No one dared to ask where Gerald Fitzpatrick was. Not even one soul. The unspoken assumption was that my parents were going through something, as they always did, and most guests thought nothing of it. This was simply the way Jane and Gerald Fitzpatrick were.

One piece of expensive jewelry and a vacation away from reconciliation.

Throughout the night, I refused to steal glances at Sam and Becca, no matter how hot the temptation burned in me.

It was unlike him to stick around for more than ten minutes at a charity event.

It was even more unlike him to show up with a date.

It was obvious this was designed to torture me, and I refused to give him the pleasure of agreeing to be tortured.

Finally, when the clock hit midnight, I told my mother I was heading home.

“I have an early shift tomorrow. I’ll catch up with you in the morning. It was a lovely event.” I kissed her cold cheek, heading to the cloakroom to grab my coat, clutching the wrinkled ticket to hand the clerk in exchange for my Armani jacket. When I reached the elaborate oak counter, it was empty.

The door behind was closed.

Merde.

I looked around, trying to find an available staff member to help me out. When none were found, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I wasn’t going to stick around, waiting to be cornered by Sam and Becca, like a sitting duck. I rounded the counter and flung the door to the cloakroom open, taking a step inside.

I came to a halt immediately.

“Oh my gosh!” I heard a screech. It came from Becca’s mouth. The first time I’d heard her voice. Shrill and nasally. I blinked away my shock, letting the scene in front of me register.

Becca was splayed across a mountain of coats and blazers, her dress pushed up her thighs—much like mine was that cursed Halloween night—with Sam standing a few feet from her, a hand on his zipper. The heat around my eyes signaled tears were on their way, and I forced myself to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

You are twenty-seven years old. Don’t you dare cry.

“My, my. You give tacky a whole new meaning, don’t you, Mr. Brennan.” I pinched my lips, fixing my eyes on Sam, careful to keep Becca’s name out of my mouth. No matter how much I despised her by association, it wasn’t her fault. “You know, Samuel, that’s what separates the nouveau riche from true aristocrats. Your impartialness to knockoffs. Couldn’t get your hands on the real thing, so you decided to settle for a replica.” I smiled sweetly.

I was angry and sad and feverish with the emotions crawling inside me.

I opened my purse and took a condom out of it—I always kept one handy for when Belle ran out and decided to end the night with someone when we went out—and flung it on the floor in Sam’s general direction.

“Did you tell her you hate women? That you don’t want children? How much you loathe yourself? Did she see your apartment? Your inside? All your dirty secrets?” I was still smiling, but my heart felt like it was soaked in my own blood. I had only a few more precious seconds before they started falling. Becca’s mouth hung open in fascination and horror.

I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess not. A word to the wise…” I turned in her direction “…run, don’t walk. He is trouble and not the tamable kind. He will use you, play you, and discard you. That’s the only thing he knows how to do. Because that’s what was done to him.”

I spun on my heels and ran back to the ballroom, trying to find a place where I could cry alone. Break down and let it all out. I headed straight to one of the balconies. I could see from behind the glass doors they were all empty. No one was crazy enough to sit outside on the cusp of Christmas in Boston. Not willingly, anyway. I flung open the door and ran to the stone bannister, clutching it as I gasped, the fresh, cold air rushing into my lungs like ice water.

I heaved, letting out a feral growl that echoed inside my body.

I loved him and I hated him and I loathed him and I craved him.

One thing was for sure—I was close to quitting him.

He wanted me to let go, to turn my back on him, to forget, to leave him just like every other woman in his life. Every woman other than Sparrow. And I was close to giving him exactly what he was after.

I collapsed against the wide bannister, pressing my forehead against its coolness, trying to regulate my breath as I closed my eyes.

Breathe, mon cheri. He is just a man. A bad one at that, I heard her voice.

I didn’t know how much time I’d stayed there, but when I finally turned around to leave, I saw him.

He blocked the doorway, standing there alone, his broad shoulders shielding the party’s view from me and vice versa.

“Are you done?” He sounded bored.

I didn’t answer. I had to remind myself this man was about to have sex with another woman only moments ago. Maybe he went ahead and did it anyway.

“Step aside,” I said quietly. “I want to leave.”

“You’re very prone to dramatics, know that, Nix?” He ignored my words completely, ambling toward me. He stopped when we were close, too close, and gently tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I am used to women who are rougher around the edges. Sparrow. Sailor. Even Cat. They have masculine strength about them. They refuse to be pushed around and never shed a tear.”

“Crying doesn’t make you weak,” I said, sniffing and turning away from him. “It just means you’re in touch with your emotions.”

He cocked a brow.

“I didn’t say you were weak. But you are a complex little thing, and I never know if I get the ball-busting version of you or the docile one who trails behind her mother like a toddler.”

“Thank you for the psychological assessment. Did you enjoy your rendezvous with your date?”

He tilted his head sideways, studying me intently. “What’s with the French words? Why not say hookup like the rest of modern civilization?”

I shrugged. “My governess was French. It stuck with me.”

“You had a governess,” he said, not as a question. Rather, he mulled the information over, filing it somewhere in his head. “Well, as it happens, I didn’t enjoy Becca at all because you scared the living shit out of her. This is now the second fuck you’ve cost me, Nix.”

“Nix like knickers, right?” I rolled my eyes, fresh anger coursing through my veins.

He grinned, looking like he was in a fantastic mood, which made me hate him even more.

He pushed another wisp of my hair behind my ear. “I had to think on my feet.”

“I think I should go.” I turned to make a beeline back into the ballroom, but he stepped in the same direction, blocking my path.

“No.”

“Sam, you have a date waiting inside.”

“She left. I called her an Uber.”

“You still brought her here. That’s the point.” I took a step back, avoiding his touch at all costs. “You still paraded her. Flaunted her. Kissed her in the cloakroom.”

“I didn’t kiss her,” he growled, his mouth twisting in annoyance.

“But when I came in you were—”

“I skipped that part,” he quipped. “The kissing part. I wanted you to get the general picture.”

“Well…” I smiled sadly “…I got it, all right. Mission accomplished. I now know you will go to extreme lengths to push me away. We have such a frightening ability to get under each other’s skin in the worst, most terrible way. I think I’m finally done with you.”