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The selflessness of what he’d done made my chest squeeze. Blake was stuck now; I could see that. Unable to extricate himself from the entanglement he’d created.

Somewhere there was a remnant of that thought I knew still existed.

Remember what happened with Ned? Remember how you said you’d never put your faith in a man again?

But I wasn’t puttingfaithin Blake. I was only… not disliking him.

Still, I let the rain running down my face wash my old promise away for the moment as I stared at Blake.

“Blake,” I said. “You can stay here.”

The words had come out before I articulated the decision to myself.

“It’s okay,” he said, swinging his gaze to the trees. “Walk. I can walk.”

He was looking in the opposite direction of town.

“No, really,” I said. “Let me rescue you this time. Just for tonight.”

10

CASSANDRA

I wasthe good girl growing up. Responsible. The one my parents could rely on and put in charge. While my twin goofed off and did whatever he wanted, I helped Dad sort the laundry. I reminded him at the grocery store that Eli didn’t like green grapes, and that we couldn’t get the kind with seeds because Jude would spit them everywhere.

It was a lot of pressure, being the responsible one. When I messed up, everyone made a huge deal about it. My brothers gave me shit and my parents always put on this expression of vast disappointment.

“We just never expected something like that from you, Cassamatass,” Dad would say, looking personally wounded.

I made sure I never showed them anything except what I wanted them to see.

But I still did some bad things.

Sometimes, when I knew it wouldn’t impact my grades or my parents wouldn’t find out, I skipped school and went to the movies. I even got a belly button piercing when I was sixteen.

But the most secretive thing I ever did—the thing that would have gotten me in more trouble than a tattoo—was sneaking my friends into the empty rooms at the Rolling Hills resort. It was a skill I never thought I’d have to use again.

“This way.” I planted my hands on Blake’s damp back, trying not to notice how his muscles shifted and flexed under the layers of fabric.

All I was doing was repaying Blake for pulling me from the river.

And maybe paying a little penance for being so hard on him every moment after.

I led Blake along the treed path to the side entrance now, giving him a gentle nudge in the right direction every time he veered sideways. There was a set of rooms in the west wing that had been closed off for various repairs recently, but were still made up with bedding. That’s where I was going to take Blake; where I’d leave him for the night to sleep it off.

“It’s so nice out here,” Blake said, stopping to inspect a giant rhododendron.

Technically, I wasn’t just a grown woman now, but CEO of this hotel. There was no one to get me in trouble.

“Come on,” I said, urging him forward. We had to get around this whole east wing to hit the west wing from behind.

But there would be questions—lots of questions—if any of my siblings knew I was going with a drunken Blake Harrington to one of our empty rooms. Even if some of my staff saw.

That’s what I told myself, anyway.

After we’d reached the backside of the hotel, Blake looked down at me in the shadows. “It seems like you’ve done this before,” he said, his voice an exaggerated whisper.

I glared at him, but it went way over his whiskey-addled head. I assumed he’d been drinking whiskey, anyway; that was my brother’s morose drink of choice.