“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Dean, but I’m worried about you.”

“Funny shit, because I’m worried about you.” I ran my fingers through my hair, knowing damn well it made her thighs press together. “Worried you can’t resist me for much longer.”

“You live too hard.” She disregarded my comeback, which I loved about her. She never took the bait. But she was going to. Eventually, she was going to succumb to the pressure I was putting on her ever since she broke up with Dr. Dickface. Because giving up was not in my dictionary. When I wanted something, I took it. And I fucking wanted her. A lot.

“You don’t live at all,” I retorted. “That cruise-control shit that you put your life on? Sleep, work, volunteer, repeat? I’m putting an end to it soon.”

She turned her head to look at me and swallowed. I pretended to look ahead, giving her the time to remember she liked what she saw. Luring her into a web. Waiting for her to get tangled before I devoured my prey.

Easing into my seat—we had a forty-minute journey to Todos Santos—I declared my intentions. Only fair to keep her posted on the plan.

“Just so you know, Baby LeBlanc, I am going to fuck you sometime soon,” I said flatly, not giving a damn that her eyes bulged out and her mouth dropped, nor giving a fuck that the driver had stopped talking loudly and now glared at us through the rearview mirror with intent interest. “It may not be this week—it may not even be this month, but it will happen. And once it does, you’ll have to face your fears and tell your saint sister that we are together, or I will. Because once I fuck you, no one else will be enough for you. Ever. Again. So I’m just going to tell you right here and now, you’re welcome to my dick anytime you want, any hour of the day. I see us as a long-term thing, so it’s important to me to keep you happy.”

“Duly noted, Mr. Delusional.”

“Glad we got that all sorted, Miss Soon-to-be-in-My-Bed.”

What makes you feel alive?

Familiar scent. Of my bed sheets, perfume, and first breaths in the morning. Of the faint sweat when the first sun rays graze my flesh. The scent of home.

He always made me feel played.

It wasn’t the fact that he wanted to sleep with me. I was the queen of throwaway, short-term relationships. Knowing you can’t have anything more would do that to you. I didn’t do relationships, just like Dean.

He was my sister’s ex-boyfriend and my first love. These two facts should never be connected. Hell, they had no place being in the same sentence together.

That didn’t make them any less true.

My loyalty to my sister—who worked two jobs to support us so I could unclaw myself from my parents’ suffocating grip and live in New York—was stronger than my need to steal the warmth of his body. Anyway, even if he wasn’t Millie’s, I had a strict no-boyfriend policy, and a guy like Dean was bound to steal my heart. In fact, there was a small part of it he still hadn’t given me back.

A tiny, ageless housekeeper opened the door to Vicious and Millie’s mansion and ushered me in. I washed my face in one of the first floor’s many bathrooms and gave myself a pep talk in front of the mirror.

You’re fine. You’re an adult. You’re in charge. Don’t let them baby you.

Then I made myself known by walking through the foyer of the Italian villa my sister had purchased with her husband-to-be recently.

I passed golden-hued hallways, rounded arches, and grand, dripping chandeliers, walking past the maid’s quarter—I guess Millie and Vicious were kind enough to let their “help” sleep under the same roof, a courtesy my family wasn’t offered when my parents worked for the Spencers—before finally reaching the drawing room. I scanned the infinite space, digging my cold fingers into the back of the silky Victorian sofa. The only reason I got this far in the mansion without being noticed was because it was the size of the Louvre.

My sister and I were both humble creatures—born and raised to find joy in non-materialistic things—and still, even I could admit that living in such a place would bring you naked, unsolicited joy. It was airy, beautiful, and romantic.

Just like Emilia.

I tilted my head slowly, taking everything in. Up until a few months ago, Millie, Vicious, and my parents all lived in Los Angeles, in the same luxurious duplex. When Vicious and Millie had decided to nest in the suburban haven that was Todos Santos and purchased this house, my parents jumped on the opportunity to stay close to their elder daughter and took up a room here. I say a room, but really, they had their own bathroom, living room, and I heard they had two kitchens here. It was hardly going to be crowded.

I loved my life in New York. The urban filth, the boiling sewers, and diverse faces. I loved my independence—clung to it like it was air, knowing how smothering life with my parents could be—but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a black dagger twisting into my heart.

“There you are!” my sister bellowed, making me turn around on my heels. I slouched against her sofa’s hardwood headrest, grinning ear to ear.

She looked different. Good different.

She was no longer scrawny, her eyes weren’t sunken in, and her pink-purple hair looked luscious and flawless—roots to tips. She wore a white A-line shaped dress sprinkled with red cherries, pairing it with strappy blue sandals that made no sense at all, unless you were Emilia LeBlanc.

“Oh, Rosie,” she said when I threw myself on her, making us both stumble backwards as I smothered her with my love. “I’ve missed you like a limb. Does that even make sense?” She peeled me off of her for a second so she could examine my face, caressing my cheek. Her huge, pink diamond ring sparkled so bright, I was momentarily blinded by the sunlight reflected through the rare twenty-one-carat stone.

I should have been jealous.

Jealous of her engagement and house and fiancé and proximity to our parents. Jealous of her health. Jealous because she had so much, because I had so little.

Swanky Italian villa or not, she deserved it. And no, it wasn’t weird that she’d missed me like a limb, because I’d missed her like a lung. Bitch got me addicted fresh from the womb. She had the talent of taking care of me without making me feel like a burden, something Mama never managed to excel.

Millie smiled, holding my shoulders and scanning me, doing the usual inventory.

“You look too good,” I complained, scrunching my nose. “I hate it when you set the bar too high. You always do.”

She pinched my shoulder and laughed. “Where’s your boyfriend? Thought he’d be coming with you?”

For a reason beyond logic, I found myself blushing as Dean crossed my mind. Millie, of course, was talking about Darren. I never bothered to tell my family we broke up. Millie had enough on her wedding-planning plate without me dumping the breakup into the mix. The plan was to tell them tonight, but I was going to use any excuse to postpone the inevitable. I would rather get a dental treatment from a mechanic than break it to my parents.

“I wanted to spend some time with my family, one on one.” I plastered on a smile. She quirked her eyebrow, silently calling me on my bullshit, and smoothed my light brown hair with her palm.

“I still can’t believe you have a boyfriend,” she mused. “I thought you’d never settle down.”

“Well, I’m getting old. Twenty-eight is like sixty-five in cystic fibrosis years.” I shrugged. “We’ll revisit this subject at dinner.”

Where I will crush your hearts and tell you Darren is no longer in the picture.

She nudged me toward the hallway with a snort.

“Mama is waiting for you. She’s in the kitchen, making a casserole.”

My favorite dish. A zing of warmth slashed through my belly. She remembered.

There was hardly any resemblance to the way my parents treated Millie and me. They respected, admired, and consulted with my older sister, whereas I was babied, smothered, and treated like a cracked egg that was about to spill at any minute. Daddy was a trillion times better than Mama, though. He, at least, adored my snarky personality and cheered for me finding my independence in New York. Mama was too busy worrying about my health, she didn’t have time to fully get to know me, to fall in love with the person I was. Always in full-blown mama bear mode, without taking a second to get to know her cub.

To her, I was the token sick child, the punk, the rascal. The silly girl who risked her life to work at a stupid café in New York instead of opting to live close to her family. The girl who never settled down with a nice boy.

Because Vicious is such a nice boy.

That was the second reason why my family was oblivious to my breaking up with Darren. Dating a doctor meant that they got off my case after Millie moved to Los Angeles. Admittedly, it was part of Darren’s charm. His—unbeknownst to him—ability to keep my parents from drilling in my ear about coming back to California and living under their roof like a sad, introvert bubble boy.

I wasn’t a bubble boy. I was a music-buff pixie who made a mean cup of coffee, read Vice magazine, made anxious mothers to premature newborns laugh, and was always up for a good party. I was a person. With traits and ideas.

But in Todos Santos, I never felt this way.

“Is Daddy around?” I played with Millie’s electric hair as we started our way to the kitchen.

“Went downtown with Vic.” She ushered me forward. A mouthwatering aroma of earthy vegetables, cinnamon, and succulent meat wafted in the air. “I needed a few things from Walgreens. They’ll be back in a few.”

In the kitchen, the anticlimactic meeting with Mama had reminded me why I packed a bag and moved to the other side of the country as soon as I graduated from high school. She hugged me, patted my cheeks, and asked me when Darren was coming, making me feel like a consolation prize.

I opened my mouth, ready to spill the beans then and there, but Mama interjected before I could form any words, telling me that she was proud of me, that she was so happy that I ‘finally found a respectable man to settle down with.’