“This time, I want us to go slow.” I’d writhed beneath him, under my dark knight with chipped armor, who’d let me crawl into the broken cracks of his shell and settle in, even though he’d known who I was. The Trojan Horse.

“Why slow?”

“So I can remember.”

“Why would you forget?”

Silence. He’d kissed away my tears, knowing exactly what I wasn’t saying, but not wanting to believe it. He’d made this sacrifice for me—that much was sure. He’d let me break him, and I had. Without blinking, or hesitating, or even stopping to think about it.

He moved on top of me like I was wave, filling my body, my core, and my soul. Stroking my cheeks, kissing my eyes. “My girl, my obsession, my Tide.”

It sounded like a goodbye, which only made me cry harder, clutching him like an anchor. Trent knew, and at six in the morning, half an hour before Luna woke up, we’d done the closest thing to making love, knowing that by the end of the day, that love would turn into hate.

My father’s office door was open.

It made everything so much more final. If I passed by, he’d call me in. He’d ask about the flash drive. I would have to give it to him, then everything would be over.

Luna.

Trent.

Seahorses.

Tide.

The ocean was stormy that day. Bane had left me a message at half past six in the morning when Trent was in the shower.

Don’t even bother coming down. Black flag.

He hadn’t known I could literally see the flag waving from my spot, at Trent’s window, in his bedroom, butt naked, my hand pressed against the glass. The waves crashed and the wind wailed. It was the weirdest weather for August in California, but as a surfer, I wasn’t surprised.

The ocean knew.

In the office, I’d loitered by reception, prolonging walking over to my desk by my father’s door and taking a seat. By eleven o’clock, I couldn’t postpone the inevitable. I was making the twelfth pot of coffee that day—for whom, no one knew—when Max walked in and leaned his arm against the door. He looked like a weasel in a suit, reeking of a pine-scented disinfectant. He always smelled like he bathed in aftershave.

“Your dad wants to see you,” he announced in his signature chilly tone before walking away. The flash drive burned inside my pocket. I made my way out of the break room, leaving the coffee I never planned on drinking behind me. I passed by Trent’s office. The door was open. I knew he knew. Knew that among other things, this was a test. Knew that I’d failed. I stopped in front of him, briefly. His head was bowed down, and he was signing some papers. I cleared my throat, feeling like my whole body was foreign and strange and not mine.

“Is this a trick?” I croaked. I hoped, prayed, willed for it to be part of a bigger plan that we could both share. Trent’s eyes were still on the papers. Like he hadn’t held me in his arms hours ago and breathed life into me.

Not shaking his head—not even moving—he said, “Nope.”

“So all the information is th…” I started before he shot his head up and stared at me, his face blank. Chiseled out of titanium. God-like and angry.

“Everything is there, Edie. Every single file, and plan, and contract. You made your choice. If you want to be strong, be. Now, leave.”

I wanted to argue with him. Wanted this to turn into a loud, ugly, angry, real argument after which I would be convinced there was another way to save Theo. But I also acknowledged that all those things would just serve to show that I was still an indecisive teenager, and he was the older man who’d seduced me. And we weren’t those things. We were so much more.

My legs took me to my father’s office, and I don’t remember how I got there, but I do remember the door clicking shut behind me. The sound it made was concluding and grave.

There was an ocean of space and unspoken words between us, every inch a toxic drop of bitterness. I wanted to keep it that way. With Jordan Van Der Zee, I preferred to stay dry and guarded.

“Well?” he asked, sitting back in his leather chair and arching one skeptical eyebrow. Not once had he asked me how my mother was while I was sleeping, eating, and living in the hospital by her side. This, combined with what he’d made me do, with what my life looked like, triggered my anger to overflow. My mouth was paper-dry and every muscle in my body was taut with the need to launch at him.

I wasn’t sure where the next words came from, but I was certain I couldn’t stop them from pouring out even if I tried. “Can I ask you something?”

He huffed, sitting back in his chair. He rolled one hand in a go-on motion.

“Now that you know what happened to Mom, do you wish you would have waited? Maybe not pushed her to doing what she did?”

A part of me realized I was being irrational—perhaps even pathetic—trying to reason with him. Looking to find a person with a heart. Because if he was a monster, then I could become one, too. But if there was a sliver of humanity inside him, maybe I could bargain with him and save Trent. Jordan flicked his gaze to his watch, sighed like my very presence was an inconvenience, and rubbed the tip of his chin.

“I didn’t push your mother, Edie. We’re all responsible for our own lives. Dumping the blame on someone else is for the weak.”

Again with the power games. My father didn’t care. What’s more, I was starting to suspect he actually took pleasure from this screwed-up situation. I was the one to coax Mom off the ledge time and time again, while he was the one to push and watch her fall, all the while waiting for me to let her go. This was where we danced. On the edge of her sanity. I needed to break this cycle—smash his foot in—to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt her.

I sucked in a breath, swallowing down a juicy curse. My mind was made. “I have the flash drive.” I changed the subject, looking straight ahead at him.

His face was smeared with delight, confirming how cocky and self-assured he was. “Well, are you waiting for a royal invitation? Give it to me.”

“Not until you tell me why you hate him.”

“It really is none of your business, Edie.” He rolled his Cartier pen between his fingers.

And then…and then…

If you want to be strong, be.

I folded my arms over my chest. “Actually, it is, seeing as I’m in love with him.”

The silence in the room was dense and heavy and real. Jordan’s eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and his mouth twisted into a scowl I’d never seen before. It’s like he invented a new, pissed-off expression just for me. But I couldn’t take my words back now, and didn’t want to, anyway.

I stepped deeper into the office, knowing what I was doing. Risking everything. My relationship with Theo. My relationship with Trent. With Luna. With my mother. But I was tired and weary of tiptoeing around this man. I’d lose everyone else, but maybe I’d finally find myself.

And if I had to press the self-destruct button to sever the ties between this man and me, so be it. I wanted to feel like I could take a lungful of oxygen without fearing the world would collapse.

“I’m in love with Trent Rexroth so blindly, Jordan, I’m not even sure I see anything other than him when he’s around. I will die for this man, not to mention protect him at all costs. He is a wonderful, broken human being, who is trying hard to do what you’ve failed so miserably. To be a dad. A parent. Someone to lean on. He is making the right choices, time after time, at any cost. He is taking care of the fragile, even though he is callous as hell. And he does everything with integrity and without running anyone else over. So tell me, Jordan, why in the hell do you hate my boyfriend so much?”

He stood up from his chair, his face blood red. I thought a vein was going to pop out of his temple. Maybe I even hoped that’s what was going to happen. His fists were clenched at his sides, his body quivering to the rhythm of his own uncontained rage.

“Give me the flash drive.”

“No.” I stood taller. “What has he done to you?”

“He stole something of mine.”

“What was it?”

“It was everything. Now give me the flash drive before you regret it.” He reached his open palm across his desk, expecting me to obey. He was sorely mistaken. I took a wide step back, feeling like the flash drive was ten times heavier than its featherweight.

“Never.”

He pounced on me before I could react, lunging across his desk to take what he wanted without asking. It shouldn’t have surprised me. All the times he’d manhandled me had proven he had no respect for me. I moved away, clawing at his face instinctively.

“Jesus Christ, you little bitch!” He palmed the scratch I’d left on his face, stumbling backwards. For all his height, my father was grossly unequipped to fight anyone. Even me. He’d spent his whole life tucked in an office like a hamster in a cage.

“Don’t you dare touch me ever again!” My voice shook, but I didn’t. It gave me strength.

“Pack a bag and leave your mother’s house.” He pointed at the door, panting, gasping, seething. “You’re eighteen, so opinionated and mighty. You have it all figured out, don’t you, you little slut?” The last word slapped me in the face and knocked the breath out of my lungs. “I’m sure Trent will happily take you in. But then he is a walking, talking STD, just like the rest of his friends. I am no longer obligated to put a roof over your head. Pack a bag, Edie, and while you are at it, make sure you take whatever you have here with you as well, because you’re fired.”

Instead of doing all the things I thought I would—crying, begging, fearing for what was to come, I turned around and made my way to the door. My back was to him when my father put the last nail in our relationship’s coffin.

“It’s a shame you won’t have time to say goodbye to your brother. I am going to transfer him this week.”

I turned around, smiling, for once, because I knew something he didn’t. “You can’t do that.”