She’s mine.

As my whole body throbs with satisfaction, sweat covering my skin, I’m overwhelmed by the urge to claim her as my own.

I may have taken possession of her body—and her will, too. But her obedience to me was temporary. She was only mine for as long as it took for us to fuck.

Jealousy burns hot within me. And it’s not only Mark I’m jealous of but also other guys. Any man who so much as lays his eyes on Harper. Any man who can actually ask her to stay by his side and make her his woman.

Because as much as I want her, Harper is not for me.

She’s too sweet, too pure. Her world is too different from mine.

As I pull out of her, a deep sense of loss plagues me. I realize she’s no longer mine. Just like that, she’s no longer under my control.

Harper hops off the desk, and we get dressed in silence, me drowning in my own thoughts and Harper probably too horrified by what I just made her do to speak.

Just as I zip up my jeans, something vibrates against the surface of my desk. My phone.

I check the screen. Immediately, relief floods my body, followed by profound sorrow.

“Good news,” I announce. “It’s safe for you to go home now.”

Harper says nothing. For a few long seconds, I can only hear the rustling of fabric as she puts on her bra and panties.

“You want me to go home now?” she asks.

“No, not now,” I say. “It’s too late in the night. You can go home tomorrow.”

“Did something happen?” Harper’s cheeks are still flushed red from her orgasms, but her facial expression is serious.

“Yeah.” I catch sight of the alarm on her face and add, “Something good, though. It’s no longer dangerous out there.”

“Good. So, are you going to tell me what happened, now that it’s no longer dangerous?” she asks without missing a beat.

I sigh as I shrug my shirt into place. “I can’t, Harper. It’s not that simple. You don’t want to know what goes on in my world. It’s too dangerous.”

“You just told me yourself it’s no longer dangerous.”

“Yeah. Relatively.” I look down to button up my shirt. “But you should go back to your old life if you know what’s good for you.”

Harper falls silent. She stands there in her underwear, looking sexy, confused, irritated, and sad.

Does she want to stay here, too? With me?

Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. She’s only here because I look like her dead boyfriend.

“I’m still going to fulfill my promise,” I tell her, standing by my desk as if I can fool myself into thinking this is just another business negotiation. “I said I’d tell you everything you want to know. So if you have any questions, you can ask them now. Or tomorrow before you go home.”

In a small voice, she asks, “Are we going to see each other again after I go home?”

“No,” I say firmly even as my chest clenches. “You should stay as far away from me as you can.”

Harper puts on her jeans and shirt without saying a word. She avoids my gaze.

When she has finished dressing herself, she plops down on the chair she sat on earlier and pulls out her phone.

“Okay, let’s start, then,” she says, both her voice and her facial expression flat as she keeps her gaze on the screen.

“What’s that on your phone?” I ask, frowning.

“I’ve prepared a list of questions.”

That’s strange. But, I guess she’s had a lot of free time.

As long as she doesn’t refuse to leave, there’s no problem . . . although there’s no reason why she’d want to stay. After all, when she entered my office with the coffee, she referred to herself as a “hostage.”

I take my seat. “Okay. Let’s start with the first one, then.”

“Where did you grow up?” she asks.

“In the city.”

“San Francisco?” Harper raises her gaze as her hand hovers over her phone.

“Yeah.”

“What’s your earliest memory?”

I pause. “Running in a park, chasing some birds away.”

Harper’s lips curve up into a small smile, but her eyes look kind of sad. “That’s cute,” she says.

“I guess.” I shrug. “I remember there being a bunch of other kids, so maybe it was some outing arranged by the orphanage.”

“Did you spend your entire childhood in an orphanage?”

“No,” I say. “I had some foster families, but I never stayed too long with any of them.”

Harper’s big, green eyes fill with compassion, which annoys me because I don’t like or need anyone’s pity. But at the same time, the look on her face makes me feel a little less alone.

I don’t know why I care. Being alone has never been a problem for me.

“Are they the people in the photos I found in your desk?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“I thought it was strange that they looked like family photos but there was a different group of people in each picture,” she says. “You must care about them, to still keep those pictures with you.”

I shrug. “It’s not like I have too little space and too many things. Look around.”

Harper pauses to stare at the sparsely populated shelves on my wall cabinet. She glances at her phone screen. “How long did you stay with each foster family?”

“I don’t know. A few months. A couple of years. I had issues they weren’t prepared to deal with. Anger issues. Criminal tendencies.”

“Criminal tendencies?” she asks.

“Yeah. Obviously, I didn’t have a lot of money, so I started dealing drugs. Marijuana, mostly. That’s not such a big deal now, but getting caught with just the smallest amount used to mean trouble.”

“Was that how you became acquainted with Mr. Foster?”

I stare at her. “I’m happy to answer anything that could help you with your grief over your boyfriend’s death. But there’s no reason why you should learn anything about my criminal history.”

“It’s not just history, though, is it?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “Obviously, you’re still very much involved in that world.”

“I warned you. I’m not answering any questions about that. The less you know about what I do, the better,” I say.

“Okay.” Harper nods. “Has anyone ever mentioned a sibling to you? A brother, maybe?”

“No.” I would’ve remembered had someone mentioned something like that. My entire childhood, I was hurting for a family.

“If you were so strapped for money, how did you manage to afford medical school?” she asks.

“Scholarship. I had a good head on my shoulder, and I wasn’t dumb enough to ruin it by using the shit I peddled. I knew my brain was my ticket out of poverty.” I look straight at her. “Careful. I don’t see how this has anything to do with your dead boyfriend.”

“He went to medical school, too. Always wanted to be a doctor. He was a smart guy,” she says. “Good heart. He wanted to help people.”

“I wanted money.”

Harper studies me with her big eyes, making me feel like she’s peering into my soul. She says, “I don’t think that’s all you wanted. If you didn’t care about people, you wouldn’t have attended the funeral of your patient.”

My heart skips a beat at her accurate assessment. “I don’t need you to be my shrink.”

Harper takes a deep breath. “I’m not trying to be your shrink. I’m just saying, you’re not a bad guy even though you seem to think you are.”

“Jesus, fuck,” I curse. “Harper, I may look like your dead boyfriend, but I’m not him, okay? I’m not nice or sweet or whatever he was.

“I’m not a good guy even though you seem to think I am. You don’t know me.”

I don’t know why I get so angry, but it seems important to me that Harper doesn’t get the wrong idea about me.

I don’t want her to hang on to me, thinking I can replace Mark. I just want her to find whatever she came here to find and go home where it’s safe.

The rest of Harper’s questions have to do with little things like the brand of cigarettes I smoke, the cologne I wear, and the leather jacket I was wearing when we met at the cemetery.

Strangely, it seems Mark and I are drawn to the same things. Maybe that’s why Harper intrigues me, too.

Twin brother, huh? Maybe it’s a good thing we never met. I wouldn’t want some guy who looks exactly like me going around, taking everything I want.

I stare at Harper. Her fiery red hair. Her stunning green eyes. Her sass and stubbornness.

There’s no universe in which I wouldn’t want her. And yet, I can’t have her, and it’s not even because someone else has claimed possession of her.