With the exception of my parents, who I’m saving for last, I think I finished making the rounds with everyone while Bailey was in the bathroom. Now we can enjoy our dinner, dance to a couple of songs, and politely excuse ourselves for the rest of the evening.

But first I have to find her.

I wander around the party looking for her and run into Lindy.

“Did your wife go missing?” she asks, a knowing smile on her face.

I frown. “Where is she?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Last I saw her, she was talking to your dad. Seemed like important business, so I didn’t butt in.”

What was she talking to my dad about? Why would she even want to talk to him?

I turn around, walking away from Lindy without another word.

My phone buzzes with a text from Owen.

Owen: She was going to get a cab and leave, but I talked her into letting me take her. We’re at the hotel bar. Don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s bad. Did you tell her about the money?

I don’t bother telling anyone or even getting my car from the valet. I grab a cab to the hotel, my heart racing and my stomach in knots.

I find her in the bar, drinking with Owen.

“You trying to steal my girl?” I ask Owen, trying for lightness.

Bailey’s jaw goes hard. “What if he is? Do you have enough money to pay off a veteran NFL player?”

“Oh, damn,” Owen whispers.

Did he say something to her? Did Ron get to her? I thought she blocked that fucker’s number, but he could have found her online like he did me.

She turns to Owen. “How much would he have to pay you to stay away from me? Five grand? Sixty? What does a ho like me go for these days?”

“Bailey,” he says softly. “Come on.”

My stomach drops. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Let’s go somewhere and talk,” I say quietly. I don’t want to have this conversation here.

“Your dad was right,” she says, pulling an envelope from her purse. “He knows just how to get rid of me.”

I take the envelope from her hands and pull out the paper. It’s a photocopy of a canceled check. I feel like I just took a helmet to the gut, and I want to puke.

I never told my father about what I did, but he was still on my accounts back then, and why wouldn’t he monitor them? He micromanaged every other aspect of my life.

“You paid him off,” Bailey says, her voice shaking. “You paid off Nic to stay away from me.” She shakes her head. “Who made you God and told you that you could meddle in my life? Who did you think you were?”

I swallow. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“We are somewhere,” she says. “Talk.”

“I’m gonna get out of here.” Owen looks between me and Bailey helplessly, then backs away from the table. “You both know where to find me if you need me.”

“Please?” I offer her my hand, and she stands without taking it.

The silence in the elevator is suffocating, but it’s nothing compared to when we get to the room, and she flinches at the sound of the door closing behind her.

“Don’t you see, Bailey? You want me to be the bad guy, but it’s not that simple. If he’d loved you? If he’d given two shits about being with you? He wouldn’t have taken my goddamned money.”

“You say that with such surety. As if you have any fucking idea what it’s like to have nothing. You don’t know. You’ll never understand.” Her cheeks bloom red with anger, and she balls her hands into tight fists at her sides. “You stand there all holier-than-thou about a decision you’ll never have to make.”

“Like I didn’t have hard decisions to make? The woman I loved was dedicating her life to a criminal.”

“He served his time.”

“And then he got out and picked up right where he left off.” Confusion flashes over her face. “He was dealing, Bailey.”

She flinches, and I see the surprise in her expression. The shock. Like I smacked her with the truth. “That’s why I wanted him away from you. I didn’t want him pulling you down.”

She rubs her bare arms and meets my eyes. I’ve broken her heart. I see it, and for the thousandth time, I wish we could start over. I’d lie to my parents about the name of my girlfriend so they couldn’t look her up and bribe her. I’d get her drunk in Vegas before Nic was ever released from prison.

“You’re just like your father. So sure that your money will get you anything you want. And I guess it worked for a while, didn’t it? You paid Nic for me, and instead of sucking his dick, I was sucking yours.”

I flinch. “It wasn’t like that. I knew you didn’t want me, but I didn’t want him ruining your life. I’m not my father. When he convinced Lindy to give up the baby—”

“This isn’t about Lindy.” She squeezes her arms so tightly that I can see the red fingerprints forming. “Your dad paid me to stay away from you. Fifteen thousand dollars in exchange for my promise that I wouldn’t let our relationship become anything more than physical.”

I stagger backward and blink at her. “No. I asked my mom. I . . . She promised.” Did she say he offered her money, or that she took it?

“It was your dad’s deal. Not hers. At the time, I thought it was so crazy that he could do something so disgusting. I didn’t have a choice. I needed the money. Your dad had a choice—whether he was going to offer it or not, whether he was going to accept me as a human being or make me be part of your life in only the cheapest way possible.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t have a choice? Everybody has a choice. Nic had a choice when I gave him that check, and he didn’t blink. You had a choice.”

I turn away. Looking at her face hurts too much. I’m sinking, being sucked deeper and deeper under the surface, and the only thing that can pull me back up is if she tells me this is all some sort of awful joke and she didn’t take the money for him. “Was it for Faith?” My voice cracks. “Did she need it?”

“What?”

I close my eyes. “Was Faith the reason you took the money? You were stripping to help her. Was this more of the same? Was she sick or—”

“No. I was trying to keep Nic out of trouble. He owed some bad guys money. Not taking it was like sentencing Nic to a life of crime. It was his ticket back to prison.”

“Nic? You took their money for Nic?”

“I couldn’t watch the father of my child fall right back in with the people who’d gotten him arrested to begin with. He was released owing them money.”

“He was dealing anyway. You didn’t save him.”

“I didn’t know that!” Her voice is hoarse, raw. “But you know, you’re right. I had choices. Maybe I should have taken the choice behind door number two and slept with Clarence for the money instead. He promised he’d make it real good for me, and you never would have known. I could have spread my legs for him every night before climbing into bed with you. I could have let him fuck me until he was tired of me. I guess I didn’t really give that option as much consideration as I should have.”

“He wasn’t worth any option.” I draw in a breath, and it fucking hurts. “It’d be different if you did it for her. It would still hurt like a bitch that you never told me, that you let them manipulate you and me, but it would be different. But the money was for him, so that’s not the situation we’re looking at.”

“I did do it for her. Don’t you understand?” She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, as if she’s angry with the tears for appearing. “I did it for him, too. It’s true. But I did it for her, because one day, one way or another, she was going to know who her real parents were, and I didn’t want it to be Bailey the stripper and that drug dealer Nic, who’s back in prison.” She reaches out and then pulls back, shaking her head. “I told you we were too different. Our worlds too different.”

“Don’t. Bailey, I’m hurting too, okay, but don’t—”

“I can stand here and tell you I’d do something different with what I know now, but what does that even mean?” She backs toward the door. “If I had to make the same choice with the same information I had then, I’d do it again.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

She squeezes her eyes shut and bites back a sob, then she’s gone, the water pulling away from the shore and leaving me behind, an empty shell.