will heal? When will I wake up and not ache without the feel of his arms surrounding me?

I think maybe never.

It’s been nearly two weeks since I left him to celebrate Preston’s win with his family and yet I’m no better off than I have been since day one without him. In some ways, I’m worse.

He texts me daily, even calls now. All of which I ignore.

I hate myself. I hate the way I run and hide. I hate the fact I feel more broken inside than I ever have before, and it’s because I’m nothing without him. I did the exact thing I swore to myself I wouldn’t do.

I let go of his hand.

Once again I ask myself the same question I’ve been asking day and night: Am I making a mistake? Is there a way we can move beyond this? Do I have it in me to forgive Annabelle? That’s the question I’ve been trying to answer.

My heart and mind are at war and I’m not sure who’s going to win.

“It’s considered good manners to call before showing up on someone’s doorstep, especially on a Sunday.”

I spin at the sound of Randi’s brusque voice, surprised she answered the door herself. And by the look of her in a plain white tee and ragged jeans, both splattered with paint, I caught her completely off guard.

“I’m sorry,” I sputter, noticing splotches of red and yellow dotting her face and blond hair, which is thrown up in a messy bun. I’m stunned. Randi is always polished perfection. Relaxed this way she’s casual and fresh. Approachable. Almost like a real person instead of someone who has struck the fear of God in me. “Uh, this couldn’t wait.”

Showing up unannounced is not the smartest idea I’ve ever had. Randi was furious when I finally plucked the courage to call her, though I wasn’t sure if she was mad at me or the situation.

Her gaze floats down my sodden body and briefly over my shoulder. She purses her lips, and for a few seconds I think she’ll send me packing, but she moves to the side and waves me in, holding the door open with one hand.

“Stay there,” she barks the second my feet touch the throw rug. “You look like a drowned rat and I don’t want you tracking mud on my clean floors.”

“Okay,” I mumble as she saunters away. I don’t have mud anywhere on me but whatever. I’ll deal with her wrath if it means she’ll see me. She returns a full minute later with a bath towel. I’ve already hung my raincoat on the coat rack and removed my shoes, sans the invisible mud. I take the towel and wipe my face, running it over my hair a couple of times until she seems satisfied.

“Just drop it there.” She points to the floor beside me, turns, and walks away. I assume I’m to follow, so I do. I expect she’ll head to her office but without a word, she leads me through a part of her house I’ve never seen before, not that I’ve been given the grand tour the two previous times I’ve been here.

When we arrive at our destination, I stand still in complete and total awe, seeing a whole new side to Randi Deveraux, Queen of Hearts.

We’re in an enormous room with exposed wood beams on the ceiling and a wall of glass sliders that overlooks her spacious backyard. Every other wall is lined with mismatched, eclectic built-in work tables covered with what I imagine is every paint supply known to man. Several easels are spread throughout the middle of the room, each holding various sizes of canvases. All are in different stages of completion, but the theme is consistent.

They’re nudes.

Randi paints nude women.

Tastefully nude women. And she’s…good. Really good. Like she could sell these and make a living good.

She strides over to the largest canvas, probably nearly two feet wide, and picks up a brush from the table beside it. I quietly come up behind her for a better look.

A naked woman is lying on a pastel comforter, her back to us. Her arm is thrown over the back of her head and her fingers have disappeared in her long chestnut hair. There’s a berry-colored throw over the tops of her thighs, but it doesn’t cover her heart-shaped butt. Her spine is pronounced, her lower back curved in as if she’s pleasuring herself with the hand we can’t see.

It’s stunning. And sad. And uniquely erotic.

“Wow. You did this? It’s so good.”

She dips the tip of her brush in a touch of black paint and mixes it with bright red to create rich maroon. Then she brings it to the painting and taps lightly, shading along the blanket thrown over the woman.

“What’s so life shattering you forgot your manners?” she asks tersely, not acknowledging my compliment.

I take a couple of steps back, not wanting to crowd her.

I’ve thought nonstop about what I need to do, the cords I need to cut, and the next steps I need to take. Working for Randi was a lot like crossing a bridge. The structure is there for a reason. To move over rough terrain with ease. But I’m at the other side now, and while I’m grateful for her support, going forward is the only option.

Besides, we both knew when I took the job with Shaw this was coming.

“I wanted to thank you for all that you’ve done for me, for taking a chance on me. I don’t know what I would have done without you,”—I don’t know what I’ll do without you now—“but I can’t work for you anymore. So I guess I’m giving you my notice.”

Her eyes slide to mine briefly as she picks up her brush from the canvas. “What makes you think I’d let you continue working for me after what happened?”

Damn. That slap smarted. I unconsciously bring my hand up to my cheek and rub. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t respond. She just goes back to painting. She hasn’t said and it’s probably none of my business, but, “Is everything…I mean has anyone found out about you because of this? Because of me?”

She scoffs and reloads her brush. “Don’t worry about me, Willow. It’s going to take a hell of a lot more to bring down my kingdom than one measly insinuation in a disreputable newspaper. You don’t think I’ve been threatened this way before? You do what I do long enough and this sort of shit happens.”

Threatened? Her?

This wasn’t about her.

“But this was about the election and—”

“This was about someone getting his entitled dick in a twist because he couldn’t have what he wanted.”

I am so confused. Who wanted what? “Which was?”

“You.”

Say what? “Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

I shift my weight to the other foot and slip my hands into my front jeans pockets. The damp denim abrades the back of my hands. “I don’t understand,” I say when it’s clear she’s not going to offer more.

“Of course you don’t,” she mumbles, concentrating on her art. My brows scrunch together and right as I’m about to ask another question she offers, “Powerful men with God complexes don’t like being denied.”

“I’m sorry, Randi. I’m not following at all.”

She drops her paintbrush into a cup of muddy-looking water that’s stuffed with other paintbrushes and faces me. “Paul Graber.”

Paul Graber? “What about him?”

“He wanted you. I said no. He didn’t like it and tried flexing his small dick the only way a man like him knows how.”

My hand goes to my throat as I digest what she’s telling me. “Paul Graber did this? He was the 7-Day’s anonymous source?”

Her nod is clipped.

Whaaat? This makes no sense. He did all of this because I wouldn’t sleep with him? I knew the asshole gave off a bad vibe the second his hand touched mine, but I never expected a man of his stature would be so petty.

I think back to the cryptic conversation between him and Noah that night long ago. He seemed peeved at Preston for something. Even if he was the culprit, it seems entirely political, not personal. “Are you sure?”

Snorting, she answers, “Very.”

“But—”

“I know what you’re thinking. Trust me. This was about me, not the mayor.”

“How do you know that?”

She snatches up the cup, spilling a few drops of dirty water in the process and saunters over to the sink, telling me, “It’s not important. What matters is I’ve dealt with him. He won’t be a problem again. I promise you that. And I’m sorry. I take pride in vetting my clients, and in this case, I clearly failed you.”

Wow. An apology from Randi. Mark the date.

She keeps her back to me as she washes paint from the synthetic bristles. Part of me suspects she’s ignoring me because she wants me to leave, but she’s not getting rid of me that easy. I have one more thing to do so I breathe deeply and confess the other reason I’m here.

“I want you to return the money in my account to Shaw Mercer.”

I haven’t touched a penny of the two hundred fifty thousand dollars Shaw has paid me. As we backed out of Preston and Adelle’s driveway on the first night I met them, I already knew I’d return it at the end of this even though I desperately needed it. It didn’t feel right keeping it when I was no longer playing a part but falling in love.

She throws a glance over her shoulder, halting her task. “You come into some inheritance I’m not aware of?”

I look away and shake my head. I hear her inhale and blow it back out. The water shuts off.

“Nothing happened to your mom, did it?”

“No,” I mumble before I remember I’ve never talked to her about my momma. We’ve never discussed anything personal, actually. My gaze zips back to hers. She’s leaning against the counter, wiping her hands with a black towel, watching me. “What do you know about my mother?”

She ignores me. “I’m not your go-between, Willow. You’re a grown woman. I personally think you’re making a mistake but if you want to return the money, then you can do it yourself.”

She looks cool and collected while that fire that Shaw has unearthed in me burns wild and erupts. “I have never asked you for a thing,” I bite. “You owe me this.”

She cocks a perfectly coifed brow. In any situation, that one little muscle movement would have me shrinking in my seat, but not today.

“You asked me for a job,” she says coolly.

“I didn’t ask you for anything. You offered.”

“Semantics.” She drops the hand towel and crosses her arms. “You needed help. I gave it, no strings attached.”

She’s right. Damn her.

“I—” My heart pounds. I can’t do it, I want to say. I’ll crumble like a fall leaf the second my eyes land on his. I’ll let his very presence convince me we’ll be okay and if that’s even remotely possible, which I don’t see how it is, I have to reach that conclusion on my own. “Please, Randi,” I plead quietly. “I can’t keep it. I can’t send a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the mail, and I can’t see him. I just can’t.”

Her lips thin. A few moments tick off. “I know what happened,” she announces evenly.

Right. Of course she does. She’s like the all-seeing Oz behind the curtain.

I fight to swallow past the ball of conflict in my throat. “Then you know why I’m begging.”

Her gaze falls to the floor and a weird sort of look comes over her face. She pushes off the table and when our eyes connect again, I see a totally different person than the aloof, unfeeling one I’ve always encountered. The thick, intimidating lines on her forehead are gone and the edges of her mouth have softened considerably.

“Follow me,” she orders as she walks by. Once again I’m on her heels like a puppy. This time we end up in her office. She waves for me to sit. I do, expecting her to pull out paperwork I’ll have to sign, authorizing the transaction. She tosses a plain manila folder on the desk instead.

And when she opens it, I stop breathing.

I volley between the upside-down photographs and her, the blood in my veins icing over.

“Why do you have pictures of my sister?” I snap. A swarm of bees has invaded my ears. “What? Do you have a whole dossier on my life in there?”

How dare she.

Sick to my stomach, I snatch the folder, spin it around, and begin sifting through dozens of old four-by-six snapshots. I expect to see creepy candids of me taken from afar by telephoto lens mixed in but as I flip through picture after picture, I realize they are all of Violet.

Some are of Violet alone or with other people, but most feature my sister with an arm thrown around a petite stringy-haired brunette with sunken cheekbones and protruding ribs. At first glance, she’s unfamiliar but the longer I stare, the more I see it: big brown eyes that look troubled instead of confident and sure. Everything about this girl in the picture is different from the one I know.

I lift my eyes to ones that are now older and wiser. They are much the same yet so incredibly different years later. The ones in the photos mirrored Violet’s in those last few months before her overdose. Red, glassy, strung out. The ones I’m looking into now are experienced and wise. They’re brimming with remorse.

My mouth tastes of fury and utter disbelief when I ask, “You knew who I was all along, didn’t you?” There’s some massive stinging happening behind my eyelids. I try to blink it away. It’s not working.

Randi runs her tongue along her lower lip and sucks it into her mouth as she shifts in her wing-back chair. She looks uneasy, her tough-as-shit exterior cracking from the ground up.

The air suddenly thins. It’s hard to take in.

“You knew my sister?” She moves her head in what could be considered a nod, I suppose, but it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough for the crap she just laid at my feet.

Randi Devereaux knew my dead sister.

Un-fucking-believable.

“She was my best friend,” Randi confesses, her tone hushed and wistful, her eyes teary. I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for her when anger crowds everything else out.

My head is spinning. I came here to give my resignation and to twist Randi’s arm into returning money I need but can’t take when suddenly the doors were ripped off the past, and I’m staring straight into the mouth of hallowed space. Afraid to fall into it. Unable to turn away.

I reach for a picture half-hidden under another. In it Violet and Randi are floating on a lake in inner tubes, in skimpy bikinis, holding hands and squinting against the sun. They’re laughing at water being splashed on them from someone who’s not captured.

I remember the bright yellow bathing suit Violet is wearing. My mother helped her pick it out before we went to Cannon Beach the summer before she died. The first time she wore it my dad nearly blew his lid. He told her it was too revealing. She told him he didn’t like the fact she was growing up and it was the only suit she’d brought. He grumbled and told Momma to get her something else. She didn’t. He let it go.

I run a fingernail over Violet’s smile, over the space between her front teeth that most people would hate but she said gave her character. She once told me the French believed those blessed with a gap are said to have good luck follow them through life. I used to wish we were French after she died.

She looks young and healthy. Like she’s having the time of her life.

“We met at the pier the summer I moved here.” She nods to the ghost in my hand. “I didn’t know many people. Violet was friendly and fun and her bubbly personality was infectious.” It was. How I envied that about her. “We clicked immediately.”

I clamp my lips together and stuff the sob that wants to escape back down my throat. Violet’s face turns blurry. I don’t want her to say another word but I’ll choke the life from her if she doesn’t.

“Then we met Brock. He seemed like a nice guy at first. Fun, wild, a little hippieish. But he turned out to be a piece of shit with a quick temper and a fondness for hard drugs.” She stops, a wry grin on her face. “We both were lured into the illusion that we could escape anytime we wanted, and after a while Violet wanted to walk away, but I…I fucking went and fell in love with the asshole and she wouldn’t leave until I did.”

I’m lost for words. My face feels hot.

“I feel responsible for her death, yet her death was the only thing that saved my life.”

I break from my sister’s soulful face and look into glassy chocolate hues. I see so much lurking in them. Self-reproach. Suffering, still, after all this time. The agony of loss that never goes away.

I was twelve years old when Violet overdosed on cocaine.

I hadn’t started my period yet. I hadn’t been kissed by a boy. I still liked Saturday morning cartoons and was a book nerd. I have no rational reason to feel guilty about her death, yet I do. I didn’t know the signs of drug use. What normal twelve-year-old would? In retrospect, it’s clear, but at the time all I knew was she had changed. Her light had been cast in shadows. She was anxious instead of carefree. She locked her bedroom door. She fought with my parents. There were secrets between us that were never there before.

It would be easy to sit here and blame Randi for it. In reality, I’d always wanted someone else to blame besides Violet herself. Because it’s easier to think someone else did it to her than holding her accountable.

But that’s not reality. Randi is no more to blame for Violet choosing drugs than I am. She’s no more to blame for Violet overdosing than I am. It’s a black hole called martyrdom we’ll both stay trapped in if we let ourselves.

And I’ve been there long enough.

“I’m sorry,” she offers. It’s genuine and heartfelt and completely unnecessary.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I introduced them. Got us caught up with that crap in the first place.”

“No,” I disagree. The change in Vi started well before they met. It was a storm that had been brewing for months. I think back to the “cigarettes” I found in her drawer once. Now I know that for the lie it was. No. Randi isn’t to blame. “Violet was pulling away from us before that, Randi. My mother pushed her hard. She pushed back.”

She shakes her head. “We were best friends. I was supposed to look out for her.”

“I was her sister. Don’t you think I feel the same?”

“You’re not the one who left her at the party. I am,” she says in a faraway voice that breaks. “She told me she’d be right behind me and when she didn’t show up at our friend’s house, I got worried and came back, but by the time I got there she was already unconscious and everyone else was too coked up to notice. I performed CPR the best I could while someone drove us to the ER, but…”

But it was too late.

“It’s not your fault, Randi,” I repeat. “It was an unfortunate accident.” It’s true, and for the first time, I honestly believe what I’m saying.

Eyes that had lost focus now sharpen, zeroing in on me.

“I know firsthand what it’s like to be weighed down by the burden of someone else’s death, Willow. To hate your reflection, your very existence. It’s a daily descent into the pits of hell you can’t possibly fathom.” She pauses and smiles sadly, adding, “Well, I imagine you think you can but you’re wrong.”

I know what she’s getting at and I don’t know how to respond, so I blurt, “I’m pretty fucking pissed at you. Why not just tell me this?”

She doesn’t acknowledge me and I honestly don’t think she cares if I’m mad or not.

“And this whole situation is not on Shaw. He was put in an impossible spot, you understand this, right?”

My head hangs in shame. My heart understands this doesn’t belong on Shaw’s shoulders but tell that to my brain. One second I want to run to him and beg forgiveness for being selfish and shortsighted, but then I know I’ll have to see Annabelle and I can’t make myself do it. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for that.

And one doesn’t come without the other. I would never ask that of him.

“If you don’t love him, that’s one thing, but I don’t think that’s the case. Is it?”

I manage to swallow and whisper, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

There’s a long gap where the only sound in the room is the second hand from an artsy clock hanging over Randi’s head.

“I don’t know Annabelle Mercer. I’ve never met her and I have no vested interest in her but what I do know is that when your father came upon her that night, he would have seen an opportunity to spare another father, mother, or sister that same hell he was living in without his daughter.”

She stands and comes to sit in the chair beside me. She sets one warm hand over mine, squeezing. I’m not breathing. I’m crumbling away.

“You’re processing all this, I get it, but once you do that you have a new reality to face.”

Numb, I can only nod in agreement.

“And regardless of whether that new reality includes Shaw Mercer, you need to forgive Annabelle. Your father would have wanted that, Willow. Your father was an intelligent man who would have weighed the dangers. He knew what he was doing when he climbed up on that ledge. He knew the risks and he did it anyway.”

I know that.

“He saved her life, and while he lost his in the process, you should be proud of him.”

I am. I’m so incredibly proud of him. Not everyone would do what he did. It knocks my breath away that Shaw could be the one grieving his sister’s death the way I have my father’s. I couldn’t bear it.

My teeth find my lip. The sting biting my eyes starts up again but I force them back.

“She needs your forgiveness to deal with what’s happened, Willow. Even though it was an accident, she’ll take this on herself. She won’t be able to heal without you. Trust me on that. I couldn’t move forward until I knocked on your door at two o’clock one morning nearly a year after Violet died and begged your father for his absolution.”

My lungs seize. She met my father, too?

“He said I didn’t need it but he didn’t hesitate a single second to give it to me anyway.” She reaches up to wipe a single tear away, her hand shaky. “In fact, he sat and held me for an hour while we cried and grieved together.”

That’s the final straw that breaks me down completely.

Every shard of agony I’ve tried to bury comes violently storming to the surface. It feels like 10,000 needles scraping the inside of my skin.

My body shakes.

My spirit bleeds pure anguish.

Without even thinking, I throw my arms around my former boss, my sister’s best friend, and grieve the people I miss.

My sister.

My father.

The mother I used to know.

…and Shaw.

I miss them all so much, but the harsh reality is—it’s the man I’m denying myself who I miss the most.