I’m shaking my ass and doing a terrible job singing along to Flo Rida’s “Going Down for Real” as I wash the breakfast dishes from this morning. Max and I had been running late—for a very good reason—and we’d piled them in the sink before we left. He has what is no doubt an expensive dishwasher, but this little piece of domesticity feels good. Maybe I’ll wash his underwear next; that might bring me back down to earth.

No sooner has that thought occurred, I hear the doorbell ringing. I swear to God, if it’s the Girl Scouts selling those evil Lemonades again, I won’t be responsible for my actions. All right, maybe I’ll buy another damn box and eat them all in one sitting. Shit, I need to throw that last empty box away before Max finds it.

I look through the peephole and feel my heart plummet—what is my father doing here? Yeah, I’ve been brought back down with a screeching halt. My father is an expert at that. I ponder not opening the door, but then I’ll just have to worry about him showing up at my office tomorrow. After Jake, I think I’ve had enough unexpected visitors there for the week. I take a deep breath and skip the part about pulling my pants up. I learned my lesson on that one earlier. Holy crap, he’s literally laying on the doorbell now. Ask not for whom the bell tolls…

I wrench the door open just as his finger hovers over the small circle, ready to push it again. “Go ahead, I don’t think the neighbors heard you the first ten times,” I say sarcastically.

His eyebrows shoot up into his hairline as if he’s amazed I would speak to him that way. I have to remember that he has no sense of humor whatsoever, whereas Max or even Lucian would laugh over that line. He straightens the jacket of his suit and grumbles, “What took you so long? I’ve got better things to do with my time that stand here all day.”

I roll my eyes and bite my tongue. I’d love nothing better than to remind him that no one invited him, but I don’t. He pushes by me and walks into the foyer. I wave my hand out, saying, “Do come in.” He completely misses the slight jab, simply waiting for me to close the door and join him.

I’ve been trained to be the perfect hostess for years, so I find myself reluctantly asking, “Would you like to sit down? The living room is just around the corner.”

“Hardly,” he huffs out. “What I’d like is for you to go pack your things. It’s time for this silly little tantrum of yours to end. You’ve had your fun and managed to humiliate your mother and me in the process.” He looks down at his watch before barking out, “Now, hurry along. We’re having the Bearden’s over for cocktails tonight, and it is rude to keep them waiting.”

I’m standing in the bedroom before it hits me: I’m following his orders like a trained dog. I feel sick to my stomach realizing how easily I just bowed to his command. What am I doing? There is no way I’m going home. I’m not even sure that I can call it that. Home. A penal facility would be more accurate, and the man in the entryway waiting impatiently for me to obey is my warden. I slowly retrace my steps, and he looks confused that I have nothing in my hands. “First of all,” I begin quietly, “you saw to it that I had nothing but the clothes on my back when you cleaned out my apartment.”

He looks me up and down before saying contemptuously, “Well, if what you’re wearing is any indication, you don’t need to bother bringing anything with you. You’re dressed like a cheap harlot.”

I inhale sharply, literally choking on air as I stare at him aghast. He just called me a whore. This is a new low, even for him. The urge to run and change into something he’ll find presentable is so strong; it’s suffocating me with its intensity.

“You … need to leave,” I manage to get out. My hands shake at my sides.

He has his phone in his hand, typing on it as if I don’t deserve a moment of his undivided attention. “And we shall. Hurry. Up.” He walks toward the door, and then glances back when he realizes I’m not following him.

Squaring my shoulders, I say evenly, “I said you need to leave. I won’t be going with you. This is my home—at least for now.”

He’s baffled at first as he darts a glance at his watch before raising his eyebrows in irritation. Then, at last, my meaning becomes clear, and he’s pissed. I can see the vein throbbing on his forehead as his face takes on a molten-red color. “You’ve lost your mind! You’re playing house with someone you hardly know and making a fool of yourself in the process. What opinion could he have of a girl who gives herself over so freely? You’re an embarrassment to the Madden name. Your mother and I have been forced to cover for you, but that can’t continue.” Pointing to my clothing once again, he shouts, “Sooner or later one of them will see you looking like that and it’ll be over. We’ll be the laughing stock of the club.”

“Get out,” I whisper as he continues to rant. “Get out. Get out,” I chant before bellowing at the top of my lungs, “GET OUT!”

He jerks as if a bullet entered his body. Right now, he’d better be glad I don’t have a gun in my well-trained hand.

“Now, listen—”

“Get the hell out of my house and don’t come back,” I say in a voice so deadly calm that it makes him look uneasy. I’ve now moved around him and thrown open the door.

The glare he gives as he stalks past is something I’ve never seen before. It looks like disdain. Not indifference. Disregard. There’s … contempt. The door slams so hard behind him that a nearby picture crashes to the ground. I stare at it as if not comprehending how it got there. Broken. Broken glass.

I’m broken. Broken glass.

The only thing on my mind is escape, and I know how to do it.

God help me because I’m not sure I can stop myself this time.

---

It’s almost seven by the time I make it home. I had a late meeting to review a potential acquisition for Quinn Software that I’d been putting off for a few weeks since it wasn’t a pressing matter. But both Rose and I had to return to our normal schedules sometime, and this week has seen me catching up on mine. When I pull into the garage, I smile when I see the company car that Lucian loaned Rose on one side. It feels better than I imagined coming home to someone again.

Going through the motions of retrieving the mail is even more interesting. Weird, Decker. I’m whistling under my breath and thumbing through circulars as I open the door and walk into the kitchen. I toss the pile onto the table and am almost in the hallway when something makes me turn and do a quick check of the surrounding area.

Then I see her. “Shit,” I hiss under my breath.

Wedged in the corner beside the stove. Even from a distance, I can see her body shaking and her teeth chattering. But it’s the glint of the light reflected off the object in her hands that has my heart stuttering. Be calm; don’t startle her, I think, as I slowly make my way over to her. I’ve seen this expression on her face before. She’s staring straight ahead as if in some kind of trace. I visually inspect her, looking for any signs of blood, but see nothing. Thank fuck. Her hand tightens and loosens upon the handle of the blade she’s holding, and I fight the urge to wrestle it away from her. I can’t risk her hurting herself in the process. I need to be very careful here.

I crouch, bringing myself down to her level. I see no reaction from her to indicate that she’s aware of my presence yet. “Hey baby, I’m home. I see you’ve been in the silverware drawer again.” I wince, thinking this might not be one of those times to make light of things. Her expression is still blank, so I settle onto the floor next to her, trying to fit my large frame into the small space. “So what do you feel like for dinner? How about some Chinese?” Giving a forced chuckle, I add, “I’d say pasta, but somehow, you manage to burn it every time.” As if my words are getting through to her, the hand that was clenching the knife pauses. Her eyes are still unfocused, so I continue rambling. “Guess what, sweetheart? Cindy and Sam made it official today. Can you believe that? I mean, it’s not as if we didn’t already know that they were an item, but they have still insisted on keeping it secret at the office. Of course, I guess it has to come out since they’re engaged now.” I put a hand on her knee, squeezing it lightly. “She came in wearing the ring this morning, and she’d probably shown it to half the building in the first hour alone. Luc looked a little green when I teased Sam about the honeymoon.” I laugh. “He said it’s too much like discussing his parents having sex.”

“Max?” I freeze when she says my name, then feel like I can take the first proper breath since finding her, as some of the fear begins to unwind within me.

I struggle to keep my voice level as I reply. “Yeah, it’s me, baby.”

She looks confused as if she has no idea why we’re both sitting on the floor. Then I see the moment her eyes fall on the knife in her hand. Her face goes deathly pale as she looks down at her lap, obviously searching for signs of injury just as I had. “I didn’t do it, Max,” she wheezes out. “I wanted to so badly that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold out.”

I take the blade from her trembling hand and set it to the side. The sound of the metal hitting the tiled floor seems unusually loud. I get to my feet, then lean back down and pull her into my arms. She wraps her arms around my neck and her legs encircle my waist. I walk slowly to the bedroom and manage to maneuver us both onto to bed. I prop my back against the headboard and she releases her legs from my waist to lie on top of me. My arms go around her. One hand strokes her hair while the other caresses her back. “Well done, baby. You didn’t cut. What happened, sweetheart?” I ask as I kiss the top of her head. She has been doing so well lately, that I’m thrown by what has happened. This could have been so much worse.

“Jake came to see me today at work,” she begins softly. I feel myself stiffen under her as jealousy rips through me. As if she feels the change in me, she rubs my side reassuringly. “That’s not what upset me tonight, but I wanted to tell you about it. Lia ran into him while she was getting lunch and told him about what his girlfriend said at Leo’s that night.”

I sigh, tightening my grip on her. “Shit.”

“I wasn’t too happy at first,” she admits. “I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt me again. But in the end, it was a good thing. We managed to clear the air of some things I’d wondered about. I’m not saying we’ll ever be friends again, but at least I don’t think he’s quite the bastard I thought he was. In the end, he wasn’t strong enough to deal with what I’m battling, and I’d be a bitch not to understand that.” With a helpless laugh, she adds, “I’m not doing too well handling it either, am I?”

I ignore her question for now and ask instead, “What happened to upset you?”

Her breath quickens against my chest, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her to forget it for now. “My father came over. It was ugly, Max, and when he left, I wanted nothing more than to find an outlet for all the pain. I needed the release that cutting gives me. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer.” She lifts her head and looks at me, her eyes searching for something, and then appearing satisfied when she sees it. “Then I thought of you. These past two weeks here have been the happiest of my life. And I didn’t want to lose them. I was at war with myself. I wanted that sharp tip to penetrate my skin more than I wanted my next breath. But at the same time, I couldn’t stomach how it would make you feel to find me like that again. And what if I went too far?” A tear drips from her face and onto me as she confesses, “I love you, Max, and that’s the one thing that makes me want to fight. I never had a reason before because no one cared whether I lived or died. You may not love me, but I know that you feel something. It’s evident every time we’re together. I matter to you, don’t I?”

She looks so uncertain yet hopeful that it shatters my heart. “Oh baby,” I murmur brokenly. I take her face in my hands and wipe the tears with my thumbs. “I love you, too, beautiful girl. I can’t fight it anymore. I never thought I’d feel this way again. Hell, I never wanted to, but you own me, Rose Madden, heart and soul.”

Our lips lock in a kiss so tender, it shakes my very foundation. There is nothing sexual about it. Quite simply, it’s the non-verbal expression of our love for each other.

“Who was she? The woman you loved before me?” I tense. I don’t detect any note of jealousy or insecurity in her voice. There is curiosity there and something that sounds like compassion, as if she knows that my first love ended in tragedy.

I’ve never opened up about Melly before, and it’s incredibly difficult. But Rose deserves to know about the person who shaped so much of who I am. I reach to the side and pull the blanket over us as I get my thoughts in order. She seems content to let me go at my own pace. Finally, I clear my throat and begin. “I met Melanie on the first day of college. Actually, we were both running late for class and plowed into each other. I was drenched in her coffee and cursing up a storm. She began laughing hysterically as if seeing me dripping wet with the hot liquid was the funniest thing ever. I should have been pissed, but that was the thing about Melly. It was impossible to be angry around her. She found humor in even the worst situations.”

“And you were the serious one,” Rose says softly.

I draw lazy circles on her hip as I nod my head. “I was indeed. When you meet my parents, you’ll understand where I get that. My father is a lawyer and my mother is a tenured professor. There wasn’t much in the way of laughing or being silly in the Decker household growing up. I know they loved me, but they’re two people who take everything in life seriously, so I was pretty much the same way. I was facing four years of college and then more years of law school so a girlfriend wasn’t anywhere in the cards for me. After that morning, we seemed to run into each other everywhere. We became friends and almost without me noticing, it was more.”

Rose traces a finger down my cheek, seeming to understand how hard this story is for me. “You can finish another time if you need to,” she offers.

I turn my head to her hand and place a kiss in the palm. “I’m fine, sweetheart. I want you to know everything.” I blow out a small breath and continue. “Melly and I were together for all four years of college. When I was accepted into Stanford Law School, I asked her to move to California with me and she agreed. She’d gotten her degree in elementary education and easily found a position as a student teacher at a school there. Everything was arranged and the night before we were to leave, I took her out for a nice dinner and proposed to her—and she said yes.” I pause, looking down at Rose to gauge her reaction to my revelation.

“Please don’t worry about me. This is a part of your life, and it helped shape you into who you are. Let me shoulder some of your pain as you’ve done for me.”

I hug her to me tightly for a moment before relaxing my grip. “On our way back to the apartment we’d shared for the last year, we were hit while sitting at a traffic light by a group of teenagers who’d been to a party. The driver’s blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal amount allowed. There were four of them in the car and two of us. Out of the six of us, only Melly was hurt badly. I had no idea at the time, but later, they discovered she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. I’d never known her not to be buckled up so that in itself was strange. She was thrown through the windshield and onto the hood of the car. I was disoriented after the impact and must have lost consciousness for a while. By the time I was able to get free of my airbag, emergency vehicles were arriving. Melly’s airbag had deployed as well, but not in time to keep her from being ejected from the car. Rose, seeing her laying there in that blood, with shards of glass surrounding her, terrified me. When I got to her and found a pulse …” I pause, trying to shake that horrific scene from my mind. “After that, things were a blur for a while. We were all taken to the hospital where police were waiting to question us. Melly went into surgery immediately because she had so many injuries along with probable internal bleeding.”

“That’s how you met Matt, isn’t it?” she guesses astutely.

Inclining my head, I say, “Yes, he was the attending physician that night. He went beyond the call of duty for us and it forged a friendship that I treasure. He did everything in his power to save Melly. She lived for almost four weeks after the accident. Each time we thought she’d turned a corner, something else happened. I don’t think she would have had that extra time to say good-bye to everyone without Matt. She was in a coma for the first few weeks, but then she came out of it and we thought that was a good sign. But her internal injuries were so severe that her organs just started shutting down and they couldn’t stop it. She was on a ventilator for the last week, and her parents had to make the decision to remove it when her brain activity ceased.”

Rose is openly crying against me and I realize with a start that I am as well. “I was so broken after Melanie’s death that I never really grieved her. I locked my heart away and jumped into law school, where I pushed myself to the point of exhaustion. I’d been grateful that my school was so far away from home because it gave me the perfect excuse to leave everyone behind. I didn’t have to face Melly’s parents, who were devastated by her passing, and I didn’t have to pretend that my own parents weren’t staring at me as if waiting for me to crack. There was a certain kind of comfort in being completely anonymous and I embraced it. I never once came home the entire time I was at Stanford. After the first two years, my parents stopped asking me and accepted that I needed the distance.”

“Thank you for taking a chance and loving me,” Rose surprises me by saying. “Just risking your heart again under normal circumstances must have been hard. But then having to deal with my … problems … has to be so terrifying for you.” She pulls away and moves to sit next to me. “I love you, Max, but please don’t let me put you through more hell than you can handle. How can you not be worried that despite my best efforts, you won’t lose someone else you care about?”

Her words hit me hard, as they are the same ones I’ve thought dozens of times since I picked her up on the street that night. I’m scared out of my fucking mind that history will repeat itself in some horrifying way, but that doesn’t stop me from loving her. I get to my knees and put my hands on her hips. Looking into her beautiful eyes, I say honestly, “Not loving you isn’t an option, baby. You’re going to get through this, and I’m going to support you in any way that I can. You’re one of the bravest people I know, and if there’s a time when you feel weak, I’ll carry you until your strength returns.” I drop a kiss onto her upturned lips before resting my forehead against hers. “It’s you and me, Rose. No one or nothing else matters.” The weeks ahead would put those words to the test. But tonight, we would make love as if tomorrow would never come.