“My shadow?” I breathed.

He nodded. “Always there, following you, even when you didn’t see. Remember the day Arabella, Soren, and Alice crowded you in that locker room and a door slammed in the distance, making them leave? That was me. And they paid for what they did. I stole Soren’s Maserati and totaled it, causing his parents to almost disown him, and I planted cocaine in Alice and Arabella’s purses. Alice’s parents gave her so much shit they decided to send her to rehab instead of college. With Arabella, I got even better results. She got hooked.”

Silence.

“I’ve always loved you in my own fucked-up, destructive way.”

I closed my eyes, relishing the word as it rolled off his tongue. So fantastically rare, and forever mine.

“Say it again,” I whispered to his lips, cupping his cheeks.

“I love you,” he said, his tongue flicking my lips when he pronounced the L, opening them in the process. We kissed hungrily.

“Again,” I growled into his mouth, clutching his shirt, knowing it was wet because of my tears and not giving a damn.

“I.” He nuzzled his straight nose along my jawline.

“Love.” He flicked my ear with his tongue.

“You,” he finished, closing his mouth over mine in a passionate kiss that made my eyes roll in their sockets and took my breath away.

He moved on top of me, thrusting his groin into mine, pinning me down, and just like the sculpture, we became one again. He kicked his jeans off, I hoisted my dress, and a few minutes later, he was inside me, and we were perfectly tangled. He drove into me deeply, again and again and again, until I was delirious with pleasure and my heart soared and bloomed. I could feel my love-cells multiplying inside my chest. More. More. More.

This. This was what I wanted and needed. Vaughn Spencer, of all people. In my bed. Protecting me from my favorite monster.

Himself.

Two years later

It is the scent of cotton and lavender that gives her away.

I catch the faint waft of the feminine shampoo I’m so addicted to that I pathetically pack it with me in mini bottles whenever I have to leave her to travel for work. Which, granted, isn’t often. Either we join each other while traveling or we don’t travel at all. It’s still fucked up to think we spent years away from each other while we were young.

I look up from the desk in the studio I share with Len, in the shed of our garden, and stare at the door. Nothing.

You can’t fool me, Good Girl. You never could.

I put down the blue diamond I have in my hand and stand to walk outside. The air is humid and hot around me, even though the sun set hours ago. I check the time on my phone. One in the morning. Fuck. That’s why she checked on me.

Has she seen what I was doing?

Of course she has, jackass. That’s why she tried to slip away unnoticed—not to ruin your surprise.

I walk past our small garden and open the back door to our house. We live in a small villa in Corsica, France. We love that it’s on an island, that it’s within proximity to everything and everywhere we need to visit in Europe, and that our friends can visit us any time, because who the fuck doesn’t want to vacation in the South of France?

Padding barefoot down our dark hallway, I reach our bedroom door and pause. Our bedroom is the most glorious place in the house. Maybe the universe. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. Whoever designed this house was smart enough to put in floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the wonder that is sunset in Corsica. I push the door open and walk over to our bed. Len is lying there, curled into herself like a shrimp, pretending to sleep, her eyelids fluttering.

I brush my thumb against her cheek, watching as goosebumps rise on her skin. This is how it all started, I think. A balled-up girl in the dark, begging not to be noticed.

No can do, sweetheart.

I tried so hard to ignore her existence when I saw her again after I gave her that chocolate, because I knew how fucked I’d be if I let her in.

And she burst in anyway, tearing down my walls. I lower myself to her ear and breathe the words tauntingly:

“I know you’re not asleep. Your eyelids are moving.”

Her eyes pop open, and she rolls from her side to her back, staring at me defiantly.

“What if I am?” she whispers, challenging me. “What would you do?”

“That depends.” I sit on the edge of the bed, removing a lock of hair from her face. “How much did you see back there?”

“Enough to expect either a ring or a swift, yet very painful breakup, if you give that piece of jewelry to someone else.”