Chapter 2

Pierce didn't say anything for a while. He didn't tell me to come here again, either.

He threw off the covers, pulled on a robe, and walked over to the window to light a cigarette.

Smoke drifted up against the glass.

"Oh, one more thing. Pack up all your stuff before you go."

I froze with one shoe half on.

He didn't turn around. "Celeste is moving in this weekend."

Celeste Ashby. The girl Pierce had been carrying a torch for since he was a teenager. The woman his entire family already treated like the future Mrs. Whitaker.

I looked down at my ripped stockings on the floor.

"Okay."

Maybe I said it too fast. He finally turned around.

"She doesn't like walking into a place and finding some other woman's things."

He said it like he was reminding me to pick up milk.

I got it. This place was going to be Celeste's. Every sign that I'd ever lived here had to disappear.

I bent to pick up the stockings.

"And don't forget that cheap junk in the bathroom."

My back was to him. I answered quietly. "Got it."

He'd bought those toys. He was the one who couldn't wait to talk me into trying them.

Back then, they were fun. Now that Celeste was coming, they were cheap junk. Like the four years I'd spent in his bed were something embarrassing he had to hide before company came over.

I balled the stockings up in my fist.

When I looked up, my eyes went around the bedroom on their own. My chest felt tight.

Four years I'd lived here. I'd picked the curtains. I'd bought the lamp with the warm yellow shade on his side of the bed. When he complained the mattress was too firm, I was the one who spent a whole Saturday with him lying on every mattress in the store.

And one sentence was all it took to erase it.

Pack up all your stuff.

I opened the closet. Almost half of it was mine. Clothes, bags, and all the jewelry he'd tossed my way over the years.

I stood there a moment. Then I took only what I'd brought with me.

Pierce was leaning in the doorway.

"You're leaving those?"

I turned. "What?"

He nodded at the shelves. "The bags. The jewelry. You don't want them?"

I looked at them for a few seconds. Then, for the first time ever, I told him the truth.

"I never wanted them."

That caught him off guard. I'd already looked away.

Most of it wasn't anything I'd have picked. Pastel pink. Pearls. Little satin bows. Pretty, sweet, precious things, made for a girl who'd been adored her whole life.

None of it was me.

I never told Pierce I liked any of it. I just took whatever he handed me. If he said it looked good, I wore it.

I used to think that if I was good enough, easy enough, he'd care about me a little more.

Later, I found out every piece had been bought for Celeste first. She'd sent them all back.

I pretended I didn't know. I kept wearing them for him. As if, as long as I never said it out loud, I could borrow the love meant for someone else and call it mine.

It all seemed so pathetic now.

I shut the closet.

"They can stay." I hesitated, then decided neither of us needed protecting anymore. "They were never mine in the first place."

Pierce didn't answer.

I didn't check his face. I rolled my suitcase out of the bedroom.

His driver was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

I figured Pierce had told him to take me home. Then the driver took the suitcase from me, and Pierce spoke from behind me.

"Take her straight to Carrow's."

I stopped so hard I nearly tripped. I turned and stared at him.

"What?"

He stood on the steps, perfectly calm. "You heard me. I made a deal. Don't keep the man waiting."

My hand tightened on the suitcase handle. "I can get there on my own."

He looked at me and laughed.

"You? You'd bolt the second you hit the highway."

It was like getting slapped in front of a crowd.

He wouldn't even let me leave with that much dignity. Giving me away wasn't enough. He had to make sure I got signed for and delivered.

I looked at him.

"Pierce Whitaker."

One eyebrow went up. In four years, I'd never once used his full name.

"What?"

I wanted to ask whether there had been a single moment, in all that time, when he'd actually seen me as a person.

But with the words right there on my tongue, I realized there was no point.

I let go of the handle.

"Never mind."

And I got in the car.

As the door closed, I saw him still standing on the steps, the porch light behind him stretching his shadow down the drive. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He'd ducked his head to light another cigarette, like he'd finally crossed one annoying chore off his list.

The driver pulled out.

I leaned my head against the window. I made it until the house I'd lived in for four years was out of sight. Then I started to cry.