We talked. For long minutes, maybe even an hour, but I didn’t listen. Not really. The room spun around me, like a ballerina on her toes, round and round, and in the blur, there was only him. His dark eyes. His scowl. His air.

He was taunting me, even when he wasn’t there.

“Did you see Vicious?” I finally asked, my words hurried. I hated that my voice was hopeful, and I hated that every single thing I learned about him made me crave him even more. It was all so stupid, and I was an idiot who needed to face the truth—I had feelings toward the man who was notorious for lacking them.

Rosie shrugged. “He dropped by and packed up some his stuff from his old room on Christmas Eve after you called. I offered my condolences and he, in return, offered me his middle finger. He looked pissed off. I mean, he always looks pissed off, but this time he also looked like he wanted to maybe go on a shooting spree and spare no one, kittens and puppies included. You know what I mean?”

“Of course. It’s his usual office look.” I said dryly.

“Speaking of which, why aren’t you at work? Oh yeah, the funeral’s today. Did you get an extra day off? Or better yet, did you quit?”

I stared at the floor, my teeth grinding together. “Still deciding.”

Truth was, my mind was already made up. It was easier to accept Vicious’s job offer when we were only two consenting adults with a shared past that was less than pristine. Ever since I’d found out what he really wanted from me—to break the law, to lie for him to Jo—paired with how he’d now sent those typical demanding texts, finally made me feel as disposable as he always wanted me to feel when we lived next to each other.

But what really hurt the most was that he took me in my ex’s bed. That was the most humiliating part. The part I was desperate to forget, but never could.

She chuckled, but it didn’t bloom into a laugh. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him while I was gone.”

My face reddened, my cheeks answering the question for me.

My baby sister knew everything about me.

Every little secret and dirty thought that passed through my head.

I would have eventually told her, but it was obvious that she didn’t need a verbal confession in order to put two and two together.

“Millie, hon.” She rubbed her forehead in frustration, “I told you not to fall in love with him again. He is majorly screwed up. Not fun screwed up, either. Not like Justin Bieber. More like…Mel Gibson. He didn’t even look sad about his dad dying. Just like he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.”

I swallowed. “People deal with grief in different ways.” I knew why he hadn’t looked sad—because he wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell Rosie that Baron Senior had let his son be abused. That was Vicious’s secret. Our secret. And as sad as it was, sharing a secret with him was holding on to some intimacy between us I wasn’t sure even existed anymore.

“Why are you defending him?” Rosie shook her head in disbelief. “Listen to yourself. He’s wronged you so many times. Made you break up with your high school sweetheart—twice. Kicked you out of Todos Santos. Hired you to do something shady for him. What more do you need?”

I nodded faintly, sucking in air and falling into a hug that was waiting for me by my baby sister. I told her about Dean’s apartment and Christmas Eve, and our day date, all the secrets that were mine to tell.

“Ass-wipe,” she said as she stroked my hair while I bawled into her shoulder, feeling my bones and muscles turning into jelly.

But I didn’t tell her about Daryl or Jo or even the will.

I couldn’t stop lying when it came to Vicious.

Lying to the world, and especially lying to myself.

The day of the funeral passed slowly, with me perched on the couch eating Fruit Roll-Ups and watching a Gene Kelly movie marathon. I wanted a good, likeable male character to drown in since I was trying to forget a particularly vicious and broody one.

Yes, I was hurt, though not vindictive about what Vicious had done.

I was tempted to answer his calls. His dad had just died, and no matter the circumstances, no matter what he’d felt about him, Baron Senior was still his last living family member.

But every time I made a move to my phone, Little Rose snatched it from me and shook her head.

“No.” She stood up in the living room and growled—actually growled—at me.

“He is going through so much,” I mumbled, but it was weak and bitter. Two things I prided myself in not being. Well, usually.

“He doesn’t give a damn and you know it.”

“Give me the phone.” I was getting tired of saying this. “This is ridiculous. Just because my precious ego has been wounded, doesn’t mean he deserves this treatment.”

But this time, Rosie’s face brimmed with anger. “You should tell him that. He was at the hotel bar at The Vineyard last night, the night before the funeral I might add, with Georgia, sipping drinks. My friend Yasmine works there. She served them herself. They took the elevator up to his room.”

My expression must’ve given away my disgust, because Rosie handed me back my phone.

I had no one to blame but myself. No one.

I felt my chin quivering. This was what he did to me, Vicious. He broke me. Again and again and again. I tried to stay away, but every time he came for me, I caved.

But not anymore.

Rosie was right.

He was toxic, poison, and he was going to kill everything beautiful in my life if I let him. He was the storm to my cherry blossoms.

This only strengthened my resolve to cut him out of my life once and for all. I flipped the finger to the flashing screen every time Vicious called me and refused to show him any type of mercy.

THE FUNERAL WAS EXACTLY THE shit-show I expected.

Josephine attended her husband’s burial decked out in a Hawaiian tan, a black Versace dress, and fake tears. Dean showed up and stood by his father’s side, paying his respects but not looking at me. And Trent and Jaime spent the ceremony trying to console me while stealing glances from me to him.

The condition of Dean’s nose and my black eyes were a dead giveaway. They knew exactly what had happened. I felt like they held me responsible for everything but didn’t want to bring it up, seeing as I was mourning.

Sort of.

I felt nothing actually. My dad’s existence only burdened my conscience. Every day he was alive had reminded me that my mother wasn’t.

A lot of things were buried when my father’s coffin was lowered into the hole. One of them was my frustration with him. But not the hatred. The hatred stayed, and with it, my turmoil. An unrest no one was supposed to know about.

It was a tragedy, but it was my tragedy. I didn’t want anyone else to know.

When I got back to the hotel, I sent Emilia another text telling her to call me. Now.

I’d have the will in my hands tomorrow. It was time for her to pack a bag and get her sweet ass on a plane. I was also planning on telling her she’d need to stay in California for at least a couple of weeks and help me in LA. I was even willing to throw in an extra few hundred thousand to sweeten the deal. Hell, at this point I was going to give her whatever the fuck she wanted.

But Emilia still didn’t answer.

Did she cower, deciding she wouldn’t lie for me? It felt like a betrayal. Bitter and heavy on my chest, on my tongue, everywhere we’d touched.

I threw my phone against the wall. It smashed, webbing the screen with countless cracks. The logical thing to do was to ask my PA to replace it with another one, only I didn’t have a fucking PA at that moment. I needed her and she wasn’t there. I needed her but I knew I’d die before admitting that simple fact aloud.

I walked the green mile from my rental car to the Cole’s mansion. Time moved sluggishly in those moments. Or maybe too fast, I couldn’t decide. This, right here, is what I’d lived for, for years. This, right here, was the end and the beginning of something.

The will.

The verdict.

The grand fucking finale.

Before I knew it, I was in Eli Cole’s home office, and even before the envelope containing the will arrived, a bad feeling gripped me. The stale room, stuffed with law books and old leather and an old man, felt like the wrong place to be.

Eli wasn’t overtly nice to me anymore. Not impatient either, but instead highly professional. When he ushered me over to a chair, he didn’t refer to me as “son” as he often did, and he didn’t insist on serving me coffee or tea when I told him no the first time. Instead, he looked at me like he knew I’d fucked up his son’s face, and that made me restless.

After the messenger delivered the will, he rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, slid his reading glasses on, and cut the envelope with a letter opener, utterly silent. My posture on my seat in front of his desk was guarded and tense. I followed his pupils as he skimmed through the verbiage. He was quiet, too quiet for the longest time, and I felt hot blood whooshing between my ears.

Jo had looked so fucking smug at the funeral. She hadn’t exchanged one word with me. Didn’t try to beg…

But then, I was so careful…

So cunning…

So agreeable to my dad all those years, up until our last encounter before he died, when I told him…