I’ve got plenty of money to start over again, but as I stay in bed in the Plaza Hotel room that Travis put me up in, I’m still shell shocked over the loss.

Everything was going so well until, out of nowhere, he blindsided me. I should’ve seen it coming, because how else could my paid relationship with a billionaire have turned out?

But as much as I want to despise Travis, I can’t. I fell for him, and he never even knew it. I cared enough to want to be by his side during his darkest days, and he threw me away.

I wanted Travis much more than the money.

The days crawl by, and I wrap myself in the thick, cocoon-like robe that the hotel has provided. I curl up on the bed and watch TV, not paying much attention to the shows as I aimlessly switch channels. I don’t eat much, merely picking at the food that Travis’s assistant Clarice has arranged to send up to me.

Then something happens a few days before my contracted time runs out.

I get sick of myself. And I get angry with Travis for making me feel this way about him. No one should have that kind of power over me, not even him.

That’s when I start surfing the laptop computer that Clarice has also provided, and I methodically lose myself in researching available apartments. By the end of the day, I’ve called rental offices, and I luck out when I stumble upon what seems to be a fairly decent property for a reasonable rental fee in Yorkville, Upper Manhattan. It’s modest but has enough space for Mom, Tate, and me, and I make quick arrangements to take a look at it.

By the end of the week, I’m moved in.

I’d planned to build a new life for myself and my family in this city, so why should I let Travis ruin that?

I’m my own woman now, I think, numbing myself to feeling anything more for him. And I’m never going to let someone like Travis ever get to me again. But even as I tell myself that, I cry myself to sleep each night, missing him so much, hurting as if nothing is ever going to heal me.

* * *

I’m riding in the elevator up to my apartment, a cloth bag full of groceries hanging from my shoulder when my phone rings.

My heart gives a hopeful leap, just as it always does whenever I get a text or a call. I’ve moved half a city away from Travis, moved into this apartment, and once Tate and Mom arrive, I can finally get on with my life. My heart is still hoping that Travis regrets cutting me off so coldly and suddenly, but my head knows better.

After I dig the phone out of my purse, I see Mom’s number on the screen and pick up. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Sweetheart. Tate and I wanted to call before we left your aunt’s to go to the airport.”

In the background, my teenaged brother’s voice sounds off. “Have the covers on my bed turned down for me with a chocolate on my pillow, Sis!”

“Not your maid, Tate,” I say.

He brings out a smile in me, and it’s a foreign feeling. I haven’t smiled much lately at all. Even if I should be bouncing off the walls at the thought of my mom and brother joining me here so we can finally be free and happy, Travis is still haunting me.

The mere thought of him drags my pathetic heart down as I step out of the elevator. While Mom confirms the information I gave her about the car that’s driving me to pick them up at La Guardia, I make a valiant attempt to pull myself out of this funk once and for all.

Mom finishes speaking just as I unlock my door then step onto the hardwood floor of my apartment. The walls are still bare, the cupboards just beginning to get filled up, but it’s already home.

Maybe I feel that way because Travis is in the very same city, not terribly far away, but I shake the thought of him off. Still, when I talk, there’s a burn in my throat. “I can’t wait to see you guys,” I say, then turn on the speaker for the phone.

“It feels as if it’s been a lifetime.” Mom’s voice echoes in my apartment as I walk to the kitchen. “We have a lot of catching up to do. I want to hear all about this miracle job that changed our lives.”

I slide my bag onto a Formica-topped counter. “You’d be bored by the details.” Right—she’s never going to hear them, even if I could bring myself to tell anyone about the man who broke my heart.

“Honey,” Mom says, “you’d be surprised at all the little things that bring me happiness these days…now that I can feel some happiness.”

I laugh as I take out the ground beef I bought at the market. I turn to put the meat in the fridge and—

When I see a man standing near the stove, I scream. The food thuds to the ground as the sight of the big, raging, hulking bastard who is my father shoots a million arrows of fear straight into my chest.

He lunges forward for my phone, and I finally find my voice.

“He’s here! Don’t get on that plane—”

Gary slaps the phone out of my hand and fists a handful of my T-shirt, hauling me up to him so close that I can smell his sweaty skin and see into the dark pits of his eyes. “Don’t worry, Farrah,” he says to my mom, “I’ll find you next and drive you the fuck back to Harrisburg, too.”

As he pins me to the wall, I kick at him, but he puts me in some kind of martial arts hold that has me clawing for breath. Meanwhile, I hear Mom on the phone yelling my name and telling me that she’s calling the cops.

Gary shouts at her. “We’re not gonna be here long enough for the cops to find us! Besides, if you’re stupid enough to call anyone, I’m going to choke the life out of this bitch. You know I’ll do it.”

“Gary, please don’t—”

“I know where you and Tate are, Farrah, so don’t think your sister’s cop boyfriend is gonna keep you safe for long. I’ll match smarts with that pansy any day. I can outwit him. I mean, I finally tracked this little piece of shit down and easily picked the lock on her door, and I can also snag you and the boy when you’re least expecting it.”

“Don’t hurt her!” This time it’s Tate on the line.

As I gag under Gary’s hold, I look up at the man who calls himself my father: the military cut of his dark hair, the sweat on his ruddy skin, the way his muscle shirt reveals the veins sticking out in his overworked arms. He loosens his hold on me, but that doesn’t make him any less of a thug.

“I’m okay,” I manage to say to Mom and Tate.

“Yeah, Farrah—she’s okay.” Gary gloats above me. “And she’ll keep being okay when I take her back home with me.”

Back…home. With him.

“Never,” I say.

“Check your definition of ‘never,’ dumbass. You’re going straight into the car with me.” He pulls me by the shirt toward my phone. “Pick that up, then hang it up.”

I shake my head, and he seethes.

“Do it or I’m going to really fuck up your mom and brother too. They’ll pay for your bad behavior.”

Good god, he means it, so I pick up my phone. Then I try to get in one last word. “Mom—”

He grabs my phone and disconnects the conversation then hoists me toward the front door. “You got your wallet? Credit, debit cards, all that?”

I still have my purse slung over my chest. I nod.

“Good. You don’t need anything else. Now be a smart girl, Nova. I’m keeping your phone handy so you can’t make any sly calls to the authorities. You wouldn’t want to do that anyway because you know what I’ll do to your Mom and Tate.”

Mom was right about Gary. He’s crazier than ever, even more so than when I left Harrisburg on Travis’s jet.

Travis, I think. I’m truly never going to see him again.

Gary pulls me out of the apartment and slams shut the door behind us. “That’s a good girl, and you’re gonna be just as cooperative when I take all of your money and put it in my account.”

Before I left Harrisburg, I’d opened a different bank account, one that Gary doesn’t have access to. I’d made a few little deposits into the old one though, thinking this might appease Gary. It didn’t.

“And,” he continues as he jams his finger at the elevator button, “you’re gonna start working and giving me your paychecks again. Things are going back to the way they were before you ran away. The only change is that I’m gonna keep a much closer watch over your phone and your whereabouts. You’re not gonna escape a second time, you bitch. Shit, I can’t believe you were a dumb enough twat to think you’d get away with it the first time.”

But I almost did, and as the elevator doors open to an empty car, I leave everything behind me, including the apartment that was filled with such hope…and the bittersweet memories of Travis Star.

* * *

“Motherfucker!” Gary screams at the old computer that he keeps on the faded table in the tiny kitchen of the Harrisburg house. He shoves the bowl of cereal and milk that I just gave him off the surface, and the contents splash all over the linoleum floor. “That stupid gash,” he rages to himself. “She thinks she’s outsmarted me. We’ll see about that…”

Without being told to clean up after him, I go for the cloth in the sink. There’ve been a lot of messes the past week, a lot of tantrums from Gary as he tries to track down Mom and Tate. My aunt’s cop boyfriend has relocated them, and it seems Gary is always just a step behind. All I can do is watch as the cracks in his sanity get wider and wider.

I think he’s losing it entirely.

I take care to stay quiet and also to keep the smock of my work uniform clean. I got a job at the local grocery store just to make Gary happy, but he’s been on me to get on a night shift somewhere else, too.

I can’t believe I’m back in my old life and it’s worse than before.

Thoughts of Travis still tear me apart. Now, more than ever, I cling to my memories of him. I’m still hopelessly in love with him.

Sometimes I think my memories of those good times are all that’s keeping me going anymore. I need to escape again, but Gary’s been watching me closer than ever before.

I clean up Gary’s mess. There’s a sound outside—a car coming to a skidding halt in our driveway. Before I can look out the window to see what the commotion is, Gary is out of his chair and coming toward me.

“Did you order something to be delivered here, dumbass? Because I’ve told you not to do that. It’s a waste of money.”

“I didn’t order anything.”

Gary doesn’t actually have friends, so now I’m curious—and a bit desperate—to see who would dare come to visit the scariest house on the lane.

There’s a knock on the front door, and I glance at Gary. He’s hulking over the sink, looking out the window with a scowl.

“You called the feds on me,” he says.

His level of delusion shocks even me. “I haven’t called anyone.”

“Then why is a suit at our door?”

Whoever is at the door knocks again.

I’m getting bolder and bolder. “I’m answering it.”

Adrenaline pushes me forward, toward the door. This is your chance, Nova. Keep going!

Then fingers wind into my hair, yanking on it. I scream, my scalp on fire as Gary hauls me back to him. He looks down at me, his eyes unfocused with madness.

Gary starts to pull me out of the room, but just then the door crashes open.

My screams stop, a stunned sob taking its place when I see Travis standing in the doorway, fury burning in his eyes.