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Anything—including using me.

I don’t believe he set up the pictures of us at Debajo, but he must have seen them, and he hasn’t reached out once.

Not a damn word. No defending what happened in his clubs or how it looked as if he used me.

I need to move on.

I haven’t been up to New York because I know Annie will want to talk—the kind of talk with way too many feelings—and I’m avoiding getting into that.

Which is why I’m in a limo with Beck, who has not only given me a place to stay the past few weeks when I didn’t want to be alone, but who should be fucking a perfectly nice girl instead of looking after me.

There’s an email with a subject and sender that leap off the page.

“What’s wrong?” Beck asks, and I realize he’s hung up his call.

“My brother Kian’s getting married in a month. He’s inviting me.”

“Short notice. Where’s the wedding?”

“Napa.” I fold my arms at his raised brow. “I grew up in Orange County.”

His low rumble of laughter has me sighing. “You’ve been back a month, and I bet you haven’t told any of them.”

Shadows flick across his face from the streetlights, but it’s the darkness inside me that makes me shiver.

“We haven’t been close since high school.”

Beck pulls my head down on his shoulder and lays his on top of mine. “Here’s the thing. You could be a superstar. Have the Wild Fests of the world begging you to show. But you won’t get there until you make peace with where you’ve been. No matter where you’re going, you can’t run from you.”

“Have you made peace?” I ask him pointedly.

He’s had trouble with his parents—they’re flush and part of New York society, and from what I understand, having their son turn his back on the career his father wanted for him to pursue acting and come out publicly as bi pushed their self-righteous buttons.

He sighs. “Work in progress.”

I grab the champagne and chug the rest, then turn off my phone and shove it in my bag, leaving the top open. The glint of diamond headphones follows me home.

2

HARRISON

It’s not the first time I’ve tried to open a new door in my life—metaphorically or literally.

Nor is it the first time the way has been thoroughly barricaded.

“How long will this take?” I bark into my Bluetooth headphones, kicking at the stack of cinderblocks barring the entrance to the warehouse.

“Depends. The documents you shared about your parents weren’t much to go on.” The other man’s Northern Irish accent abrades my ears.

“So go to other sources. You’re the investigator.” Cobwebs cover my hands as I lift a brick and set it a dozen feet away.

“You can’t just go around asking whether dead people were involved in illicit activities.”

I toss my tie over my shoulder as I bend to grab two more. “Should be easier than when they were alive.”

My top priority is convincing Christian my parents were innocent so he’ll sell me La Mer. Hence the investigator.

My father helped build the legitimate side of Mischa’s family’s business, acquiring and managing real estate and venues. I didn’t think much of it until the summer after my fist year of uni in Connecticut. I arrived home to find them looking so drained even a self-indulgent nineteen-year-old would notice something was wrong.