“I guess I can’t,” I said.

“It’s a little serendipitous, actually.” Dean leaned forward, like he was excited to share this next part with me. “I was working on my latest book, which is all about the power of asking for forgiveness, and here, this project comes along.”

I went stiff. “Like it was meant to be.”

Dean laughed into his useless crotch. “You’re sharp, Ani. You always were. I hope your husband appreciates it.” He sighed. “My wife is so fucking dumb.”

“Fiancé,” I corrected him.

Dean shrugged, like it didn’t matter. “Fine. Fiancé.” He looked behind him again, checking to make sure no one could hear but me. “It will be very . . . impactful . . . for my fans”—a little smile, for my benefit—“to see us come to some sort of peace. But I also think people will understand why it took me so long to get to this point, and why I was confused at first. I didn’t set out to ruin your good name, I was traumatized. I’m man enough to admit that now. But . . . the, ah, other stuff. There’s not really much of an excuse for that, is there?” He paused for a moment, as if considering whether or not to tell me the next thing. “My wife is expecting, did you know that?”

I stared at him numbly.

“Biologically mine.” He looked up at me, squinting beneath the temperamental sky. “It’s amazing the things they can do these days.” His voice took on a tenor of amazement. “All it takes is a noninvasive surgery, a lab and a petri dish, and voilà, I’m a family man, exactly what my community wants for me. And they foot my bills, so I’m happy to oblige, even though kids . . .” He made a face I had made many times before. For a moment, he just studied the road, considering what his life would be like with a child he could never chase after, could never teach to play soccer. He cleared his throat and looked at me again. “But the other stuff, I don’t see them giving a pass on that.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s pretty scummy.”

“That’s a private apology.” Dean tilted his head. Gauged my face and added, “And it is an apology. I am very sorry for that.”

I stared him down. “I want you to answer something though.”

Dean’s jaw ticked again.

“Did you guys plan it? That night at your house?”

Dean had the nerve to look offended. “We weren’t diabolical, Ani. No. It just—” He looked at the empty road again and thought about how to put it. “There was a little bit of competition. Who gets the new girl. But when we went to my room, I didn’t even know that what happened with Liam happened. I didn’t even know that until the next day.”

I took a step toward him, so shocked I wanted to shake the rest of his secrets loose. “You didn’t know about Liam?”

Dean winced at himself. “But listen, I knew about Peyton. But I . . . I didn’t know, I didn’t think that was bad. I don’t know”—he shrugged—“that wasn’t sex to me. I didn’t understand how what happened with Peyton and me could be bad.” Off my look, he added, quickly, “But I do now.”

The sun blasted us again, one quick lash before darting behind a moody cloud. “What do you know now?”

Dean pierced his eyebrows together, like I was a teacher who had asked him a difficult question and he wanted to get the answer right. “That it was wrong.”

“No”—I pointed my finger at him, the line a downward diagonal—“I want you to say it. What it was. If I’m going to play along, I deserve to hear one of you finally call a spade a spade. Tell me what you did to me.”

Dean sighed and considered my request. After a moment, he admitted, “What we did to you . . . it was rape, okay?”

The word ripped my stomach apart like cancer. Terrorist attack. Plane crash. All the things I’m terrified will get me because I slipped out of Arthur’s fingers half a lifetime ago. But still I shook my head. “No. None of this distancing language. ‘It was rape’—I know those tricks. I want you to say what you did to me. What you all did to me.”

Dean examined the ground. The fold in his brow softened as all the fight went out of his face. “We raped you.”

I rubbed my lips together, tasted something deliciously metallic. The moment felt impossibly sweeter than when Luke proposed. “And that night at Olivia’s—”

Dean cut me off with a resigned nod. “I know. I hit you. There is no excuse for that. For any of it. All I know is I felt lied to. Led on by you. And it infuriated me. It was like I blacked out from the anger. I’m still so grateful that Olivia’s dad broke the whole thing up, or, I don’t know what . . .” He stopped, because the raindrops had roused the crew from their waiting place.

“Hey! Guys?” Aaron called. “If we want to do this, we have to do it now.”

We got the shot moments before the sky found its release. Did I sell out? I don’t see it that way. But only because there is still something else I’ve kept to myself all of these years, a reason to cut Dean a little slack. I may wonder what I would have said if Arthur came to me and asked me to be a part of his plan, but I don’t wonder as much about what would have happened had Arthur actually turned the gun over to me. Because if I’d gotten my hands on it, I think I just might have blown that motherfucking cocksucker’s cock right off. Arthur would have gone second.

CHAPTER 16

There are two keys on my key chain plus a New York Sports Club pass even though I haven’t been a member since 2009. That means I have a fifty-fifty shot of getting the right key in the door. I can’t remember a time I’ve ever gotten the right key in the door.

Luke thinks it’s cute. He says it gives him the heads-up that I’m home. “So I can ex out of the porn windows,” he teases. I’ve seen the porn Luke watches—girl with huge fake tits shouting yes, yes, yes, right there, some muscled moron plowing her, looks about as much fun as doing your taxes. Luke thinks I don’t like porn, but I just don’t like his porn. I need to see someone in pain. Pain is good. Pain can’t be faked.

I pushed the door open with my foot. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Luke said from the couch, watching me struggle with a smile on his face. “I missed you.”

The door slammed behind me and I dropped my bags. Luke opened up his arms. “Can I have a hug?”

The words “Can I have some help?” sat snippy on the tip of my tongue. The decision not to say them required some strength.

I walked toward Luke and curled up in his lap. “Aw,” he said. “You okay, babe?”

I tucked my face into his neck. He smelled like he needed a shower, but I’d always liked him a little dirty. Some people have a good natural scent, and Luke was one of them. Of course he was. “I’m exhausted,” I said.

“What can I do for you?” Luke asked. “How can I help?”

“I’m hungry,” I said. “But I don’t want to eat.”

“Babe, you look amazing.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Hey.” Luke forced his fingers underneath my chin, tilted my head up so I was looking at him. “You are the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen and you are going to be the most beautiful bride. One more cheeseburger isn’t going to change that. A million cheeseburgers couldn’t change that.”

Now was the time to ask. I’d caught him in a moment of Ani-infatuation, a rarity these days. But before I could, Luke’s expression became serious. “So,” he said, “I have to talk to you about something.”

It was like I was riding a roller coaster at the exact moment the car inched over the summit and plunged to the ground below. The change in force jumbled all my organs, my lower abdomen throbbing as though my heart had tumbled there. Had Mom been right?

“The London offer came through,” Luke said.

I repeated what he’d said in my head, trying to adjust, trying to identify the emotion ricocheting from my free-falling kidneys and liver and heart. Was it disappointment? Relief? Resignation? “Oh,” I said. “Oh,” I said again, stumbling into something like curiosity. “When?”