Three hours after she’d arrived on Damian Cavallo’s doorstep, she still didn’t know what she was doing. She’d had an excuse for making the call. She’d been shaken up, both furious and devastated by Primo’s assault. She hardly remembered leaving the apartment, taking the elevator to the lobby, stumbling past the doorman — trained to ignore domestic squabbles by averting his eyes — and out onto the street.

She hadn’t even thought about calling Damian. Reaching for the card he’d given her had been reflexive.

Intuitive.

As if she’d known he was the one person who could make this right when reason told her no one in the world could do that.

And yet, he’d done all she needed and more. Had welcomed her into his home, had been kind and tender in spite of their last meeting. In spite of what Primo had done. Now he was in the driver’s seat next to her, his denim-clad thighs separated from hers only by the car’s console, his scent overwhelmingly male, the pulse in her body back to beating for him.

She looked out the window, watched as the highway’s street lamps passed by in a blur, everything beyond them dark. The only hint that they were near the beach was the briny air winding its way in through the car’s partially open sunroof.

She hadn’t hesitated when he’d said he had a place she could regroup. Not as long as she should have anyway. It had taken her less than ten seconds to calculate her options — go home to Primo and live with what he was doing or take Damian Cavallo up on his offer.

Something had changed inside her with the knowledge that Primo had set fire to the shelter. Something irrevocable. Part of her hoped it would change back, because if it didn’t she was screwed. If it didn’t, she had no life to speak of.

No home. No family.

Damian had offered her refuge when she had none. Taking him up on it didn’t make her any more of a traitor than talking to him. She didn’t know anything about Primo’s operation that would be helpful to Damian. Even if she did, he hadn’t asked her for anything, had insisted his offer had no strings attached. It was an offer too good to refuse. One that would give her time to figure out her next move.

She was surprised to feel the car slow beneath her. She’d been too distracted by her thoughts to notice when they’d gotten off the highway. Now they were on a narrow street lined with trees so tall on either side they nearly blocked out the moonlight.

“Almost there,” Damian said.

He pulled up to a gate and keyed in a code, waited for it to swing open, then continued up a straight driveway leading to a house lit up at the end of it. She could already hear the rush of water in the distance, the salt in the air stronger here than it had been as they made their way to the tip of Long Island.

He parked to the side of a circular driveway and turned off the car. He sat for a moment, looking at the house, something complex moving behind his eyes. Then he opened the door and stepped out of the car.

She followed suit, suddenly realizing she didn’t have any of her stuff. No change of clothes. No clean underwear. Not even a toothbrush.

She followed him up the steps of a surprisingly modest house. She didn’t know what she expected. The apartment in Tribeca had been large and obviously expensive, but the decor had been exposed brick and overstuffed sofas and rich carpets on the hardwood. In other words, the opposite of the apartment she shared with Primo.

It should have prepared her for something like this — expensive but lacking the overt display of wealth that was a hallmark of everything Primo bought.

She waited on the porch next to Damian as he unlocked the door. It was too dark to see much beyond the lawn, but the ocean sounded very near, the waves crashing in a rhythm that was already working to soothe her frazzled nerves.

Damian opened the door and stood back for her to enter. She was careful not to brush up against him as she passed, all too aware of the attraction arcing between them like a live wire. She was already on dangerous ground, far from home, alone with her brother’s enemy.

She entered a wide foyer, a staircase rising to a second floor above. Damian closed the door behind them and led the way down a hall, past darkened rooms to an expansive great room at the back of the house. It was dark but she didn’t need lights to see the view highlighted by the wall of windows at the back of the house.

The ocean was stretched out before them as far as the eye could see, a nearly full moon shining a column of light on its waters.

Damian stepped up to the glass and she saw that the windows were actually floor-to-ceiling doors with hinges designed to be invisible to the eye. He folded one of them back and a gust of sea air blew into the room.

“There’s no one on either side for at least half a mile,” he said, walking out onto the deck. “I’ve had the property manager stock the fridge. You should have everything you need to be comfortable.”

“You’re not staying?” she asked.

“I’ll stay tonight because it’s so late,” he said. “But I’ll be out of your way first thing in the morning.”

It seemed like there was more to the sentence, something he wasn’t saying, but it was none of her business. He’d already done too much in bringing her here.

“You’re sure it’s alright that I stay?”

He smiled. “It’s fine. I haven’t been here in ages. Someone should enjoy it.”

She scanned the empty beach, a desolate strip of sand that extended in either direction. “It’s a beautiful place. Why don’t you come more often?”

He looked out over the water. “Too busy most of the time.”

She had the feeling it wasn’t an entirely truthful answer. “That’s a shame.”

His nod was curt. “Come inside. I’ll show you your room.”

She followed him through the sprawling great room to the foyer where they ascended the stairs to the second floor.

“This is where I’ll be if you need anything before I leave,” he said as they passed the first open door and continued down the hall.

She tried not to think about that — about Damian asleep, moonlight falling across his naked body, muscled limbs splayed across white sheets.

He stopped at the next door and they entered a large room with a steeply pitched cathedral ceiling and an iron canopy bed.

“There’s a private bath with towels and everything you should need,” he said. He gestured to a set of French doors. “Feel free to sleep with the balcony door open. Ocean air is good for the soul. I’ll leave you a key so you can come and go. There’s a car in the garage. You can use it if you need to go into town, although I recommend laying low for the time being just in case.”

She nodded, drew in a breath. “I can’t… I can’t thank you enough for this.”

He hesitated and stepped toward her almost reluctantly, lifted a hand to her face. She was surprised by the tenderness in his fingertip as it touched her lip near where Primo’s ring had cut her.

“You should never let anyone hurt you, Aria.” His voice was low and rough, the heat from his fingertip sinking into her lip, through her body, pooling between her legs. She had the strange desire to take his finger in her mouth, to suck on it while she looked into his eyes. “You should only be cherished. Remember that.”

He dropped his hand and turned away, disappeared into the hall.

For a long moment she could only stare after him, her body aching in places she’d forgotten she had. Finally, she forced herself to move.

She explored the room, discovered clean socks and T-shirts (all men’s) in the dresser, a stack of extra blankets and pillows in an armoire against one wall. She pulled her phone charger from her purse, glad she’d thought to grab it on her way out of the apartment, and set it to charge while she walked into the adjoining bathroom.

Like everything that belonged to Damian it was both luxurious and intimate. The walls were tiled with old-fashioned black and white subway tile, and a massive claw foot tub sat against one wall, its fixtures cast in deep bronze. There were plentiful towels, even a new toothbrush, toothpaste, toiletries.

She ran the water and stripped off her clothes, then stepped into the tub.

She soaked for a long while feeling oddly detached from the real world. She’d disabled the tracking feature on her phone long ago. Primo was far away, had no idea where she was or how to find her. She had no idea what time it was or how long she stayed in the tub. Had no idea what tomorrow or the next day would bring.

The water was cooling when she stepped out of the tub. She used one of the thick white towels to dry off, then padded barefoot to the dresser where she chose one of the large men’s T-shirts. She caught a whiff of Damian as she slipped it over her body, saw a flash of his eyes as he’d looked at her when he’d touched her lip, felt the heat that had traveled between their bodies.

After years of feeling numb, her skin was alive with the need to be touched. She could imagine his big hands on her hips, his mouth closing over hers.

She turned away from the dresser quickly and walked to the bed. She checked her phone, deleted the twelve messages from Primo without listening to them, and crawled between the cool, crisp sheets.

She expected sleep to come quickly. She was mentally and physically exhausted. But her thoughts were racing with everything that had happened, the image of Primo when he’d hit her — rage-filled, out of control — looming in her mind. He would be frantic with worry, but his concern would quickly turn to fury when he couldn’t reach her.

The longer she stayed away, the worse it would be.

She turned over, fluffing the pillow under her head and kicking off the covers. She wondered if Damian was awake on the other side of the wall. If he was laying in bed replaying the events of the evening.

Had she imagined the chemistry between them? She didn’t think so. She’d seen it in his eyes. Had felt in the way he touched her, the way he lingered. Like he hadn’t wanted to leave.

He was only a few feet away. She could be to him in a couple minutes.

Would he welcome her into his bed?

She turned over again, trying to push the thought from her mind. She was in a perilous place. A place where the rest of the world felt so far away as to be irrelevant even as her mind told her it wasn’t true.

Primo was still out there. The war between him and Damian had only just begun.

She was already a casualty of it, adrift in the waters with what was sure to be even more collateral damage, like the detritus of a shipwreck lost at sea. Primo had made it clear she was utterly insignificant.

So what did it matter?

She just wanted to be close to someone. Feeling Damian’s hand on her face had made her realize how long it had been since someone had touched her. Really touched her. She’d been running on nothing but resolve with no end in sight for as long as she could remember.

Was it so wrong to want to feel human again? To want to be seen?

She threw her legs over the side of the bed, let her mind be calmed by the rhythm of the waves racing onto the beach below. Her mind was clear when she crossed the room and stepped out into the hall.