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Chapter 1

The phone rings at three am

I think about ignoring it Now that I have Chloe back infor the next century Certainly not until dawn breaks across the sky and I set things in as I haven’t slept since she left me, not for ainst ainstmy cheek, I’ve finally been able to relax, to breathe, for the first ti

But I’ve been waiting for a phone call and if this is it—if this is it, the last thing I want to do is miss it

Withoutthe half of my body that is firhtstand My hand collides with lance tells me that I really do have to take this call

Fuck

“I’ll get back to you in five minutes,” I bark into the phone the second I accept the call, and then I’ to blink myself into wakefulness

It takes a good two or threelike the abject relief that co the woman you love to finally put you under after a week of sleep deprivation

I’rumpy as shit as I slip my arm out from beneath Chloe’s head and try to slide over to my side of the bed The fact that she moans a little in her sleep and clutches ataround me like a vine, only makes it harder to leave If it was anyone else on the phone—if the call was about anything else—I wouldn’t even think about it

I soothe her back to sleep with a couple strokes of her hair and a few murmured words And then I stuh that’s the last thing I want to do Even though I want to spend the next hour, day, year, beside Chloe, worshipping her beautiful body with my own

I walk down the hall to her living room, pull out my phone Dial the number And wait for the private detective on the other end to pick up—and God willing, giveto hear

There’s a click and then a terse, “Mr Frost”

“Yes” A long pause, like he’s shuffling papers Or taking a drag on a cigarette Or tossing back a finger or two of scotch Then again, that could just bewild—I’ve seen a lot of old-tiht now it feels like I’ve stepped into the middle of one

The idea makes me more uneasy than it should

After all, I thought I was ready to hear whatever he had to say—was anxious to hear it—yet now that the moment’s here, there’s a part of me that just doesn’t want to know Brandon isto keep hi to fix his problems for him But that was before I knehat he was What he’d done

Before I knew that he had raped the only wootten aith it

It’s that knowledge that hasout “Tell me,” even as I brace myself for the answer

“You were right Ms Girard isn’t the only one”

My blood turns to ice, just freezes in uided missile

I knew it Fro that picture of Chloe and me in the tabloids, from the moment I realized that Brandon was the one ith my help—had nearly destroyed Chloe, I’d known that there would be more That there would be others