Riley raised the phone to his ear and barked, "Yeah?" His eyes rose to the ceiling, avoiding mine, and he said, "Send them up."

Slowly, he lowered his hand and shoved his phone back in his pocket. He took his time before he looked at me, but I knew. I knew as soon as he said, send them up.

"More flowers?" I asked, proud of how even and calm my voice sounded.

Riley was hoarse as he said, "Yeah. I'm going to meet them at the door and bring them in. Why don't you go to the dining room?”

"No," I said. "I'll wait here with you."

"Lise—"

"No, Riley. Please." I didn't want to sit at the big dining room table by myself and wait for him to bring the flowers to me. I didn't want to be alone.

Logically, I knew there was no threat. No immediate physical threat, that is.

The flowers were a threat all on their own.

Riley nodded in grudging agreement. He reached out and closed his hand around mine, holding it tightly as he led me down the hall toward the front door.

My mind raced as I tried to guess what would be in this arrangement. The last had been daylilies with tansy and myrtle. Motherhood, marriage, and hostility.

Would this one be creepily romantic?

Maybe white clover and gardenia; Think of me and forbidden love.

Or old-fashioned?

Red roses and white jasmine for desire and love.

Riley stopped in front of one of the long narrow windows flanking the door, keeping an eye on the courtyard. He dropped my hand and dug in his pocket for something. Finding it, his eyes still focused out the window, he dropped the small, square package in my hand. I looked down, and my heart stuttered in my chest.

A caramel.

"Where did you get this?" I asked, turning the candy over in my fingers. I hadn't seen one of these in years, hadn't been able to stand the sight of them after I'd left Riley, but I used to love them.

Riley moved one shoulder in an embarrassed shrug. "Do you still like them?"

"I haven't had one in eleven years," I admitted, quietly. Riley's head jerked up, his eyes fixed on me as I carefully unwrapped the candy and popped it into my mouth. Sweet buttery caramel melted across my tongue and I fell back in time.

I’d always hated getting flowers. Obviously. For the first part of my life, I loved flowers. They'd been a connection to my mother, something my aunt and I had shared after she was gone as a way to keep her close. But after the stalker entered my life, I grew to hate them.

On our second date, Riley had shown up with a bouquet of flowers. I'd already had it bad for him and had pretended to love them, but he'd seen right through me. On the next date, he brought me candy.

I hated flowers, but I loved candy. Riley turned it into a game, trying everything to see what I liked best. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, truffles, hard candies, butterscotch, and mints. Combinations like turtles and chocolate covered pretzels.

He tried it all and discovered that my very favorite treat was a simple cellophane wrapped caramel, the kind that wasn't entirely hard candy and wasn't completely soft, but somewhere in between. He’d hide them in his pockets and slip me one here and there, sometimes secreting them in my backpack or my purse so I’d find them and know he'd been thinking of me.

I sucked on the candy and felt oddly comforted. Riley would never forgive me for leaving him the way I had, even if he finally understood why. The woman who would keep Riley had to be strong. He deserved strength beside him. He deserved someone who would fight for him, not a woman who ran at the first hint of trouble.

I had too much baggage, too much fear. I was a runner. I didn’t know how to stick. I couldn’t be the woman he deserved. When this was all over, he would move on.

Maybe he'd be glad he'd taken the job because he finally got closure. Maybe he was so over me he didn't need closure.

It didn't really matter. We had a past, but no future. Still, the familiar taste of caramel on my tongue was a comfort.

Together, we watched one of the Sinclair SUVs pass through the inner gates and curve around the fountain in the center of the courtyard, coming to a stop in front of the steps leading up to the front door of Winters House.

My stomach tightened to a knot, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly, I didn't want to see. I couldn't watch the security guard carry the arrangement to our door in a mockery of someone delivering flowers.

I stepped back, saying, "Can you just bring them to the dining room?"

Riley reached for my hand, but I was already too far away. I could hear the concern in his voice when he said, “Why don’t I have them taken to the Sinclair offices? They can send a picture and tell us what’s on the card."

I stopped in the center of the front hall and stared at the tall wooden front door, thinking. I didn't want to see those flowers. I didn't want to see the note. If I said yes, Riley would make them go away. But he couldn't make them disappear, and hiding didn't erase the threat. I'd learned that the hard way. I shook my head.

"I'll be in the dining room. I need to see them before they go to the lab."

The doorbell rang, and I flinched. I was so distracted, I almost bumped right into Sophie, crossing the hall, carrying the vacuum. I'd completely forgotten about the shortbread and the crumbs on the carpet. Sophie took one look at my face and stopped cold, reaching out to close a hand over my upper arm.

"Annalise. What happened?"

"Flowers," I said, succinctly.

"Where?" Sophie asked, setting the vacuum down on the hardwood floor and turning me to face her.

"Riley's bringing them to the dining room."

Sophie, the vacuum forgotten, led me to the dining room and sat beside me. She didn't say anything, just gave me the comfort of her presence. We heard the murmur of Riley's voice, the click and low thud of the door closing, and the sound of his feet crossing the front hall.

I thought I was braced for the sight of the flowers. I should be used to them by now. There'd probably been close to fifty since I was a teenager. No reason to get worked up. But this arrangement was a stab to my heart.

"That's hideous," Sophie murmured from beside me.

It was. The frothy blooms of yellow hyacinth beside the crepey, deep pink begonia petals made for a weird, discordant combination. I had the same reaction the first time I'd seen the two flowers together when Riley lay unconscious in a hospital bed.

"What does it mean?" Riley asked.

"Yellow hyacinth for jealousy."

"And the pink one?" Sophie asked, quietly.

I reached out a finger and almost touched one of the vibrant pink petals. "Begonia. It means beware."

Riley narrowed his eyes on the arrangement. "Why does that look familiar? I feel like I've seen it in the file."

I let out a strangled half laugh. I should've known they had a file. They'd been documenting the gifts and flowers since I was a teenager. My voice shaking a little, I said, "It's almost the same arrangement he sent after he put you in the hospital."

"Almost the same?” Riley asked.

"It's missing the rhododendron," I said, trying to put the clues together.

"What does the rhododendron mean?" Sophie asked, staring at the flowers with narrowed eyes.

"Danger."

"How is that different from the Begonia?" She asked.

"Begonia is a warning of something bad to come, but it hasn't happened yet. Rhododendron indicates a danger that's happening now. When Riley was in the hospital—" I glanced over to see his jaw set tight as he glared at the arrangement. "The yellow hyacinth—jealousy, was the reason. Rhododendron was the car accident and the accidental overdose. Current danger. And the Begonia—"

"The Begonia was why you left," Riley said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper.

Tears pricked the back of my eyes, and I sucked in a short breath. My voice barely audible over the pounding of my heart, I admitted, "Yes. The Begonia was why I left."

Sophie looked between us and said quietly, "I'm going to go take care of that floor before Mrs. W gets to it."

She slipped from the room in silence. Riley never looked away from the flowers.

"There’s a note," he said. I reached for it, but he raised his hand to stop me. "Evidence. We'll look at the note and then let the guards take it to the lab for processing. Stay right here and don't touch anything. I'll be back in a second."

I sank into a chair, my eyes fixed on the flower arrangement, my mind racing. I understood why the rhododendron was missing. The danger hadn't happened yet, but the Begonia said it was coming. Not for me. He never hurt me. He came after the people I loved, and I'd lost enough of those already.

I'd wondered over the years if I'd done the right thing in leaving Riley. Especially the way I had, with a letter full of lies. Looking at the arrangement on my dining room table, the twisted jealousy and the threat, I knew I'd been right.

Riley would never have left me to face this alone. His loyalty would have gotten him killed.

It still might. I'd left home to keep my family safe. To keep Riley safe. Was coming back selfish? Aiden and Gage, Vance and Charlie, Holden and Tate and Jacob had all convinced me that this was the right thing to do.

But there was Rosie, and Jo and Emily and Abigail. I was pretty sure Lucas could take care of himself, but what about Maggie? While I'd been gone my family had grown. The idea of losing a single one of them made me physically ill.

I braced my hands on the cool polished surface of the dining room table, palms flat, fingers spread, and stared blindly at the flower arrangement. At the white square envelope nestled in the deep pink Begonia blossoms. A warning of coming danger surrounding what I was sure were words of threat.

I couldn't do this.

I wanted this to be over. I wanted to catch this guy and end it, once and for all. But there was no subtlety here.

He was coming after my family.

After Riley.

And if we did catch him, but he took one of my own with him, would it be worth it?

Every part of me rejected that idea. No. Never. I’d live my life on the run before I'd let that happen.

Riley's feet beat a cadence on the stairs, and I jerked back to awareness. He knew me too well. I couldn't let him see what I was thinking. That I was doubting the plan.

"You sure you want to read this?" he asked, placing a few plastic bags and two sets of tweezers on the table.

"I'm sure," I said. I didn't want to read it, but I had to.

With a precision that spoke of experience, Riley plucked the envelope from the Begonia blossoms with one set of tweezers and teased open the flap with the other.

"Open the plastic bag, would you? The one on top."

I did as he asked, and he dropped the envelope inside after carefully extracting the note card. As he read the words on the card, his face turned to granite, his jaw set, teeth clamped together, his beautiful hazel eyes fierce with anger and frustration.

YOU BELONG TO ME.

YOU ALWAYS HAVE.

SOON, WE'LL BE TOGETHER.

"Put it away," I said, my voice choked in my throat. "Put it away. I don't need to see it again."

Riley did as I asked, carefully slipping the note card into a second plastic bag. "I'll have this picked up and brought to the lab. It'll be out of the house in five minutes," he promised.

I gave a short nod, all I could manage, and said, “I’m going to my room for a minute. I just need… I just need a few minutes."

I didn't see Riley's response. I turned on my heel and left the dining room, my stride jerky, every muscle in my body tight with strain. I couldn't do this. I couldn't.

I was trapped in this house—there was no way they’d let me out now—and as long as I was here everyone near me was in danger. Riley most of all.

How could I have thought this would work? What if something happened to him?

I walked into my room and shut the door behind me. Riley was everywhere. His papers on my desk, his shoes by the sofa, a discarded T-shirt hanging over the arm. How could I have let them talk me into this?

I knew the answer. Surrounded by all that male self-assurance, the Sinclair brothers, Gage, Aiden, and Riley all assuring me everything would be okay—I'd folded.

But now, those cheerful yellow hyacinths and deep pink begonia had shot me right back to one of the worst days of my life. I'd lost my parents as a child, my beloved aunt and uncle as a teenager, and standing beside Riley's hospital bed after he'd survived two accidents meant to kill him, I'd known leaving was the only thing I could do.

They all wanted me to stick it out, to trust their judgment, to let Riley risk his life. They wanted me to believe them when they told me everything would be okay. But what if they were wrong? Could I live with it? If something happened to Riley because of me, how could I face myself?

It was clear enough that he was over me. The attraction was still there, but that was just biology. Riley had moved on, and that was okay. It was the way it had to be.

I never would. All these years apart and I still loved him. If anything happened to Riley because of me, I wouldn't survive it. I didn't want that responsibility. For the last few years, my nomadic existence had begun to feel like a trap, like an endless hamster wheel of moving, of superficial friendships, and meaningless jobs. Of missing my family.

After seeing that arrangement, remembering how close I'd come to losing Riley all those years ago, it was this house—this plan—that felt like the trap.

If anything went wrong, Riley would end up dead.

I was packing before I realized it, my suitcase sprawled open on my bed as I shoved clothes inside, not bothering to fold anything, mixing the dirty and clean. I could sort all that out later.

The flash of the diamond on my hand caught my eye, and I closed my fingers over it, hiding the fire in the stone and tugging it against my knuckle.

The damn thing was stuck. I pulled harder, not hearing the door open behind me.