The sun rose, warming my skin. Tangled in Tade, I still reached out, running the pad of my finger down his chest reminding myself this was real.

As I lay beside him, I worried over the things I had to tell him. How much did he know? Would he be disgusted? If he knew, he hadn’t acted like it yesterday.

His long lashes fluttered open, and I marveled again how lucky I was to have found this beautiful man.

“Rae,” he said.

I smiled—I couldn’t help it. I remembered telling him only my friends called me that. He hadn’t ever used it until now.

“How’d you get here?”

“I didn’t steal my parents’ car and drive here.” He chuckled. “Megan came by and I used her for an escape.”

My confidence wasn’t there yet. And he and I hadn’t had a lot of time for practice.

“I’m sorry.”

My sober response broke the curve of his mouth and flattened it.

He reached up and threaded his fingers in my hair.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

I shifted my gaze to look out the window. The lake sparkled under the morning sky.

“I do.” My eyes captured his again. “Meghan’s dead because of me.”

Endless tears streamed down my face and he caught me by the shoulders. The image of her so scared that she ran into the road and got hit by the car that had swerved to avoid her replayed in my nightmares.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is. He told me he thought she was me.”

I shook my head. He stopped me and tipped up my chin.

“He did this, not you.”

A part of me wanted to believe that. All the years of therapy to fix me unwound as a bigger part hung onto the knowledge that if I hadn’t been at this school, she would still be alive.

“I lost your ring,” I said softly and held up my naked hand.

“I don’t care about the ring. I’m glad you’re safe.”

I brushed hair away that began to stick to my wet face.

“More than that.” I hung my head. “I allowed my fear of the past and my mother’s whispering to scare me enough to run away.”

I bit my lip and tried not to meet his eye. He was having none of that.

“Is your mom the reason you haven’t called? Why you didn’t let me come see you in…”

“Jail?”

He nodded. There were so many reasons.

“Part of it. I didn’t want you to see me in there.” I took a cleansing breath. “When I got out, I had no way to call you. I’d lost my phone that day. Mom refused to get me a new one and Dad was busy trying to keep her stable.”

Not to mention the nightmares I had about plunging the knife in Kyle. Though I didn’t regret it, the idea that I’d taken a life still haunted me.

“Why does she hate me so much? She has to know I had nothing to do with Meghan’s disappearance now.”

I rolled to my back, unable to look at him while I shared secrets hidden from me until a day ago.

“It isn’t you, exactly. It’s any man outside of my father. Mom was abused by an uncle or a close family friend that she called Uncle. I’m unsure of the specifics, but it went on for a while until her family found out. She spent a lot of time in counseling and recovered, kind of. She was functioning enough to eventually meet dad and fall in love. According to him, when I was born, fear that the same would happen to me made her isolate us. We didn’t see family often or go on vacations until Dad convinced her I was old enough to speak out if something like that happened. Only I lied to my parents and…”

The words got caught in my throat.

“Reagan, you don’t have to talk about it.”

His eyes, so soft on mine, helped me push past it. I wouldn’t be ashamed of the past. It wasn’t my fault except for running off like a foolish girl. Putting trust in someone who by all accounts was trustworthy didn’t make me stupid.

“I was young and sheltered. And when a really cute boy said all the right things that gave my heart butterflies, I did something stupid. He took me from my family and did horrible things.”

“Reagan—”

“I’ll spare you the details, but there are some things you should know. I was eventually sold to a man who did worse things to me. They tell me I was gone for a year and twelve days. I didn’t see the sun for all that time, so for me, I had no idea. The man who took me eventually made a mistake. I got his phone for precious minutes and called 911.”

“I know what happened next.”

“Your dad?” He nodded. “He saved me. He was so kind to me. Did he tell you I had a baby?”

Anger burned in his eyes, but it wasn’t for me. “Yes,” he gritted out.

“I never knew if it was a boy or girl until he took me again. I don’t think he realized he said her,” I said, absently.

I sucked in a shuddering breath and he pulled me to lie on his chest.

“I wish I could kill him again,” he said, sounding murderous. My tears spilled on his warm skin. “I want to kill the bastard who kept you all that time.”

“He’s alive, you know. He’s in prison in Indiana.”

Tade stiffened. “At Terre Haute?”

“Yes.” My lungs constricted. “Is that where your dad is?”

“Yes.”

There was a moment we both didn’t breathe.

“What is your dad in for?”

He took a moment to think, as if processing his answer before he said it out loud.

“Drug trafficking and killing a federal officer during a raid on his boat.”

I hated the coincidences. “What’s his name?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Time froze for a second until he answered.

“Tate Ford.”

Though it wasn’t the same name, that didn’t mean anything.

“Is that the only name he’s ever gone by?”

His brow crinkled. “Yes. What is the asshole’s name who hurt you?”

“Frank Westmont.”

When he blew out a sigh of relief, I did the same.

“My father is registered at the prison as Tate Ford.”

“Did he have any connections with…”

“No, and I asked my dad. He said Tate didn’t have anything to do with human trafficking,” he said decisively. “I told you I’d done bad things. I was in a lot of fights at school and forced to sell drugs. I never made anyone buy. I was so immersed in that world I didn’t think I was doing anything bad. I believed those kids made their own bad choices. If it wasn’t me, they’d buy it somewhere else. I was only providing a service. Things changed when I started hanging out more on the boat. There were loads of women there, but none of them were held against their will. Some of them got knocked around, but they were always free to go. It was the things I saw them do to other men who’d been loyal, men who used and got hooked on the product, that made me wonder if I was on the wrong side of things. I’d never seen the lingering effects of the drugs from both sides until then.”

He shuddered beneath me.

“When did you leave and go with your mom?”

“I was around twelve, maybe thirteen.”

We were silent then until he broke it long minutes later.

“Does knowing what I did change things between us?”

I bent my head back to look at his stony face as he stared at the ceiling.

“No. Does my past change things for you?”

“No,” he said.

“Even knowing I could have a kid out there. Kyle—” That had been his real name according to the police, “—He’d told Frank he would get rid of her. But I don’t think so. He was all about money. I’m afraid—”

“We’ll find her.”

“How? Where can we look?”

“I’ll go back to the prison, talk to Frank and my father. I think he knows more than he’s telling about my mother’s disappearance. We’ll find out what happened to both of them.”

His determination rallied me.

“My wish is that he sold her to a family that loves her. In my heart, I hope they were so desperate to adopt a kid, they resorted to paying for one. That’s what I like to think when I wake from nightmares.”

He stroked a hand down my hair.

“We’ll look for her.”

“What if we don’t find her?”

“We’ll keep looking.”

I hadn’t thought mentally I could go through another pregnancy. I’d been so alone without any idea what to do the first time. But looking at this man, I knew anything was possible. He had a way of taking away the darkness and filling it with light.

As if he’d read my thoughts, he threaded our fingers together. I scooted up and gave into the need to be closer to him. Our mouths tangled as did our limbs.

When I pulled back and sat up, his green eyes questioned if he’d done something wrong.

“Kyle and Frank, they took something from me. But because of you, I learned to love and not fear. Because of you, I can be loved and not be tormented. Because of you, I feel like a woman and not a victim.”

He reached for me, but I placed a hand on his chest.

“I’m not finished,” I said softly. “Kyle and Frank—” I forced myself to use their real names. “—stole my choice and for a long time even after, I let fear hold me away from life. I chose to be with you. But there was one thing.” He waited for me to continue. I asked him a question instead. “Why is it you never ask me to go down on you?”

His startled gaze told me he’d never thought much about it.

“I figured if you wanted to, you would. You were so new…well I thought…That first time, I’d been so worked up I didn’t…but I never banged a virgin anyway, so…”

It was so cute the way he tripped over his explanation.

“Why me?” I asked.

When he spoke, there was no hesitation in his words. Some of the cocky guy I’d met that first night showed through in the form of confidence in what he was saying.

“Besides the fact that you’re gorgeous.”

“I doubt that’s it. I’ve seen and heard about the women who would gladly take a single night with you. Was it the challenge because I blew you off that first night?”

“There was some of that. But if that was all it was, when you—”

“Gave it up,” I supplied, grinning.

“When you let me have you, I was so far gone for you already; it was more than just sex that I wanted from you.”

My heart overflowed with what I felt for this man. I crawled down his body, and took him in my hand.

“I love you,” I said.

His eyes held mine. He wouldn’t force me or even so much as ask.

Because of him, I wouldn’t let those assholes have any more power over me. This was my choice.

Because of him, it wasn’t something dirty—I did it because pleasuring him made me happy.

I dipped my head and took the hard length of him in my mouth one inch at a time with no memories of the past. Our future together consumed my every thought. As I sucked him deep and his hands fisted the sheet, joy painted my life with new colors.

Because of him, my life wasn’t empty—it was full and complete with so many possibilities for the future.