The elevator doors parted. Skye stepped inside and swiped her room key for the penthouse level. She stepped to the back to lean against the paneled wood when a hand thrust between the sliding doors. Clad in an expensive wool suit, Spencer's sudden appearance had her tucking into the corner. His signature scent, Versace, flooded her nostrils and sickened her stomach.

“Spencer.” His name sputtered from her lips. How had he found her?

He rushed toward her and gripped her arm in a punishing vise. He punched the button for the mezzanine level, and although she wanted to scream, she found herself mute.

“You’ve been ignoring my texts. And then I had to hear about this crap in the news? Is it true?” He shook her, his fingers digging into her skin. “Did you marry that guitar-hero punk?”

“You’re hurting me.”

She tried to free herself, but he clamped down even harder.

The elevator stopped at the mezzanine. When the doors opened, he yanked her out, scanning left and then right. Pulling her with him, he headed down the empty corridor.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere we can talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Oh, we have a lot to discuss.” A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw.

“I told you, I wasn’t going to marry you, not after what I saw.”

His scowl deepened.

“I’m with Ash now,” she said with a pathetic squeak.

“Not for long.” He barked a harsh laugh. “Your rock star has quite the reputation. This isn’t the first time he’s had to buy off an overly zealous fan.”

“How would you know?”

He gave a derisive snort. “Angel Fire is a client of my firm.”

Spencer's firm handled many celebrity clients, but he didn’t work in that division. What favors had Spencer called in to examine the Angel Fire accounts?

“Mr. Tuttle gave you the settlement agreement. You’ll sign it, if you know what’s good for you.” He headed down the hall, angling toward an exit, indicating access to the parking garage. He yanked her inside the stairwell.

“You can’t force me to sign anything, and I’m not coming with you.” She should resist, but old habits had her shaking, terrified of what he might do in anger.

“I can, and I will. And, as soon as your divorce is official, you’ll marry me, like you’re supposed to. I’ve invested too much time, Skye Summers. You belong to me.”

He was officially out of his mind.

“Let me go.” Surely, there were security cameras recording. But where was help when she needed it?

For years, she’d blindly accepted Spencer's controlling manner, allowing him to push her into an abusive relationship. She’d only ever experienced affection under the guise of abuse.

Until Ash.

Now, she knew love didn’t have to come at the end of a stick, a belt, or a string of harsh words. Everything she’d thought she understood about love had turned sideways. It wasn’t her job to please a man. All she had to do was accept what was freely given. Ash’s love came without demands. He gave without taking. He didn’t hurt or yell or make her feel like she had to step carefully with her actions or words.

Spencer showed no signs of letting go, but she wasn’t helpless. She closed the distance, giving Spencer what he wanted, but she only gave the illusion that she was submitting to his will. He never suspected anything until her fingers wrapped around his neck. She applied pressure to his carotid artery, using the same maneuver she’d used on Bash at the airfield.

In less than two seconds, Spencer stumbled on the landing, collapsing on the floor. When he passed out, his chest didn’t move with the rhythm of breath. The danger of that technique settled like a weight on her shoulders. It could kill. She crouched beside him and felt for a pulse. A thready beat fluttered beneath her fingers.

A few moments later, Spencer came around, groaning and struggling to form words. “Elsbeth!” he growled. “You’re going to pay for that.”

That name stopped her in her tracks. “What did you call me?”

“That is your real name, isn’t it?”

No one should know that name. She and Forest had buried it a decade ago.

He rolled to his side and held his head. “What the fuck did you do?”

She’d almost killed him, and she would have, if she’d pressed a little longer. Now that she knew he knew her name, she almost wished she had.

Spencer swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, reeling as blood rushed back to his head. He’d be a bit disoriented for the next few minutes.

She needed to leave.

Now.

The red glow of the exit sign beckoned, but he’d used a name he had no right knowing. And that terrified her.

He put his head between his knees. “What the fuck is going on?” He brushed off his suit and then stood on shaky legs, putting a hand flat to the wall to support himself. “Once your divorce is final, we’ll get married, and if you’re really good, we might put all this behind us.”

“Married?”

He cocked his head. “Don’t test me on this.”

“Or what?”

He shifted his position, moving too close.

She backed away.

“Do as I say, or I’m going to make a very public disclosure of exactly who Angel Fire’s lead singer married.”

Her entire body went still.

“Imagine what will happen,” he continued, “when the world finds out that Dr. Skye Summers got away with the murder of Clark Preston. Or when Blaze finds out how intimately you and Bean truly know each other?” He gave a harsh laugh. “Or that you’re no angel. I know you were once a whore.”

Forest’s words returned to her, and she clung to them with a desperate conviction, hoping they were true.

“You were never a whore.”

And Forest was right. She hadn’t sold her body to her foster father’s clients. Her foster father had done so.

Spencer was recovering quickly, becoming more dangerous as his strength returned. “I’m assuming he doesn’t know?”

She’d lost her chance to run, and somehow, Spencer knew her deepest secrets. Her silence gave Spencer exactly what he needed. She’d validated the truth of his words, but she had a gut feeling there was more.

“Won’t your little guitar hero love finding out that little secret? Incest, a whore, and a murderer.”

Blood roared in her ears, thundering so loud that she barely made sense of his words.

Incest?

Never.

Murderer?

The courts had decided otherwise.

She and Forest weren’t related by birth, only bonded by circumstance and tragedy. Those records had been officially sealed. Forest’s army of lawyers had erased all evidence of their childhood as well as the ensuing trial.

A Cheshire grin spread across Spencer's face. “My father worked on that case, and he kept copies of the more interesting videos.”

Her gut tightened into a hard knot, and she fought the bile rising in her throat.

His father?

No!

Forest had performed a background check. Spencer's father had had nothing to do with their case.

“You’re lying.”

The prosecuting attorney had been Ryan McDonald, a name she would never forget. Spencer's last name was McAdams.

How had she and Forest missed this?

Feral and raw, Spencer's slimy smile stretched across his face. “I know what you did for your foster father, and I saw how much you liked it. What I don’t know is why you never liked doing it with me?”

“I’ve met your father.”

He laughed. “You met the man my mother married.”

No, Forest had checked. Renault McAdams was the name listed on Spencer's birth certificate. They’d missed some connection.

Spencer had seen the videos. He’d witnessed the forced orgasms. That meant he also knew what she’d been made to do to Forest and the things Forest had been forced to do to her.

Spencer's eyes narrowed. “And, all this time, I thought you were a frigid bitch. Now, I know what you like.”

“Don’t ever call me that word again.” She slapped his cheek.

She didn’t even see the blow coming. Her cheek stung, and her eye teared. She gulped air, stumbling back, while the tang of copper hit her throat. The bastard had split her lip.

“I suggest you never even think of striking me again.” Spencer advanced, and she cowered from his overwhelming presence. “You won’t like what comes next.” His grin widened. “Or maybe you would?”

She’d run from abuse and refused to consign herself to a life with someone like Spencer. Never again. Edging toward the exit sign, she placed distance between them.

“I find it interesting,” he said, “how all details of the case disappeared. I can only presume Bean had something to do with that. Or should I call him Forest now? I always knew there was something not quite right with how close the two of you were. Honestly, it’s perverse.”

It was perverse, and if they’d been biological siblings, it would have been worse. The saddest part was, it wouldn’t have stopped their foster father. Who knew how many children he’d sexually traumatized before she ended his life?

Not that any of that mattered anymore. What mattered was the truth. And she couldn’t let that loose on the world.

“Spencer, you can’t go public with this.” She’d do anything to keep that secret locked in the deepest, darkest place.

“Why would I drag the name of my future wife through the mud?” His eyes narrowed. “What would become of your charitable giving? Your foundations would crumble. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you’re not the struggling doctor you led me to believe. You and Forest have been busy little bees.”

Spencer knew everything.

She gripped her stomach, battling revulsion and fear.

“Now, gather up those papers, dear. You have a wedding to plan.”

Unless she agreed to marry him, Spencer would expose her secrets. It didn’t matter if she had been found innocent. Fallout from the press would be intense. Their foundations might not weather the storm. And what would become of their foster home project? And her career?

Thirty floors above, Ash slumbered. He’d written about insanity, not knowing the full depth of her complicated life. She didn’t want to lose him, but neither could she destroy everything he had built.

“Don’t hold my past against me, Skye.”

Her past was much worse.

But could she return to Spencer and live a life of fear?

She’d endured it once, and she couldn’t fathom living the rest of her life controlled by another. There would be consequences. She might lose everything. But she wanted to live free even if it didn’t include Ash.

Ash had opened a new world, a way of living in the moment instead of being trapped behind rigid rules meant to structure and protect her. She wanted freedom, and for the first time, she believed she deserved a good life.

She spoke in a steady tone, accepting the consequences of her decision and sealing her future, “Tell the press. Tell them about the beast who beat me, raped me, and whored me out when I was a child. You can’t hurt me any more than he did.”

And, if Spencer had read the sealed court records, he knew exactly what she’d done to her foster father.

Spencer's mouth opened, his jaw working.

She silenced him with an icy tone. “I don’t care what you do, but I will never be yours.”

He might still come at her. She half-hoped he would.

Backing away, she took two steps down the flight of stairs, heading to the door below. Spencer didn’t move, caught short by her declaration.

She made it down to the landing. Still nothing from her ex-boyfriend, ex-fiancé, ex-whatever. It didn’t matter what Spencer was, only that he wasn’t in her life anymore.

But Spencer was a vindictive bastard, and he would follow through on those threats. She and Forest would face them together, head-on, like they had with their foster father. Together, they would get through whatever Spencer threw at them.

Spencer's voice stretched out, damning her future. “He’s going to leave you, Skye. He signed the papers once, and when he finds out you’re a murderer, too, he’ll sign them again.”

His words cut like a whip because they were true. She had killed even if the courts had decided otherwise.

She took a step and then another until her momentum carried her through the doorway and away from the toxic morass that was Spencer McAdams.

Spencer would cost her Ash. He’d make certain that Ash knew every sordid detail. But Ash would always be a part of her life even if he wasn’t in it. He’d taught her about the power of love and that love could exist without pain.

She wanted more of that.

She fumbled in her pocket, looking for her cell phone. Her fingers stabbed at buttons, selecting Forest’s name for a text. She pressed the tiny microphone icon, not trusting her fingers to type. She could barely hold the phone as it was.

“Ran into Spencer. He’s going to the press. He mentioned Clark Preston. He knows I killed him.” The phone converted her words into text, and she hit Send.

It was time to say good-bye to Ash.

Her phone beeped.

Ash responded to her text.

Who’s Clark Preston?