"That's a pretty silly question.  I think you know."

"No.  No.  No, I sure as hell don't know.  Whatever goes on in that manipulative brain of yours is so beyond me that I don't even try to guess anymore." 

"I do this to remind you—there's no one else for you."  His voice had thickened as he spoke, so rich now that it felt like a physical touch.  "There's only me."

"You're such a bastard," I managed to choke out around the thick ball of hatred that had formed in my throat.

"I'm a complete and utter bastard," he agreed ruthlessly, "but you never get to stop loving me.  I need you to stay incapable of moving on."  

The sheer gall of him, the utter nerve . . . I was so furious I was trembling with it.  "I hate you," I said, my voice ragged, the words feeling like they'd been wrenched out of me.

I hung up before he could respond. 

I was so thoroughly pissed off after that that there was nothing to do but go shopping. 

Because retail therapy.

I had another bad moment as I was driving through the winding mall parking lot when I spotted the huge Durant's department store sign and had a near overpowering urge to drive my car through its shiny glass doors. 

It was pure hell to be a broke shopaholic with an ex whose family owned one of the biggest department store chains in the world.  It was salt in the wound that I couldn't afford to shop there.  Not even close. 

Still, feeling contrary, I parked near the entrance, went inside, and started trying on overpriced designer dresses.  I wasn't sure if it made me feel better or worse that they all looked fabulous on me. 

Eventually I moved on to shoes, and that definitely made me feel better. 

Someday I'll be successful, I told myself.  Someday I'll be able to buy myself whatever the hell I please. 

Someday I won't hate myself.  Someday I won't be hung up on a guy that messes with my head for fun. 

Someday I'll be rid of this weakness in my bloodstream that is my love for Dante. 

By the time I'd exhausted all of my contrary shopping urges I felt decidedly better.  

The magic of shoes.

I was heading back out to my car when my agent called me.  With news.  Amazing news.  Life changing.

I was still stunned by it as I made the long, traffic-filled drive home. 

Could this be it?  Finally?  My big break? 

I was almost afraid to hope. 

CHAPTER SIX

"There is always some madness in love.  But there is also always some reason in madness."

~Friedrich Nietzsche

PAST

DANTE

There were three of them to my one, but adrenaline had ignited in my bloodstream right along with my temper, so it felt like good odds to me. 

Also, I was bigger, meaner, and angrier than all of them put together. 

Jock #1 went down like a chump.  I'd have bet a good percentage of my trust fund that he'd never even been in a real fight before.  He came left, and I blocked him, jabbing under my own upheld arm for a vicious gut punch.  Shock overtook his face as he doubled over, the breath whooshing out of him.  He was out after that, more focused on his own pain than coming at me again. 

Good.  Onto the next.  Jock #2 wasn't so easy to take down.  He was bigger than the last and better at throwing a punch, but it just wasn't enough. He lasted about thirty seconds longer before I brought him low with a brutal fist to the chin. 

Jock #3, fucking Reese McCoy, was the best fighter of the bunch, but he also happened to be the one I most wanted to beat the shit out of, so it didn't do him a whole lot of good. 

His big mouth had started this.   

He got in a few good clocks before I took him down, but I wasn't going to give him too much credit for it.  I never was much good at ducking. 

Luckily, he wasn't either. I cornered him and started whaling, the sound of each punch barely louder than the blood rushing through my ears.  

I used to get into fights for her because they called her trash and tried to hurt her. 

It got better for a time as kids started to understand that I wouldn't stand for that, but over one summer her body changed. 

She went from being my best buddy—my partner in crime, then boom, she changed shape, she was a girl, and then, right on the tail of that, a woman.

She didn't just get boobs before any other girl in our school.  She got fantastic boobs.  They were out of this world.  Big, perky, pointing right at you, mouth-watering breasts. 

And her hips and ass drove me possibly more insane.  She became shapely all over, but her waist stayed as tiny as ever.

And her face—it was much the same as the dear face I'd known for so long, but something happened to it, to her pouty lips, her dark, dark, drown-in-me eyes, even her voice changed, got lower, raspier.    

She walked into school that year and it was comical to watch the way the boys couldn't take their eyes off her.  Even the ones that had been the cruelest to her, the ones that hated her still, couldn't manage to hide their reactions.  

Well, it would have been comical if it didn't make me want to kill someone.

A lot of someones. 

I'd watched the entire shift, witnessed every minuscule change in her as it happened.

But for the rest of the boys it seemed to happen overnight.  One day they all looked at my girl and saw what I saw.

It was not a good year for me.  I got into fight after fight, same kids, just calling her different names now.  And looking at her.  And talking about her.  And mentioning her name with the wrong fucking tone in their voice.