“Are you ready for your parents’ swanky party?” Owen asks. We’re the last people to leave the complex most nights, but tonight we’re both heading out early so we can drive to St. Augustine for my parents’ anniversary party. I’d like to point out my many late nights to the coach, but I know he sees who’s putting in the work and who can perform when it’s game time. At this point, all I can do is hope he’ll find the courage to put me on the field when Bill has given explicit instructions that he wants the rookie to have more game time.

“There is no ready when it comes to facing my father,” I say. “But I am ready to spend the night in a ritzy hotel with my wife.”

“Hotel sex,” Owen says, nodding. “I hear ya.”

“Fuck off.” I rub my temples, where a throbbing headache has been lingering all day. “There’s an asshole back in Blackhawk Valley trying to blackmail me, and I need to tell Bailey about it.”

“Blackmail you about what?”

“Nic Mendez,” I mutter. His name leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but maybe that’s guilt.

He cocks his head. “The dead boyfriend?”

I dig my thumbs into my temples. “Bailey and I both have secrets. I feel like they all come back to him.”

Owen folds his arms. “What did you do, brother?”

I shake my head. “I just didn’t want him dragging her down with him. If he loved her—if he really loved her—it wouldn’t have been so easy to keep him away.”

His forehead wrinkles. “Did you pay her boyfriend to break up with her?”

“I just wanted him to stay away. He was going to ruin her life, and I loved her too much to see that happen.”

“And you paid him off?”

I let out a breath. Why does he have to be so fucking direct? “Yeah.”

“That’s really shitty.”

“He took the money. Fuck, I was offering my silence in exchange for him to stay away from Bailey. He’s even the one who suggested I pay him. But yeah, it was pretty shitty. If it was as justifiable as I told myself at the time, I imagine I would have told her by now.”

“And now someone’s threatening to tell her if you don’t pay up.” He nods, piecing it together. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to tell her. When you have four years of pushing and pulling between you, you can’t move forward until you’re standing together on solid ground, and the only way there is through the truth.”

“Great, so do it tonight on your drive to St. Augustine.”

I rub the back of my neck, where I have knots on top of knots. “This party is going to be hard enough on her. My asshole father straight up told her he didn’t want her there.” I shake my head. “I’ll tell her after.” I meet Owen’s steady gaze. “You think she’ll understand, don’t you?”

“I can’t answer that. You’re going to have to find out the hard way.”

Mason’s breath catches when he sees me.

To me, there’s nothing that makes me feel sexier than being wanted for who I am—my mind as much as my body. I guess that comes from my time as a stripper. Body parts become less sacred when you show them to just anyone. But I’m not so enlightened that I don’t get a little thrill when I come down the stairs and get that kind of reaction. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks at me, slowly taking his eyes from my face to the swell of my breasts, to my hips, and all the way to my legs to my completely impractical shoes.

When he does smile, his grin is so wide, he’s like a little boy at Christmas, but then it goes away in a flash, and his brow wrinkles with his frown.

“What are you frowning about?”

He shakes his head. “I just can’t believe you’re mine.” His tongue darts out to wet his lips as he gives me that slow, intense once-over again. He shakes his head. “I’m just afraid this has all been a dream, and I’m going to wake up.”

I’d be running to him right now, but that line turned my brain to mush, and for a beat, I don’t even remember how to make my feet move. But as soon as I can, I cross to him, slide my hands behind his neck, and bring his mouth down to mine. “I don’t want to wake up,” I whisper.

“Me neither,” he says. He cups my face and kisses me—long and slow and full, a kiss that is a claiming and a discovery all at once. This isn’t just a meeting of mouths and tongues. It’s our hearts, open and joining, finding a rhythm together in a way we’ve never allowed them to before. “I love you,” he whispers.

I melt more. Something dangerous is happening to me. My insides are all gooey, liquid and vulnerable, as if he’s in there and could destroy me with a single word. I’m not sure that this is something I should like, but I do, because it’s Mason, and I know he won’t destroy me. He’ll hold my hand. He’ll lift me up. “I love you too,” I say against his mouth.

He keeps my face in his hands as he steps back and studies me. “Say it again, Bailey.”

I smile. “I love you too. Haven’t you heard me say it enough by now?”

He shakes his head. “Never.” The intensity in his eyes used to scare me. It made me want to hide from him, made me so sure he’d see my ugly secrets. But now it’s everything I want. My secret looms between us like a storm cloud I want to ignore.

He pulls my hand away and nips at my bottom lip. “You’re such a brat.”

I place the flat of my palm against his chest and push him back. “We’ll go to the party like we’re supposed to, and then we’ll go back to our room and see how long you can keep me in bed without me getting bored.”

“Challenge accepted.”

I force a smile, but I’m scared. I’ve made up my mind to tell him the truth after the party, and he might not want to spend a second alone with me when that happens, let alone all night in bed. By the time we’re settled into his car, my mind has latched on to our destination, and jittery, fuzzy nerves distract me so much that I’m sure I’m terrible company. The truth sits on my tongue, thick and paralyzing, like setting cement.

The drive passes too quickly, and the next thing I know, we’re pulling up to his parents’ party. I don’t want to face them.

When the car pulls up to the party, a man in a tuxedo and bowtie opens my door and helps me out.

Mason gives his keys to the valet and comes around after me to take my arm. As we climb the steps to the art museum where they’re having the celebration, Mason seems as tense as I am.

“Are you sure you want me here?” I ask.

He squeezes my arm. “Absolutely.” He meets my gaze. “I’m here because I’m expected to be, and I want you here with me because—” He smiles and looks me over. “Because looking at you in that dress is going to be the best part of my night.”

If his smile reached his eyes, or if I didn’t have an ugly history with Christian Dahl, maybe that line would put me at ease.

I watch all the fancy people in their fancy dresses milling around the room. Trepidation builds in my stomach.

Now that I’m so close to giving Mason the truth, I want to get it over with. The idea of waiting another second is making me miserable. It was always so important to me that I never lied to him. I held back some truth, but never lied. Tonight, in this context, my secrets feel like lies.

I’m in a daze as we walk through the party. Everyone greets Mason with hugs and big smiles, and me with kind curiosity and welcoming handshakes. There’s a string quartet playing, and waiters circulate with hors d’oeuvres.

I see his parents across the room and immediately recognize Lindy speaking to an older couple by the dance floor. Lindy, the mother of his child. It changes the way I see her; it changes the way I think of them together. Now, as much as I hate it, I see myself in her. I see how desperately I grappled for any affection from Nic after his sentencing. I see that frantic need for approval. I see her loneliness.

Her gaze lands on us, and she excuses herself and comes our way.

“Mason,” she says when she reaches us. She grasps his forearms and kisses the air beside each cheek before turning to me and doing the same, and I’m struck by how fake she is—how fake this whole world is. I want to leave. “So nice of you two to make it.”

If Mason picks up on her jab at our arriving late, he doesn’t indicate it. If he thinks it’s presumptuous of her to greet us like it’s her party, he doesn’t say.

“Your parents are going to be glad to see you regardless,” she says. Then, with a pointed look toward me, she adds, “I’m almost surprised you came. You’re the courageous little thing, aren’t you?”

What does that mean? Does she know about the money? I mentally redact all my sympathetic thoughts. I was hurt when Nic pushed me away, but I wasn’t a bitch. I paste on a smile, lift my chin, and say, “From what I hear, you wouldn’t know courage if it bit you in the ass.”

She flinches and pulls back her shoulders. Another couple calls her name. “Excuse me,” she says with a tight smile before walking away.

“Sorry about that,” Mason says. “She can be awful.”

“Why do you let her?”

He’s distracted, and I can’t shake this sick feeling that he wishes we hadn’t come. Or is he wishing I hadn’t come?

I’m being paranoid, and I try to talk myself out of it, but the hair pricks at the back of my neck the way it does when I find myself several stories up and unexpectedly getting a view of the ground below.

Someone puts a glass of champagne in my hand, and I drink it too quickly. I’m introduced to countless people, and with each name and face, Mason goes stiffer by my side. There’s more champagne, more faces and names, more forced laughter.

My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my head spins.

I turn to Mason between introductions. “Excuse me, I need to find the ladies’ room for a minute.”

He squeezes my hand and points to a hallway on the opposite side of the gallery. “Right that way.”

Christian spots me on my way to the restroom. We haven’t even greeted the guests of honor yet. Was that coincidence or intentional on Mason’s part? “Hello, Bailey,” he says, his voice as slick as oil. “You look lovely tonight. Is that the dress you picked out to bury my relationship with my son?”

I give him a polite smile and walk right past him, but then I force myself to stop and turn around. I take a breath and look him in the eye. “I don’t know what he’s going to say or how he’s going to take it, but I do know that I’m not willing to keep this secret anymore.”

“Yes,” he says, smiling. “That’s what you keep saying, and yet here we are. I told my wife she didn’t need to worry.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I wanted you to have tonight. I wanted her to have tonight, but tomorrow . . .”

He chuckles. “Tomorrow, you’ll be moving out.”

My chest squeezes. Is he so sure Mason will want to be rid of me? I search the room for Lindy and find her glaring at me while a man talks to her. Yes, maybe he will, but like Mia said, if I just give him time and space . . . “You don’t know that.”

“What I know is how much you hate me,” he says, scanning the room. “I see it in your eyes.”

Am I supposed to deny it? He’s my father-in-law, true, but it takes more than legalities to change a relationship.

“And when you find out just how much my son is like his father, you’ll be out of my hair.” He grins and drinks a full glass of champagne in one pull. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner.”

“Why you didn’t see what?”

“The way to get rid of you.” He pulls something from his back pocket and hands it to me. It’s a white envelope. There’s no writing on it, but it’s sealed. “You don’t need to look at it now. Unless you want to leave, which I would consider an anniversary gift.”

I stare at the envelope in his hands while my heart races faster and faster in my chest. “Are you trying to trick me into taking money?”

He laughs. “No, your chance to profit has passed.”

People are starting to stare, so I snatch it out of his hands. “Whatever is in here, I’m showing to Mason.”

He raises his brows. “My son hates me either way, but at least this way I can ensure Bill will give him a good career and stop benching him. Knowing your filthy hands will never end up with my money is an added bonus.” He waves to someone behind me. “Mike! Good of you to come!”

I rush to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall, where I open the envelope with shaking hands. I should wait and do this with Mason, but it feels like a trick—as if Christian knows some terrible secret about me that even I don’t.

When I unfold the paper, I’m confused. It’s the bank copy of a processed check for five thousand dollars to Nic Mendez. Why did Mason’s dad write a check to Nic?

But then my eyes land on the signature line. Christian didn’t write this check. Mason did.