Page 18

“I can help you. If you let me. Trust me.”

She gazes up at me, and I can practically see the wheels turning.

She doesn’t know if she can trust me—how could she?—but she’s terrified.

And it appears she has nowhere else to turn.

Her fingers absently twine with mine, squeezing with more strength than I would have thought she’d have after being in a coma for over a month.

“He’s…going to… kill me. But no one… believes me.”

My chest squeezes painfully.

Over my dead body.

Bum hip or not, that’s not going to happen.

“I believe you.”

Six

Willow

My head is spinning, and it’s hard to focus with the fatigue creeping back in.

It would be so easy to sink back down, to disappear into the fog and darkness, to never emerge again.

But there’s a warm, gentle hand wrapped around mine.

Hudson Dash’s hand.

His name swims out of that fog, reminding me why it makes sense that he might want to help me.

He’s Hudson Dash.

Not a man who’s famous and in the public eye.

But one who’s known quietly within the circles of the rich and famous.

He runs a security company—or rather, the security company.

And he’s just looked into my eyes and told me that he believes me.

My mom doesn’t.

Neither does my agent.

The staff nod at me when I make requests, but don’t abide by them until Dylan approves it. That goes for anything from the food I eat for breakfast to what clothes I want to wear to whether or not I have permission to get a massage or go for a drive or see my doctor.

Wouldn’t want anyone seeing the bruises.

And any friends I might have once had have been lost to fame—jealousy that my career took back off when theirs didn’t, toxicity because they couldn’t kick the drugs we used to do until oblivion dragged us under, greed that my bank accounts were no longer accessible for them to drain.

They weren’t accessible to them.

They aren’t accessible to me.

“I don’t know how I’ll pay you,” I whisper, staring down at his hand that’s wrapped around mine. So much bigger than mine and marred with a myriad of scars. It’s tan compared to the pale white of my skin, probably because he’s allowed to spend as much time outside as he wants.