My sexy little Vanquish Volante convertible can go from zero to sixty-two miles per hour in just over four seconds. But despite the fact that I want to put distance between me and the Meadow Lane house that I love—not to mention the man—I’m not taking advantage of all that power and speed.

Instead, I’m parked on the shoulder, the engine still running and the radio blasting as I claw my way back from my memories. Sweet, wonderful memories, yes. But I don’t need to linger in the past. That boy no longer exists, and the sooner I cement myself in reality, the better.

But it’s not even my feelings for Dallas that are the worst of it. No, the worst is that I gave in. That I lost control. Because after the kind of trauma I lived through, control is pretty much the holy grail. That’s why I hate crowds. Why I drive too fast. Why I got married. And, yeah, why I got divorced.

I know all of that because I have paid a shit ton of money over the years for a stream of therapists to tell me so. I crave control. I’m scared of the dark. I don’t trust easily. I have survivor’s guilt.

I am, in other words, a therapist’s wet dream. A walking, talking textbook illustrating the emotional damage that follows a kidnapping. So much so, that the storm in my head can provide enough challenge to support a shrink’s entire career.

And even if I’m not quite curable, at least the symptoms can be masked, and the chorus line of doctors can feel like they’ve accomplished something. Because whenever I get twitchy, I have a lovely little rainbow of pills that can take the edge off.

I tap a yellow one into my palm right now—because god knows I lost control in a big way with Dallas.

Big. Major. Huge.

But all I do is stare at the pill, and then I drop it onto the ground beside the car.

Fuck it, I think. I can handle this.

And I really hope that I’m right about that.

I’m just about to pull back out onto the road when my phone rings. I glance at the caller ID, and then eagerly push the button to talk.

“Hey, sweetie.” My mom’s voice is soft, with just a hint of her Georgia roots, and the moment I hear it, I burst into tears. “Baby?” She sounds freaked, and I can hardly blame her. I love my mom—I talk with her all the time—and even though we sometimes disagree, her calls never drive me to blubbering.

“Sorry—I’m just—” I cut myself off because I don’t know what to say. I rub my hands under my eyes and suck in a calming breath. “I’m just having one of those days, and I’m really, really glad you called.”

It’s true. I am. I’m almost thirty-two years old, and right at that moment, I don’t think there’s anything in the world that would make me feel better than talking with my mom.

“I’m glad I called, too,” she says. “You know you can always call me.”

“I know.” My entire life, that’s been my mother’s motto. I can call her anytime. I can talk to her about anything.

For the most part I have. My marriage and divorce. The Hollywood bullshit I’ve encountered in LA. My panic attacks before media appearances. My never-ending stream of self-defense classes. My frustration with therapists who don’t help. And, of course, the nightmares and anxiety that have dogged me for the last seventeen years.

But the one thing I’ve never talked to her about is the one thing I need to talk about the most—Dallas. What happened between us. How I feel about him. How much the distance we’ve kept between us now eats at me.

How much I just plain want him, and how hard it is to know that I can’t have him.

Doesn’t matter how open my mother is or how well we communicate. That is one conversation that is just not happening.

“Why don’t I come over?” she suggests, obviously concerned that I’m not elaborating on what’s bugging me. “We could make cookies. Watch a bad movie.”

I glance at the clock. It’s almost midnight. “Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

“It’s not even nine,” she says. “And I’m just down the hill on Sunset. I’ll ditch Sarah and be right over,” she adds, referring to her lifelong bestie.

“You’re in LA,” I say, as I realize that she believes I am, too. On any other day, the odds are that she’d be right. I’ve been living for the last four months in an adorable little rental house just off Mulholland Drive. I’d tried working on the screen adaptation of The Price of Ransom from New York, but there were so many meetings, it ended up being easier to just make the move.

“We decided to do a girls spa and shopping weekend,” Mom explains. “We arrived just in time for dinner, and we’re on our way to after-dinner drinks and dessert, but I’m happy to change plans if you want me to come by.”

I smile, because that is so my mom, just going with the flow and looking cool and fabulous while she does it. I can imagine her in the back of their hired car, her golden blond hair perfect even after a day traveling, and her linen outfit not the slightest bit wrinkled. Lisa Sykes is always camera ready, always has a smile for reporters, and is pretty much the classiest lady around. I inherited my looks from her, but not her ability to make friends wherever she goes. Personally, I’m happy to fade into the background.

“You can come by,” I say, amused. “But since I’m not there, I don’t see the point.”

“Well, maybe tomorrow then. If you want to join us for massages in the morning you can—wait.” I can practically hear her playing back our conversation, including my comment about the late hour. “You’re not in LA, are you?”

“I’m in the Hamptons. I just got back to New York today, actually.” I am, in fact, only about half an hour away from the house my parents now keep in East Hampton village.

She laughs. “Well, isn’t that a comedy of errors? Did you drive all the way out to see me and Daddy? No,” she answers herself, “of course you didn’t.”

She knows perfectly well that I never drive to see them unless I call first. My father is usually traveling—I happen to know that he’s in Houston at the moment, working his way through a lineup of meetings relating to the new Sykes Pavilion, a massive, high-end retail, restaurant, and hotel destination that is scheduled to open in just under twenty-two months.

“I came to see Dallas,” I admit.

“Dallas?”

I understand the surprise in her voice. She knows Dallas and I have avoided each other ever since the kidnapping. Hell, I even went so far as to beg to go to a boarding school in California, near where my birth father was living at the time, just so that I could get away. Mom absolutely despises Colin now, and she trusts him not at all. Not only that, but she’d gone through a brutal battle to have his parental rights terminated when I was a little girl.

Even so, she let me go. And that simple fact underscores how much she knew I needed distance from my brother after the ordeal was over.

“Why on earth did you fly in to see Dallas?”

“I had to talk to him,” I admit. “I should have waited until tomorrow, though. He was occupied.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice, and her almost inaudible little hmmm shows that she understands. How can she not? She sees the tabloids and gossip shows just like everyone else, and I know she’s as disappointed as I am in what he’s become.

“Your brother has to deal with his issues in his own way,” she says, which is exactly what I would expect a mom to say.

“He’s acting like an ass,” I reply, which is exactly what a sister would say.

“I guess being an ass is his way,” she adds, and I remember all over again why I love my mom so much.

“I wish he’d get over it,” I grumble.

“You miss him.” Her voice is gentle. “You two used to be so close.”

She’s right of course, but after what happened earlier, I really don’t want to go there. So I shift the conversation, because she has as much of a right to my news as Dallas. “I came to see him because—oh, god, Mom—I came because Bill has one of the guys who snatched us in custody. And he wants to trade immunity for the identity of the man who was behind it all.”

Silence.

There is nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

“Mom? Mommy?”

I hear the sharp intake of breath, and I realize that she is trying to talk, and that she can’t through the tears.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have dropped it like that. I didn’t mean to—”

“No.” Her voice is raspy. “No, baby, of course I want to know. Of course you can tell me. I was just—after so much time—”

“I know. I can’t believe it.”

“What did Dallas say?”

I think back to his reaction—his guilt that I’d been caught up in his kidnapping. My guilt that I couldn’t save him. That I got out and he didn’t. All of it. Every horrible bit of it. I don’t know how to tell Mom any of that, though, and so I go with the simplest and truest answer. “I think he was a little shell-shocked. I get that. I am, too.”

“And Bill will keep us informed?”

“Of course. He’s going to call Daddy, too. He wants—well, he’s going to want Dad to press charges.”

“Oh.”

I frown. I’d been hoping she’d say that Daddy would jump on the chance. But of course he won’t. He kept the kidnapping secret back then, so I doubt he’ll be keen on it going public now. “You’ll talk to him, won’t you? If they really do find whoever did that to us, I want to see him strung up by his balls.” I wince. I may be an adult, but I’m usually not so vulgar when I talk to my mother.

“I’d like that, too,” she says, completely unperturbed. “But so much publicity on you after all this time—it’s going to bring back the stress and anxiety.”

“Bring it back? It never went away.”

“You’re doing better, sweetheart, and you know it. You and Dallas both are.”

I snort. “That’s because he has a harem to help him cope.”

I can practically hear my mother pressing her lips together to keep from commenting. After a second, she says, “I’m thinking about your career. About your books. If your kidnapping becomes public you’re going to end up in the spotlight in a much less pleasant way. The media will be sympathetic—you and your brother were the victims—but they’ll be relentless. Is that what you want?”

“Want? Of course not.” I hate the tabloid attention that comes with my family name. Piling on more attention—and for so horrible a reason—sounds like a living nightmare. “But if that’s what it takes to punish the person who did that to us, then I’ll deal.”

“Well, all right,” she says softly, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “I suppose we’ll see what your father has to say.”

I don’t respond. Because honestly, I don’t understand her reaction at all. I mean, objectively I understand why Daddy wanted to keep the kidnapping secret. Our lives were public enough without adding that kind of horrific spotlight. But we’re adults now, and if we can catch the man who did this to us, then I want him punished. Even if that means stepping into that circle of light.

My mom clears her throat. “And Colin? Have you told him?”

I know Mom doesn’t like the fact that I still see my biological dad, but after the kidnapping he’d been there for me in a way that my parents—who are also Dallas’s parents—couldn’t be. And although he was a class-A fuckup when I was little, I think he’s mostly gotten his shit together.

Mom, I know, isn’t so sure.

“I called him from the road and told him the basics,” I admit. “He wanted me to come straight over—but he also said he had plans to go to Boston for an overnighter. He told me he’d cancel, but that didn’t really make a lot of sense, especially since I wanted to see Dallas. So I told him we could have dinner tomorrow when he gets back.”

“Do you really think telling him was a good idea?” I hear the sharp edge in her voice and cringe.

“Mom.” My voice is soft. “He deserves to know. I mean, he is my father.”

“Not legally.”

I exhale. “I know that. And I know he’s a screw-up. But he’s tried really hard to put his life back together.”

My mother snorts. Clearly she doesn’t believe me. “Tell that to the IRS agent who called me last week. He’s under investigation again.”

“Why are they calling you?” I ask, avoiding the real question of whether or not my birth father is backsliding.

“I was married to the man for ten years.” I hear the shrug in her voice. “It’s hard to escape your past.”

I sigh, because isn’t that the truth?

“I know it bothers you,” I say. “That I see him, I mean. But—well, sometimes it helps.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She sounds so lost, and I think again how much it must have hurt her when I’d begged to go to boarding school near him.

“Mom? I’m sorry.”

“No.” The word is sharp. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You and Dallas went through so much. Lost so much. And—and we all have things we regret. I’m sure Colin has many.”

“He does. He’s told me so over and over.”

For a moment, she’s silent. Then I hear Sarah’s muffled voice telling Mom to take her time, that she’ll wait in the car. A moment later, I hear a car door slam. I expect her to wrap up the conversation, so I’m surprised when she says, “Colin and I—well, we were never meant to be. But—You know that Eli and I had an affair?” She continues, the words sounding like they’ve burst out of her. “While I was still married to Colin?”

No one had ever specifically told me as much, but years later I figured it out. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

“We broke rules. Hurt people we loved—because even when Colin screwed up, I did still love him. Maybe I still do in some ways even though he makes me so damn angry. But the point is that I don’t regret the affair. Not really. Your dad and I were meant to be together. It wasn’t an easy path, but sometimes the best destinations require the most difficult journeys.”

“Have you been skimming Reader’s Digest again?” I keep my tone light, a little uncomfortable with such an intensely personal revelation from my mom.

“I swear that’s my own original slice of brilliance. And all I’m saying is it was worth it, but it wasn’t easy, especially on you kids.”

“I guess not. But I don’t know anyone with a normal nuclear family these days.”

“Well, that’s true,” she says with a laugh. “But I meant the way we bounced you and Dallas around with marriages and adoptions. Sometimes I think Dallas should have lived with us as Eli’s nephew, and you should have simply been Eli’s step-daughter. I think maybe it would have been easier.”

I hear her long sigh before she continues. “But he wanted legal heirs. He wanted the picture perfect family package. A wife and two kids to shoulder the Sykes empire once he was gone. We never had the dog, but we all did okay. Didn’t we?” she asks, and the question seems so genuine that I wish I was back in LA so that I could give her a long, tight hug.

“Of course we did, Mom,” I say, and it’s not a lie. My life may be screwed up and I may wish that things were different, but I’m doing okay. I’m surviving, aren’t I?

“Well,” she says, and I imagine her smoothing her skirt as she gathers herself. “I stepped out of the car to talk, but I should get back to Sarah. And our driver is probably wondering if I’ve lost my mind. I’ll see you on the island this weekend, okay?”

“I can’t wait. I love you, Mom.”

“Love you more.”

We say our goodbyes and I sit for a moment longer. I may not have had the best luck on the father side of the equation—at least not originally—but I won the lottery with my mom.

I turn in my seat and look back at the familiar house that holds so many of my childhood memories. My parents. Colin. Liam. And, of course, Dallas.

He’s no longer in there, I know. His helicopter has already whisked him away. And as I look at the well-lit house contrasted against the dark night sky, I can’t help but wonder where he’s going—and if he is thinking of me.