my willingness to disguise myself. I can be new, different. I can change.
She’d been the closest she’d ever come to
real.
That was what she’d been thinking as she’d stared out at the Maine storm, the dangerous, exhilaratingly powerful sea. She’d felt battered and bruised, and undoubtedly shaky—but for the first time, she’d also felt truly
alive.
And then Jack Sutton had sauntered into that bar, temptation in perfect male form, the ultimate symbol of her old life and her dissolute past—and eight months of committed soul-searching disappeared. Ash and smoke, as if they had never happened. As if she’d learned nothing.
How could she have so little self-control, even now? Despair and something else, something uglier, flooded through her. How could she ignore everything she knew, everything she was only beginning to admit she needed, for a man who had never done anything but make her act like the worst version of herself?
How could she possibly justify her presence here tonight? How was it anything but the worst kind of backsliding into the very pit she’d been so determined to climb her way out of? Her very first test, and she’d already failed it with flying colors.
This is who you are,
that little voice, her father’s voice, whispered deep inside of her—so harsh and, she feared, so true.
This is what you do. Fail. Disappoint. And then fail again.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth, as if pushing back the small sob that escaped her lips. She didn’t have to do this. She threw the car into reverse—but even as she did it, before she could even lift her foot from the brake pedal, the grand doors of Scatteree Pines swung open, spilling light out across the drive. Larissa froze.
Jack stood there, tall and imposing in the great entry-way, his dark eyes immediately slamming into hers through the windshield, across the storm. Connecting hard with that shaky part of her where her spine should have been. Making her shiver with a dizzying sense of helplessness. With the inevitability of this. With her own terrible need that she hardly understood.
She couldn’t seem to breathe. Her heart was like a cannonball, ricocheting against her ribs. She knew she needed to leave. She knew it. Before she let the tears fall, let the wildness within her out of its cage. Before she betrayed herself even further than she already had.
But she parked the car instead. She turned the key in the ignition, and the engine clicked off.
She took one breath, and then another, and still Jack watched her. As if he had every confidence in the world that she would do exactly what he wanted her do. As if it were a foregone conclusion.
And she hated herself, because she did it.
She climbed out of the car slowly, and took a deep breath, pulling the clean, damp air deep into her lungs. She let her legs ease into holding her there, and made sure they’d support her. The rain had let up for the moment, though the wind was still fierce, raging all around—smelling of the sea and the cold, crisp inevitability of the coming winter. She could smell the tang of wood smoke and wet pine, the rich earth of the forest and the wild, coarse salt of the ocean. The night was dark and dense, like a velvet fist, though thegreat house before her blazed with light. She preferred the darkness, she thought, helplessly. She was so very tired of finding ways to disappear in the glare of all those spotlights.
Jack stood there, silently watching her, compelling her, and she couldn’t tell if he was dark or light, or what he would do to her. What she would do. What she had already done by coming here, by climbing out of the car, by putting all of this into motion. Something in her felt drawn to him, called to him, on some deep, primitive level that hummed in her bones—but she knew better than to trust the things she wanted. They had only ever hurt her.
She told herself it was the deep, northern chill, the wet and windy fall storm, that made her tremble,
She’d been the closest she’d ever come to
real.
That was what she’d been thinking as she’d stared out at the Maine storm, the dangerous, exhilaratingly powerful sea. She’d felt battered and bruised, and undoubtedly shaky—but for the first time, she’d also felt truly
alive.
And then Jack Sutton had sauntered into that bar, temptation in perfect male form, the ultimate symbol of her old life and her dissolute past—and eight months of committed soul-searching disappeared. Ash and smoke, as if they had never happened. As if she’d learned nothing.
How could she have so little self-control, even now? Despair and something else, something uglier, flooded through her. How could she ignore everything she knew, everything she was only beginning to admit she needed, for a man who had never done anything but make her act like the worst version of herself?
How could she possibly justify her presence here tonight? How was it anything but the worst kind of backsliding into the very pit she’d been so determined to climb her way out of? Her very first test, and she’d already failed it with flying colors.
This is who you are,
that little voice, her father’s voice, whispered deep inside of her—so harsh and, she feared, so true.
This is what you do. Fail. Disappoint. And then fail again.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth, as if pushing back the small sob that escaped her lips. She didn’t have to do this. She threw the car into reverse—but even as she did it, before she could even lift her foot from the brake pedal, the grand doors of Scatteree Pines swung open, spilling light out across the drive. Larissa froze.
Jack stood there, tall and imposing in the great entry-way, his dark eyes immediately slamming into hers through the windshield, across the storm. Connecting hard with that shaky part of her where her spine should have been. Making her shiver with a dizzying sense of helplessness. With the inevitability of this. With her own terrible need that she hardly understood.
She couldn’t seem to breathe. Her heart was like a cannonball, ricocheting against her ribs. She knew she needed to leave. She knew it. Before she let the tears fall, let the wildness within her out of its cage. Before she betrayed herself even further than she already had.
But she parked the car instead. She turned the key in the ignition, and the engine clicked off.
She took one breath, and then another, and still Jack watched her. As if he had every confidence in the world that she would do exactly what he wanted her do. As if it were a foregone conclusion.
And she hated herself, because she did it.
She climbed out of the car slowly, and took a deep breath, pulling the clean, damp air deep into her lungs. She let her legs ease into holding her there, and made sure they’d support her. The rain had let up for the moment, though the wind was still fierce, raging all around—smelling of the sea and the cold, crisp inevitability of the coming winter. She could smell the tang of wood smoke and wet pine, the rich earth of the forest and the wild, coarse salt of the ocean. The night was dark and dense, like a velvet fist, though thegreat house before her blazed with light. She preferred the darkness, she thought, helplessly. She was so very tired of finding ways to disappear in the glare of all those spotlights.
Jack stood there, silently watching her, compelling her, and she couldn’t tell if he was dark or light, or what he would do to her. What she would do. What she had already done by coming here, by climbing out of the car, by putting all of this into motion. Something in her felt drawn to him, called to him, on some deep, primitive level that hummed in her bones—but she knew better than to trust the things she wanted. They had only ever hurt her.
She told herself it was the deep, northern chill, the wet and windy fall storm, that made her tremble,
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