Chapter 4

"Ethan, are you out of your mind? You actually hit Julian.

"Have I been too soft on you? Is that it? Give you an inch and you take the whole house."

I barely heard her.

I was still on my knees, looking at what was left of my father's figurine.

Then one of her friends spoke up.

"Olivia, you can't let a man behave like that."

Sloane leaned back with her drink.

"A man only learns when you teach him properly."

Bree glanced toward the window. Rain was coming down hard enough to blur the glass.

"I've got an idea.

"Make him take the old car out. The one from the accident.

"Have him push it to a hundred and ten on the interstate. Didn't you say he's terrified of driving? That'd teach him."

Olivia said nothing for a few seconds, and I could see her weighing it.

Then she nodded.

"Fine. Maybe he needs one real lesson."

Everything in me went still.

Olivia knew exactly why I couldn't drive.

I'd been behind the wheel the night of the crash that killed my father. Since then I'd avoided it whenever I possibly could.

Nobody knew that better than she did.

I got up and headed for the door.

She caught my wrist.

Her face gave me nothing.

"If I don't discipline you, you're never going to learn."

Then her friends walked me out to the garage. Olivia followed.

"The car has a driver-assistance system. If anything goes wrong, it takes the wheel for you.

"You're not going to die. It's a lesson. That's all."

Thunder cracked over the roof. The rain was coming down in sheets.

Then the garage door lifted and I stopped breathing.

The car sitting inside was the one I'd been driving the night my father died.

This wasn't discipline.

She wasn't trying to teach me anything. She was trying to kill me.

I fought them.

So Olivia took out her phone.

"If you don't get in, I can always make a call about your mother's store."

Eight years together had taught her every soft place I had, and she was pressing on all of them at once.

My fists closed. My chest was too tight to pull a full breath.

"Fine. I'll drive."

The second I sat down behind the wheel, my whole body started shaking.

That night came back in pieces I couldn't stop.

I reached for the door handle.

Locked.

Olivia stood on the other side of the window, watching me.

"Go.

"If you don't, your mother's store is finished."

Then she settled back against Julian, perfectly happy, like this was a normal evening.

Ten marriages.

Ten divorces.

Ten times I'd forgiven her.

I'd kept telling myself that one day she'd remember who we used to be.

I'd been wrong about that for eight years.

I put my foot down.

The car shot out into the rain.

There was nothing in me but panic, and I made myself keep driving anyway.

The rain wiped out the road ahead of me.

It washed out the last of what I felt for Olivia right along with it.

Back at the house, Olivia sat with her friends and played cards.

They were teasing her about it.

"Ethan is obsessed with you. Ten marriages, ten divorces, and now you've canceled the Love Insurance on top of it.

"That's eleven times you've hurt that man and he's still standing there."

It warmed her, hearing it.

She knew Ethan loved her past the point of sense. That was the whole reason she'd felt safe divorcing him again and again, safe canceling the policy, safe doing any of it.

"Obviously," she said. "That's why I can afford to teach him a lesson.

"When he gets back, one sentence out of me and he'll be apologizing on his knees."

She was pleased with herself.

Then she looked out the window, and the rain had gotten worse, and something cold slid into her chest.

Ethan's father had died on a night like this one. Ethan hadn't been able to get behind a wheel since.

He'd be fine. He had to be fine.

The more she turned it over, the worse it got, until she picked up her phone and called him.

He didn't answer.

She was still staring at the screen when an unknown number rang through.

"Is this Olivia Grant? Your husband's been in an accident. His car went into the ocean.

"You need to get down here."