Chapter 1

I stood in the wreckage of my gallery, staring at the broken glass on the floor and the slashed canvases.

This was supposed to be the debut of the solo show I'd spent three years preparing.

A room that should have been full of flowers and applause looked like a dump.

Half an hour ago, my husband Preston had come storming in like a man possessed and trashed the place.

"Chloe! What the hell did you send Vivian?!"

"She read your goddamn text and suffered a depressive episode! She nearly jumped off the rooftop!"

I looked at his furious face and the whole thing struck me as absurd.

"Preston. What exactly did I send? I told her that today was the opening of my show and asked her not to call you during it."

Vivian had sent me a mocking text a half hour earlier with a selfie attached — her in Preston's shirt, one shoulder bare, stretched out on a hotel bed.

She'd even followed it up with a voice message: "Preston said I was feeling unsafe, so he stayed the night. In my room."

"Chloe, honey. I'm going to need him a little longer today. You'll cut your own ribbon, right?"

Out of sheer spite I'd messaged back: If you like his leftovers, help yourself.

I hadn't even started to blow up yet. She was the one already making a scene.

When I didn't answer him, Preston kicked over one of the flower baskets next to him.

"She's sick! Why do you have to make every little thing a fight!"

"Galleries can be rebuilt. Vivian has one life!"

"If anything happens to her because of you — I'll never forgive you."

With that, he didn't even glance at me. He turned and bolted back out into the storm.

To save his poor, fragile Vivian.

I didn't cry. I didn't even have the energy to be furious.

Since Vivian had walked into our lives, Preston had changed.

Vivian had been the scholarship student Preston sponsored through college. After she graduated, she'd joined his company.

Then she'd been diagnosed with severe depression, and after that Preston treated her like a piece of porcelain — something fragile he might break if he let her go.

She had to be fed by Preston. Talked to sleep by Preston.

And the moment I said a word against any of it, he'd pull out the same line on me.

"Chloe, you're healthy. Can't you find a little empathy?"

I took a long breath and started picking the paintings up off the floor, one by one.

Thunder outside. The rain was coming down harder.

I shut the gallery and walked to the corner under my umbrella.

Under a streetlight, a soaking-wet man was crouched on the sidewalk.

He was in nothing more than a thin white shirt. His right hand was wrapped in a thick bandage, now stained dark red with rain and blood.

His head was down. He was shaking faintly.

I wasn't planning on getting involved — but the shape of him was too familiar.

I walked closer and tried, tentatively, "...Rowan?"

The man looked up fast. His face was bone-white under the rain.

The eyes that had once been sharp and bright were hollow.

"...Chloe?"

His voice came out raw, like he hadn't had water in days.

I frowned. My eyes dropped to the sorry state of his right hand.

Rowan tried to smile, and tucked the hand behind his back.

"Small accident. Some of the nerves are gone. I won't pick up a brush again."

Something inside me dropped.

Rowan Ellsworth had been an old classmate from college, a few years ahead of me at Pier Cove University. He'd been the star of the architecture program.

His hands had always mattered to him more than his life.

"Why are you out here alone? Haven't you been to a hospital?" I asked.

He shook his head like a stray with nowhere left to go.

"I don't have anywhere to go."

"The bank took my place. None of my friends will pick up."

Looking at him there — something in me that had been strung taut for weeks finally snapped.

"Come with me."

The rain soaked my umbrella, and I got a little wet too. My shirt clung to my body, the outline of my chest faintly visible, my nipples hard from the cold.

We hurriedly climbed into the car to get out of the rain.

His wet shirt clung tightly to his body, clearly showing his chest and abdominal muscles.

As I helped him into the passenger seat, I caught a glimpse of his crotch bulge out of the corner of my eye. The fabric was wet from the rain, almost revealing the shape of his penis.

My heart skipped a beat. How could it be so big? No wonder he was the guy every girl in our college wanted to sleep with.

As I got out of the passenger seat, his leg accidentally bumped against my thigh, his erect penis rubbing against my buttocks through his pants.

My heart raced. Preston hadn't had sex with me in six months. My body couldn't handle the stimulation; my nipples hardened, and they felt a little itchy.

Preston was always with Vivian, why couldn't I even look at this man a little longer?

I quickly shook my head, trying to banish the absurd thought, but my legs unconsciously tightened around my waist while I drove, and I became even wetter.