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“Rumors,” he says blandly.

I narrow my eyes. “Have you been keeping tabs on—?”

My voice cuts off as the Bargainer crosses the room, grabs my glass of wine, and makes his way to the kitchen sink. He dumps its contents down the drain.

“Hey!” I say, “That’s expensive Burgundy.”

“I’m sure your pocketbook is suffering,” he says. There’s not an ounce of remorse in his voice.

I follow him into my kitchen. “You shouldn’t waste good wine on principle.”

He moves away from the sink, and I gasp when I see my bottle of wine levitate off my coffee table and cross the living room and into the kitchen, landing in the Bargainer’s waiting hand.

He turns the bottle on its head, and I hear the sound of precious wine chugging out of it and into the porcelain basin of my sink.

“What are youdoing?” I’m too shocked at his audacity to do more than gape as the last of the wine swirls down the drain.

“This is not how you solve your problems,” the Bargainer says, shaking the now-empty wine bottle at me.

The first flare of righteous indignation replaces my shock. “I was drinking a glass of wine, you psycho, not the whole damn bottle.”

He drops the bottle into the sink, and I jump when I hear glass shatter. “You’re in denial.” Des’s eyes are angry. He grabs my wrist roughly, never taking his eyes off of me.

He fingers a bead.

“What are you doing?” The first stirrings of trepidation speed up my heart rate.

“Taking care of you,” he says, staring at me with the same intensity.

I can’t help it, I glance down at his hands because his expression is making me squirm. Beneath his fingers a bead disappears.

I raise my eyebrows. Whatever repayment he just asked for, I know I’m not going to like it.

“Are you going to tell me what that bead just cost me?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Chapter 7

November, eight years ago

Ever since theBargainer took me out last week—for coffee and pastries of all things—we’ve spent half of our evenings in my dorm, and the other half inside a bakery on the other side of the Isle of Man.

He’s been careful to keep things platonic, despite the fact that he’s been paying for the coffee and French macaroons I order every time we visit Douglas Café, the Isle of Man’s best bakery. Or that he’s spent most nights over the last month hanging with me.

This situation isn’t right.

I don’t want it to change.

“So, what’s your real name?” I pester him for the hundredth time.

Tonight we’re hanging in my room. I’m lying in my bed, the credits of the movie we watched rolling down my laptop screen, which is situated next to me on the bed.

A part of me dreads turning and seeing the Bargainer’s face. He has to be bored, sitting in my uncomfortable foldout chair and watchingBack to the Futureon a tiny screen between us.

But when I turn, I don’t see a bored man. I see a confused one. His brows are pinched, and his lips form a thin line.

“Bargainer?”