After a night of absolutely no fucking sleep whatsoever I sat across from my boss, Mickey Harris, bleary-eyed and unable to focus. All I could think about was Miranda. But she was why I was meeting with him anyway. I just wished I could get the image of her eyes, wide with desire, out of my head. Fuck, she had felt so good in my arms. Had tasted like everything I had ever wanted.

That kiss was ten years in the making and it did not disappoint.

Determined to focus on getting what I wanted, I cleared my throat and put the proper deference into my voice. “I want your help finding my brother,” I told Mickey. “I know you have a lot of contacts. If he’s out there, alive, I want to know where he is and what he’s doing.”

“I did know you have a brother even if this is the first time you’ve ever mentioned him,” Mickey said, tossing his phone onto the desk and sitting back in his office chair. “And I knew he went missing. I did a background check on you when I hired you obviously. But the police didn’t seem to think it was suspicious. It’s just an open missing persons case, not an active investigation.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know. “I personally always thought he left on his own. Max wasn’t always… concerned about other people’s feelings, you know what I’m saying?” He was a prick. A well-masked prick.

Mickey nodded. “Yeah. Sort of like my ex-wife. Ryan’s mother.”

It was no secret Ryan’s mother had taken off when he was a kid. I knew Mickey kept tabs on her. He liked to be ahead of his enemies, so to speak.

“Totally. But his girlfriend at the time thought he was abducted.” Part of me understood Miranda’s loyalty and respected it. But at the same time, it infuriated me. What had Max done to deserve such blind trust? It was the story of my life—people believed him and never saw the rotten core.

“Why, because she couldn’t believe he’d leave her?” Mickey snorted. “Welcome to the club of every spouse ever cheated on or abandoned.”

Exactly. But I needed to keep my emotions in check. If Mickey knew my real motivation he might not be so quick to help. “Basically everything that the cops said was evidence of him fleeing she thought was an indication of foul play. He withdrew forty grand from the bank two days before. Cops figured that was seed money to start a new life, but Miranda insisted he had been planning to buy a boat, and why would he leave without doing that? Also, she said someone might have known about the money and killed him for it. That he probably told friends he was paying cash for the boat.”

“I mean, that is possible. Did he have a big mouth?”

“A huge mouth. Max was a bragger.” I shrugged. “But his cell phone was found at home. Like he left it there. I think on purpose. She thinks it meant he was forced to leave at gunpoint.”

“Any sign of a struggle?”

“No.” Max and Miranda hadn’t been technically living together. She stayed with Max when she wasn’t touring. Once she had told me how much she appreciated Max not being a jerk about her job and how frequently she was gone. He had been standing behind her grinning. I knew he loved her traveling. It gave him free range to do whatever the fuck he felt like, and that included other women. She hadn’t been anywhere near the apartment when he disappeared. “Max was living alone at the time but he had a lot of people in and out of that apartment and he wasn’t a slob, but he was no neat freak either. There was clutter, but nothing abnormal like blood or tossed furniture.”

Mickey nodded. “What was his favorite thing to do? He liked to go out on the water?”

“Yes. He did always want a boat, that’s true.”

“For sport or for fishing?”

“Speed boat.”

“So he’s probably not hiding in the Keys running a tour or anything like that.”

I tried to visualize Max in the laidback Keys and couldn’t. “I doubt it.”

“All right, well just give me everything you’ve got and we’ll get someone working on it.” Mickey was dressed casual in a T-shirt and khaki shorts, looking more like he was going fishing himself than running a multi-million-dollar security company. Despite his nonchalance as he rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, his eyes were shrewd. Mickey had seen a lot and was always suspicious of everyone, including me right now. “So what’s the real reason you want to find your brother? What’s changed?”

I could lie. But I wasn’t a particularly good liar. I was charming sure, but that didn’t work on guys like Mickey. My style was straight-out honesty. “Because personally I think my brother is a sociopath and I want to prove it to his ex-girlfriend.”

It was the truth but Mickey saw through that. “And why is that? Why do you care at this point if she’s hung up on him still?”

There was no way I was telling him about her request. But I could tell him how I felt. I had no interest in backing down from my emotions. “Because she should be mine.”

That made Mickey grin. “Well, you know I’m a romantic guy. I’m all for love. I’ve been in love at least half a dozen times, and don’t regret any of them.”

It drove Ryan crazy that his father was a serial dater, but it made me like him even more. The guy liked women. I understood that. “Never regret anything you wanted at one point.”

“You’re a man after my own heart. So you nail that pop star the other night or what? I heard you were partying in her room.”

Fortunately I hadn’t, because I wasn’t sure how happy my boss would be to know he had paid me to fuck someone. Not that Lola would have been the first time. But once I had seen Miranda, any other women that night were a no-go, even a pop star. “Nope. Miranda distracted me. I hadn’t seen her in awhile.”

Mickey held up his hand. “I don’t need details, I’ll just get jealous.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I told him, which was a fucking shame. But I was working on it. “I thought you have a girlfriend now anyway, so what are you talking about?”

“Kim’s pissed at me. She moved back out again.”

Given that it was April and I was pretty sure she had moved in with Mickey during the winter, that had gone south quick. “Well, shit. That’s no good.”

He shrugged. “She’ll come back. We like it this way. It keeps things spicy.”

I couldn’t even imagine a turbulent relationship like that. It was why I was never in one. I wanted uncomplicated. I wanted the flirt, the chase, the fuck. The walking away. Hitting the reset button and starting the process all over again. Fun without entanglements.

The only exception to that rule ever was Miranda.

“Whatever works for you, man.”

“So give me a few days on this. We’ll see what we can find out about your brother. If he’s alive, we’ll find him. There is no such thing as off the grid in today’s world. I don’t care how fucking smart you think you are.”

Max thought he was pretty damn smart.

But it was time for my brother to stop being a pussy and come out and play with me.

The last time I saw Max I had cried over leaving him to go on tour. I was going to be gone for eight weeks and it felt like years of separation. I wasn’t used to touring yet. Max had smiled and tweaked my nose and told me not to worry. That time would fly by.

In a sense it had. It had been five years now since that fateful tour and the phone calls I had made frantically looking for Max. I was no longer twenty-five and still immature for my age. At the time I started touring, I had never been anywhere outside of Miami without my family and I hadn’t left Max’s side since we had started dating. I was sheltered and naïve in the beginning.

Not any more.

Not even after a year into my relationship with Max.

He had a way of doing that—of drawing people in, rattling their world, and sauntering off. I knew that. But he had never been that way with me. That was what frustrated me so much about everyone’s opinions on Max and where he might be. No one knew that man like me. No one.

I sat across from my best friend from high school, Zoe. We were at her parents’ house because they had a pool. In high school I had spent hours and hours here. Before I met Max and found out just how much I loved being his sidekick, enjoying his attention and protection.

“So you legitimately just asked Alejandro to give you a baby.” She was staring at me like she couldn’t believe I had actually gone through with it.

I nodded. “Yes. Only I screwed up. I just blurted it out without any warning or prep or anything and he turned the tables on me, Zo. Big time.”

Her mother had laid a brunch spread out for us and Zoe popped a grape in her mouth. “How? I mean, it’s kind of a yes or no question, right? Take my sperm or hell no, you can’t have my sperm.”

Except there was a third option. One that made me feel warm from more than the South Florida sunshine. “He said he’ll only help me out if we actually do it. Sex.” Just in case that wasn’t clear. “Like make a baby the old-fashioned way.”

Zoe stared at me. “Hello.” She was tan with dark hair that she kept pin straight. I had always envied that her skin tone allowed her to wear virtually any color or pattern. Today she had on a yellow bikini and she looked relaxed, confident, at ease.

One of the best things about coming back to Miami was going to be that we could hang out in person again. She had a boyfriend but they were still new-ish in their relationship and weren’t spending every waking moment together.

“So are you going to boom boom with Alejandro?” she asked, raising her eyebrows up and down.

She wasn’t acting as outraged as I had expected her to. “You don’t think it’s weird that he asked that? I mean, it’s not really appropriate.”

“Don’t be a prude. You’re asking him essentially a huge favor. Hey, let’s make a baby, but then you stay the fuck out of it. I don’t blame him for at least wanting to get off in the process.”

At moments like this, I always felt like I’d been born in the wrong decade. I was pretty sure that I was supposed to be a 1940s chorus girl who went home to her midcentury modern home and cooked dinner for her delightfully charming husband, who wore a skinny tie. I was a woman who liked to be in a relationship. I wanted equality for women, for sure, but with feminism came the right to choose the life I wanted—and that was to be a veritable domestic goddess. I didn’t want to hit the party scene and hook up with guys on dating apps. It just wasn’t me.

And I didn’t want to have sex with Alejandro just to give him five minutes of pleasure in return for something as amazing as giving me a child. That was not a fair exchange and it felt trite. Cheap.

“Any woman can get him off. He doesn’t need me to get laid. Have you seen him lately?” I asked her, adjusting my chiffon cover-up printed with pineapples. “He’s hot. He’s built. And he can have any woman he wants.”

“Sure. I saw him like six months ago in the Grove at a bar. He is super hot and yes, women were falling all over him.”

I wasn’t sure I really wanted her to confirm it for me. I shoved a piece of bacon in my mouth and chewed. “Exactly.”

“But apparently he wants you. Which is intriguing.”

“It’s actually really terrifying.” It was. “Because I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to make him angry so that he won’t help me.” But I wasn’t sure I could have sex with him and not get emotional or feel weird about it.

“If he gets angry that you don’t want his dick in you to create a baby then he can go fuck himself. Sperm is everywhere. Every guy has millions. It’s not like his is so damn special.”

Actually it was. Sometimes when I least expected it grief kicked me in the gut. I had gone to therapy. I had moved on, in theory. But I still missed Max and the messy connection we had had. I couldn’t help it. And Alejandro was my last connection to Max.

“Oh no,” Zoe said. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t get all weepy and googly-eyed over Max. It’s been five years, Mandy. He doesn’t deserve you sitting around doing Hail Marys and shit.”

“Hail Marys and shit?” I asked, annoyed. “Do you want me to go tell your mother what you just said?”

For half a second she looked terrified. But then she relaxed. “She’s at Publix. You can’t tell her anything. Because you wouldn’t do me like that, would you? My mom is fucking scary, you know that.”

She was. That’s why it was a valid threat. “I still could, you know, if you don’t stop telling me that I’m an idiot for still caring about my boyfriend who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.” Everyone seemed to forget that little fact. “Let’s see how you would feel living in limbo.”

Zoe chewed her lip and despite her wearing sunglasses, I could see she was mentally debating with herself whether she should argue with me or not. I knew full well she thought that if Max had been killed his body would have turned up by now. But we lived in South Florida. It took about a minute for a body to disintegrate. I had thought about it a million times. Visualized it. Kept myself awake at night imagining all the horrible things that might have been done to Max.

“I wouldn’t like living in limbo at all,” she finally said. “But I love you, Mandy, and I don’t want you to be making decisions for the rest of your life based on what may or may not have happened to Max. If you want to make a baby with Alejandro, it should be because you think he would make a beautiful, kind, intelligent baby. Not because he’s Max’s brother. Because that’s just holding you back in the past and not allowing you to move forward.”

I sighed, frustrated. No one ever understood where I was coming from. “I am moving forward! That’s why I am having a baby solo. I’m tired of waiting around to meet this mythical man I’m going to fall in love with and marry. He’s not real.” He was dead. That’s what I really wanted to say. Max was dead. He had to be or he would have found a way to come home.

“Then just go to a sperm bank. You don’t need Alejandro.”

She was right. I didn’t. It didn’t matter. It was me holding on to the idea of what my future was supposed to be. I was stubborn though and not about to admit anything I didn’t want to. “You want me to play Russian roulette with my child’s DNA?”

Zoe just snorted. “Are you kidding? Everyone is playing Russian roulette with DNA. You don’t know anything about Alejandro’s background. People have all sorts of sneaky shit hiding in their genes. Cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, schizophrenia. You don’t know unless you do a full screening.”

She had a way of making me feel like I was hopelessly naïve. “That’s reassuring, thanks.”

“All I’m saying is love and reproduction are a gamble. You didn’t even know Max as well as you thought you did.”

My body stiffened. I was getting tired of her hinting about Max but never really coming out and saying what she was thinking. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh my God,” she murmured, lifting her sunglasses and rubbing the bridge of her nose. “I never wanted to do this. To have to say this.”

Now she had me completely bewildered and more than a little annoyed. “What is going on?” I sipped my orange juice and made a face. It was going warm in the mid-morning heat. We were under an umbrella but that didn’t mean anything other than the sun wasn’t in my eyes. I wished it were. I wished that I was blinded and couldn’t see Zoe because I had a really bad feeling that whatever was going to come out of her mouth was not going to make me happy.

“Max hit on me,” she blurted out. “More than once.”

I went completely still. I looked at her in shock. “What? Why would you say something like that?” Max was a flirt, just like Alejandro was. “Seriously, how dare you say that to me, now, after all these years? It’s bullshit, Zo, and you know it.”

Why did everyone want to take everything away from me? Why did everyone insist that I was a fucking fool? It made me furious. She was supposed to be my best friend and here she was telling me that for years she had allegedly kept a secret that my boyfriend had hit on her? I seethed, waiting for her answer.

“I’m not lying, Mandy, I swear. You know how there is harmless flirting and then there is, like, for real flirting? This was for real. He wanted me to go home with him when you were on tour.” She pushed her breakfast plate away like she couldn’t stand the sight of it. “God, my stomach hurts. I never wanted to tell you this.”

“So why are you?” I felt like I was out of my body, like I had that day when Max didn’t show up and no one could find him. When I got the phone call that he had missed Father’s Day and no one had seen him in three days and I texted him a hundred times and called and asked around and nothing. No response and I had felt like I was watching it all from far away.

Now I felt like I did on stage, when the lights shone right in my eyes and I did everything based on muscle memory. It was an odd sensation, like being yanked back out of myself, the shadows and the light swapping out with each other until reality was hazy and nebulous. Zoe was breaking what remained of my old life. She was warping it and shattering it and making it all feel like a dream, like five years of my life had been a lie, when I knew they weren’t.

“Because you won’t admit that Max wasn’t a perfect guy or a perfect boyfriend all the time. And if you won’t admit that you won’t be able to ever be with someone else because you’re comparing them to an ideal that isn’t even real.”

I was hurt. I trusted Zoe to not be just another person who thought I was an idiot. “Nice to know my oldest friend thinks I’m living in a fantasy world.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. “Thanks for brunch.”

“Where are you going? Don’t leave, come on.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” I was too pissed off to stay and just splash around in the pool. That held zero appeal. “I need to go to the store. My moving day is tomorrow and I need towels and sheets.” That was true, but mostly I wanted to get away from her.

“Miranda, wait.” She stood up and started to follow me but I held my hand out to stop her. Rushing, I let myself out through the side gate and hurried to my car.

Once I was down the street, I pulled over and took a few deep breaths and tried to calm my shaking nerves. As angry as I was, I knew why everyone thought I was a moron. Because they didn’t know what I knew.

They didn’t know I knew everything about Max. Including his carefully thought-out plan to leave Miami and create a new identity.

The reason I knew he was dead was because he hadn’t followed the plan. He hadn’t contacted me the way we had pre-arranged.

But I couldn’t tell the police any of that. So they didn’t believe he had been in danger and that was why I went around and around in my head, the girl who can’t leave the past alone. The past was murky and unresolved.

And Alejandro had answers I wanted.

He knew his brother better than anyone. Maybe even better than me.

It was true I wanted to have a baby desperately with him. But I also wanted to know what he knew.

My phone buzzed in my purse. Speak of the charming devil.

We need to talk.

We certainly did.