I pull up to the guard shack for James’s firm. The security guard is the same one on duty the last time I was here. If he recognizes me, he doesn’t say so. I hand him the parking pass I just dug out from my glovebox with a smile, silently praying that it still works. It does. He scans it, hands it back to me and pushes the button to lift the gate. “Have a nice day,” he says, letting me in.

I whip my car into the first available space I can find and hustle my way to the elevator. I have less than ten minutes to get up to James’s office before he posts that video on line—and I have no doubt in my mind he’ll do it. He’s probably hoping I don’t show up so he can post it.

Stabbing my thumb against the button marked 22, I fidget with my bag and stare at myself in the polished stainless steel of the elevator car in front of me. I’m a mess. The same shirt I wore to bed the night before. The same shirt I painted in this morning. When I left Tess at the garage, I stopped at home long enough to grab my bag and car keys. I didn’t even bother to put on a bra or comb my hair. I can see bright yellow paint smudged across my face and I give it a few cursory scrubs with the heel of my hand before giving up. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have been caught dead in public looking like this. Now, I don’t give a shit.

I send Tess a text, just like I promised, right before turning on the voice recording app I downloaded on the way over here. Maybe if I can get him to admit to blackmailing me, I can go to the police.

The elevator stops to let me out way too soon. Suddenly, I feel nervous and sick to my stomach. He didn’t call me here to talk. He wants something from me, and if he doesn’t get it, he’s going to destroy my life.

Stepping into the reception area, I see Janine behind her desk. When she looks up and sees me, she doesn’t look surprised. She looks disgusted, and my stomach drops into my shoes. I always liked her. The way she called me Ms. Faraday—like I deserved respect. “Hello, Janine,” I say, forcing myself across the reception area to stand in front of her desk. “I’m here to see—”

“Mr. Templeton is expecting you,” she says, her tone polite and professional. Pressing her finger against the intercom on her desk phone, she speaks into it. “Mr. Templeton, Cari Faraday is here to see you.”

“Send her in.” James's voice slithers through the speaker. Just hearing it is enough to make me want to throw up.

She glances up at me before she stands and skirts around her desk. I follow her, hands gripped around the strap of my bag, keys clenched in my fist.

“Be careful, Ms. Faraday.”

It’s barely more than a whisper, and I look up to see Janine in front of me, her hand poised on the door handle to James’s office. She’s looking at my bag, and for a second, I swear she knows what I’m doing. Why I’m here. That she’s worried about me and tears prickle at the corner of my eyelids. I nod and try to smile back. Just like that, her smile disappears, and she opens the door for me, ushering me inside with an impatient wave of her hand.

James is sitting behind his desk, leaned back in his chair. When he sees me, he smiles. “Janine, please take Cari’s bag.”

James is a lawyer. Of course, he’d be careful about getting himself caught saying something incriminating. I hand my bag over before Janine has to ask me for it.

“You can take your lunch, Janine,” he says without looking at her.

Janine hesitates a fraction of a second before nodding her head. “Thank you, Mr. Templeton.” She shoots me a quick look before shutting the door between us. Leaving me alone.

“It’s good to see you again, Cari,” James says, his tone pleasant. Like I just stopped by on a whim instead of being lured here by a threat to release a sex tape. My sex tape.

“Just tell me what you want,” I say, amazed at how steady my voice sounds. “Because the longer I have to look at you, the harder it is for me to fight the urge to vomit.”

The smile on his face flickers for a second before he steadies it on his face. “Lift your shirt,” he tells me. “Turn around.” He twirls his Montblanc in the air, directing me like I’m a circus dog, doing tricks.

I lift my shirt to just below my breasts and do what he says, turning in a slow circle to show him I’m not wearing a wire or have a recording device stuffed in my waistband. My recording device is in my bag on his receptionist’s desk. As I turn, I catch sight of the sitting area behind me and James laughs, the sound of it like sandpaper against my skin. “I’d introduce you to Trevor but you two already know each other, don’t you?” Trevor is sitting in a club chair, grinning from ear-to-ear. Seeing him here isn’t even a shock. I’ve known that the two of them are friends since the night I left Trevor, seething, in a restaurant bathroom.

The person sitting next to him is a different story. Lisa, the cocktail waitress from Gilroy’s.

I drop my shirt. “What’s she doing here?” I say, looking at James.

“Sit down.” When he says it, I know he’s not being polite. He’s trying to take control of the situation. Control me. Use me. Same as always.

“No.” My fingers shift over the keys I still have clutched in my hand.

James shrugs like it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other, but I know my refusal pisses him off. That I’ll end up paying for it, one way or the other. “Lisa is suing your boyfriend for sexual assault in the workplace. He forced her to perform oral sex on him in your apartment.”

Turning on her, I take a step forward, the small, cruel part of me liking the way she shrinks away from me in her seat. That night isn’t something I want to think about, but I force myself to replay walking in on the two of them. Patrick, obviously drunk, pants yanked down around his ass. Lisa on her knees in front of him. Her cheap, pink lipstick smeared all over his—

“Patrick didn’t force you to do anything—you’re lying.” I turn around to look at James. “I was there. I saw her—” I squeeze my fingers around my keys again and take a deep breath. “What happened between her and Patrick was consensual, trust me.”

“I was forced to perform sex acts by my employer. I was told that if I didn’t, I’d be fired,” Lisa squawks like a parrot from her seat behind me.

My employer? “Patrick isn’t your employer,” I say, shaking my head. “He doesn’t own Gilroy’s. He doesn’t even work there—he just started helping around the bar because his uncle wants to spend more time at home.”

“His uncle signed the bar over to him—as well as the rest of the family holdings—five months ago.” The smile on James’s face grows wider as realization dawns. “He didn’t tell you.”

No. he didn’t tell me.

“Now, why wouldn’t he tell you—his best friend—about something as monumental as becoming a multi-millionaire?”

A millionaire? I can’t speak, so I just shake my head because I don’t know. I don’t know why Patrick wouldn’t tell me something like that.

“Maybe because he knows what a gold-digging slut you are and he didn’t want to be your latest victim,” Trevor pipes up behind me. “You know who did know, though?”

I don’t have to hear him say her name to know who he’s talking about.

“Sara,” James says grinning at me like he just won the lottery. “He told Sara Howard all about it. Even after they broke up... he hadn’t even fucked you yet, and he knew what a money-grubbing cooz you are.”

I never took anything for either of them. Nothing but shit and more grief than I care to remember. That Patrick might think I did, that he hid something as important as being given his family’s business because he thinks I’m just a whore who uses guys for their money is more than I can take. I need to get out of here. Now.

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me,” I say quietly, just wanting it to be over.

“Oh,” James says, finally standing. “Not one fucking thing.” He comes out from behind his desk to stand in front of me. “I just wanted to see your face when you found out that I’m going to ruin your do-gooder boyfriend and that he sees you for the cocksucking slut you really are. No...” He leans back on his desk, reminding me of what he was doing on it the last time I was here. “The tape of me fucking you like a dog is another matter, altogether.”

“A tape you made without my consent,” I remind him.

“Prove it.” He smiles at me. “You can’t—you can’t even prove that it’s me... matter of fact, the night it was made I was escorting a model friend of mine to a gallery opening, remember? That was the night you went out with Everett Chase.”

The mention of Chase breaks me a little. Reminds me why I’m even here. Seeing the tape James has of us isn’t going to change anyone’s opinion of me because he’s right. Patrick thinks I’m a whore anyway. The only reason I’m still here is because of Chase. He’s a good man, and I can’t let James ruin him because he made the mistake of asking me out.

“And you’re going to release the tape if I don’t... what?” At this point, I don’t even care.

James looks me up and down, his lewd gaze feeling like a million cockroaches crawling over my skin. “Whatever I want.” His gaze settles on my breasts, his tongue snaking out to lick his lips. “With whoever I want. Whenever I want.”

“Why?” I say, finally drawing his attention, asking the question that’s been bothering me since I saw that video. “You made that video months ago—while we were still together. So, why now?”

“Because a dirty little cunt like you doesn’t leave someone like me,” he hisses in my face a split second before I feel his hand slide under the hem of my paint-splattered T-shirt. “And a do-gooder asshole like him doesn’t get to have what I don’t. So, why don’t you get down on your knees and thank me for not showing him what a slut you are.”

He’s all but admitting that he somehow knew that Patrick and I started sleeping together. I want to ask him if it was Sara. If she’s the one who’s been feeding him information, but I don’t because it doesn’t matter. Even if he admitted it, I’d have no way to prove it.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I say, just as James’s hand closed over my breast. “How about you go fuck yourself.” I take a deep breath and shove my keys into his face. I’ve never had to use the can of mace Patrick attached to them when I started opening and closing the gallery by myself, but I use it now.

I spray it right into James’s face.

The second the spray hits his eyes, he screams and tries to shove me away from him, but his hand is trapped under my shirt, anchoring him to me. I keep spraying, even when I feel a heavy-handed fist crash into the side of my face while another one grabs me by my hair and yanks me back. I fling my arm out, raking my nails across James’s face right before I hear my shirt rip and I hit the ground with a hard bounce that rattles my joints in their sockets.

There’s a thick, caustic chemical cloud floating above me. Trevor and Lisa are both coughing and gagging, but Trevor is howling, clawing at his bleeding face where my nails ripped it open, his eyes already beginning to blister.

“You fucking bitch,” he screams at me, taking a stumbling lurch in my direction. “You’re dead. Do you hear me? I’m going to—”

I tune him out and scramble for the door, reaching up to slap at its handle. It swings open, and I crawl out before turning quickly to pull it shut behind me. Leaning against the door, I press my face against it for a second, listening to the chaos behind it.

I’m dizzy. My face hurts. My eyes feel like they’re on fire and I think I’m bleeding, but I don’t care. I feel like I just won the Boston Marathon. Elated and exhausted and ready to do it all over again.

I hear someone clear their voice and I finally open my eyes to a small cluster of people gathered in the reception area on James’s floor. They’re all looking at me, talking behind their hands. Some of them look alarmed. Some of them look like the sound of James screaming like a little bitch is music to their ears.

I can totally relate.

I scramble to my feet and grab my bag off Janine’s desk, knocking her desk phone to the floor. Behind me, James’s office door flies open, and the three of them tumble out, still coughing and choking. “Cari,” James screams, “I’m going to kill you.”

I don’t say anything, I just keep moving. I decide to take the stairs because there’s no way I can wait for the elevator with what’s happening behind me. Just as I turn toward the stairs, the elevator doors slide open. I stand there, feeling suddenly like this is all some sort of dream.

Patrick is in the elevator. At least I think it’s Patrick. It looks like Patrick—but he has a baseball bat and the sort of look that, if I didn’t know him, would scare the shit out of me.

“What—” I start to ask him what he’s doing here, but he barely glances in my direction before he aims his glare at something behind me. I don’t even have to look to know he’s zeroed in on James.

He steps clear of the car and into the reception area, feet planted while he tracks James movements behind me like he’s prey. Like he’s here to rip out his throat with his bare teeth. I look down at the bat he has in his hand, gripped so tight it looks like he’s choking it to death.

“No,” I shout, pushing the flat of my hands against his chest, shoving him backward. I drop my keys, but I don’t stop. I keep pushing until we’re in the elevator. He’s glaring down at me, a mixture of surprise and rage—like he’s surprised I’m here. Angry that I stopped him from doing what he came here to do. In the reception area behind us, people start to cough as the chemical cloud I unleashed in James’s office starts to drift into the open area.

“Move,” he growls in my face, trying to shove me out of the way so he can do what he came here to do.

“Please, Patrick—” My voice breaks on a sob. I suddenly don’t feel like I’ve won the Boston Marathon. I feel like my ex-boyfriend just beat me up and tried to blackmail me. “please, just take me home.”

He finally looks at me, really looks at me.

Shifting his gaze, he stares at James over my shoulder. “She just saved your fucking life,” Patrick says to him, just as the elevator doors slide closed.