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Part One

Mine

Paris, six weeks ago

It’s only twenty-four hours after Chris and I have arrived in Paris, and we’re facing the demons of his past He pulls his silver Porsche 911 up to the front of The Script, the tattoo parlor he’d financed for Amber and her boyfriend Tristan

Seeing the din, he curses “It’s ten ht”

“Heto soothe the darkness that has been his hting the whip, that deep, evil need to punish himself and have the leather rip into his skin and muscle

“Or,” Chris replies, “he’s avoiding ht in the back roo around back” He rolls forward

I hug ers beneath my arms “Won’t the back door be locked? What if he won’t let you in?”

He cuts down the back alley “I have to try, Sara You know I do”

“I know,” I whisper I know he thinks he has to see Tristan, driven to ed But deep down, I fear he craves someone ill blame Amber’s death on him, since I refuse to do so

We round the corner and pull into the eht?” I suggest

Chris kills the engine “If the light’s on, he’s here”

Even in the shadows, I can see how stiff he is, how his wrist rests tensely on the steering wheel, his gaze locked on the place that’shere reopens wounds that still ooze years of blauilt

I itch to reach over and trace the blond hair teasing his neck, but I resist He’s too edgy, buzzing like a live wire, and he doesn’t like to be touched when he’s like this Not even by me