And I did suffer.

But I couldn’t fake myself into believing this place was foreign.

It wasn’t foreign at all.

It was familiar.

A second home.

A well-known place I despised with every inch of my being.

Its welcome whispered over me, deleting the past few years where I’d been wealthy and cared for and obsessed with the girl who’d shared my chocolate bar, fell for me, and then looked at me as if I was scum even when she heard the truth.

Her apology echoed in my ears.

Her tears glistened in memory.

I’d hurt her, but she’d hurt me.

And now, I was here, and she was there, and there was no way to fix what was broken.

“Fuck.” I punched my pillow, rolled over, and closed my eyes.

Chapter Nineteen

Elle

“I HAVE TO SEE him.”

Another phone rang in the background, but Larry didn’t make an excuse to end our call to answer it.

He sighed, but it wasn’t cruel, more like lost as to what he could offer me. “I can arrange it but not for a few days. New prisoners are given a stand-down period before visitors are allowed.”

“New prisoners?”

“He’s being held without bail. I’ve already filed an appeal and fighting for a hearing date that isn’t sometime in two years. We’ll get him back, but the justice system is archaic. It’ll take time.”

“Time?” I sucked in a breath. “How much time?”

“Can’t say. But it’ll be as short as I can make it.”

My heart plummeted, rolling in shame, coating in guilt until it sat tarred and feathered in my stomach. “But...he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“The previous times he was locked up, I would’ve agreed with you.” His voice layered with tiredness, reminding me not so long ago, he was seriously sick, and Penn had been the one to look after him. Now, it was Larry’s turn.

How many times has it been his turn?

“Previous times?” My voice was small, timid. My question hesitant.

Larry heard my uncertainty.

I hated myself for it. Here I was so close to the truth, and I wasn’t sure I had the balls to learn any more.

The more I did, the more I cursed myself. Cursed myself for not trying harder to find Penn. For doubting him. For hurting him.

His arrogance and fine-edged cruelty had been the perfect mask to hide the loneliness and hardship of a life I could never imagine.

Fate had been so generous and kind to me. It had been an absolute bitch to Penn.

How can I make it right?

Once again, I had dreams of protecting him, cooking for him, caring for him the way I knew he would care for me if only he could forgive my doubting.

Sage waltzed over my desk, sprawling on her side on my notepad, unapologetically asking for cuddles while my mind whirled.

Automatically, my fingers sank into her soft fur. I blinked at my office in Belle Elle’s tower, returning to the present rather than dwindling on awful, awful imaginings of what Penn was going through.

“Yes,” Larry said. “The previous times he was arrested.” Something banged as if he’d closed a desk drawer. “For example, the night in Central Park—when he was with you.”

I froze. “What about it?”

“He was sentenced to eight years for aggravated robbery, armed assault, and attempted rape.”

“But that’s a lie!”

“Doesn’t matter. He had no one to fight for him then. Neither did he have support when he was first arrested and held in an adult penitentiary, even though he was a minor. He didn’t commit the crime, but he paid—purely because of bad luck and similar facial features to another.”

My mind cartwheeled, growing dizzy. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, Elle, the first time he served thirteen months and was out early for good behavior. The state didn’t ask him if he had a home to go to, family to see, or a job to earn a living. They just kicked him out with nothing—not even the lint from his pockets because he didn’t have any lint when they’d arrested him.”

“That’s...awful.” I didn’t want to hear anymore.

Tears wobbled in my gaze, making my office dance and Sage turn into a gray blob. Belle Elle suddenly wasn’t a tower of servitude but a pillar of strength. This was my core asset. This company had made me rich and powerful.

It’s time I used that wealth in other ways—freeing innocent men ways.

Larry chuckled with pride. “He made do. He’s a resourceful lad. He stole—he’s not innocent on that account—but he only did it to survive. The second charge was betrayal by a so-called friend and the result of bad luck, bad timing. He got time for theft and for knocking out the house owner and molesting his wife.”

I gasped. “That can’t be true. He would never—”

“Of course, he wouldn’t,” Larry snapped. “He was framed.”

My fingers tightened on my phone, falling more into the tangled tale of Penn’s past. “How?”

“Penn happened to be walking back to his current bed for the night when he saw his so-called friend entering the house in question. He followed. Tried to talk some sense into him, only for the wife to get confused and think it was Penn who’d touched her and the man to wake up groggy and brain-bruised and accuse him. The real perp had run before the police arrived. By the time Penn was processed, he had heard the news and personally oversaw Penn’s arrest. By that point, it was too late.”