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“D on’t make it too light,” Lily lightly warned her friend about her hair.

Sara rolled her eyes. “I won’t. Trust me.”

“You’re one of the few that I do trust.”

Lily always kept the highlighted blonde strands subtle. The last thing she wanted was for Blake to know that she lightened her hair. It wasn’t that she was hiding it.

Or was it?

Perhaps it was vanity?

Sara lifted the dryer and Lily followed her friend to the rinse bowl and then back to the chair.

Lily smiled at Sara in the mirror. She knew her friend was worried, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

On the whole, she was happy with her life. She had always wanted to be a wife. All her life she had dreamed of creating a home for herself and a husband. And of someday having a baby.

However, Blake wanted to wait to have children.

And her? She was done waiting. Lily no longer wanted to put it off.

That was something she wanted to talk about with Blake over the upcoming holidays. Sipping eggnog by the tree, she was going to bring up having kids.

During Christmas, she wanted to stop taking birth control. And if everything worked out by next autumn, she would have a baby.

Her last conversation with Blake about having children had ended up with them arguing and Blake had gone hours without speaking to her.

Lily had finally caved and said yes, they could wait.

This time, though, she wasn’t going to give in and Blake better be ready.

“Do you have time for lunch?” Sara asked, flipping off the cape and brushing Lily’s newly lightened hair over her shoulders so it caught the overhead light.

Lily studied her reflection and the shimmering cascade of blonde curls. “Marvelous as always, darling,” she sang before glancing at her watch.

The appointment had taken two hours. On the one hand, she had promised Blake she would only be gone for a few hours, but on the other hand, she hadn’t seen Sara in two months.

“Don’t you have to meet Chris?” Lily asked.

“No.” Sara snorted. “He needs to do his own thing while I do mine.”

“Then lunch it is.” Lily smiled at her bossy friend. Sara definitely wore the pants in that relationship. They left the busy salon suites together after Sara spoke with her manager for a few moments.

They got into Sara’s SUV and Lily turned off her phone as they hit the road.

Sara squinted at the phone in her hand, but stayed silent as they drove through the rain.

Lily gazed out the window. It would be much easier to tell Blake that the hair appointment had taken longer than expected instead of admitting that she had gone ahead and blown off going home to have lunch with her best friend.

Lily couldn’t remember exactly when she had started lying so frequently.

She frowned at her reflection in the window, not liking the person she had become.

The city of Seattle flashed by as Sara drove them to their favorite lunch cafe just off the main boulevard.

Lily spent lunchtime putting Blake out of her mind and just enjoying the time she and Sara had.

After lunch, Sara dropped her off in front of her apartment building and Lily waited until Sara drove away before she turned her phone back on.

There were six missed text messages from Blake and two voicemails.

“Oh, good grief,” she muttered, putting the phone to her ear to listen to the message that was from her grandfather.

“Come visit me this weekend, little missy. I have something to tell you. Love, Grandpa.” Jethro Snow’s voice message made her smile. He always said ‘love, Grandpa, like she wouldn’t know his phone number.

Out of habit, she selected the one voicemail Blake had left.

“Where the hell are you?” Her husband’s voice was low and sounded mean, but it always sounded that way when he was angry.

“Darn it,” she sighed, tucking away her phone.

Lily rubbed her damp palms on her pants before lightly running to reach the elevator. The building was eighteen stories high and she gripped the cold silver railing as the elevator sped to the top floor.

She had nothing to be sorry about. This constant guilt-tripping was bordering on the ridiculous.

Before she could get her key out, the door was jerked open and Blake loomed over her.

His dark brown eyes snapped with anger. Without a word, he locked a hand around her wrist and yanked her inside.

“Ouch!” Lily gasped angrily.

Blake’s fingers cut into the bones of her wrist, and he didn’t release her. Not even when she gasped in pain.

Surprise turned her mute. What the hell was going on? She jerked at her wrist even though she knew without a doubt it would be bruised in a few hours, she kept pulling.

Releasing his grip, Blake shoved her down onto the couch and stood over her.

“Why didn’t you respond to my messages?” he snapped with a cold hard stare.

“Because my phone was off,” Sara said, tempted to tell him to fuck off.

She’d gone out of her way not to argue with Blake over the past eleven months, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t stand up for herself. In fact, back in college, nobody messed with her.

Lily took a deep breath. Her husband was just upset, she thought, and she stayed calm. She should have at least texted him to say she was going to lunch instead of disappearing. And maybe if he wasn’t so controlling, she might have.

Blake sat down on the cushion right next to her, his thickly muscled thigh pressing against her leg, crowding in close.

“Why did you turn off your phone?” he growled low.

“Because Sara and I went to lunch after doing my hair,” she answered. To hell with lying about the length of the appointment.

She hadn’t been a liar before.

But over the past year, she’d forgotten that. Her reason had been to try and keep Blake happy. To try to keep the peace between them.

And why was that solely her responsibility?

Blake closed a hand around her throat, not hard, but more firmly than ever before.

It was a bully move.

He did it all the time, but right then, it was done to intimidate. She could tell by the grip.

She hated it.

“What the fuck, Blake?” Lily knocked his hand away and glared at him.

Stunned, he reared back, but Lily wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.

“What was so damned important here that I couldn’t have lunch with my best friend after my hair appointment?”

She’d gone from rarely cursing to saying several cuss words in the past few minutes.

Blake stared at her. “Oh, I see. Your promises don’t mean a thing.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“You said you’d be home in two hours, it’s been over four,” he snapped, his eyes were cold as the outside weather. “I was worried.”

She missed the warm brown, but her anger was rising. Why was he that worried about her safety? Or was he just being his usual controlling self?

“It’s the weekend. I worked all week!” she said, putting emphasis on the word “I” and Blake caught it.

“And I don’t,” the man said in a hard flat voice and then shoved up from the couch.

“I didn’t mean it like that—”

But she did.

There was no denying Blake needed to get a damned job so he had something to do other than sit at home waiting for her.

Lily grabbed Blake’s wrist to keep him from walking away. With an abrupt move, Blake flung her touch away.

Unfortunately, her face was nearby and the man’s hand cracked into her cheekbone. She almost thought it was done on purpose but she must have been imagining things in the heat of the moment.

Gasping, Lily cupped both hands over her face. Her cheekbone throbbed and hurt like hell. She waited for Blake to apologize, but she only got his continued silence.

Lowering her hands, she fingered her burning cheek. Blake stood several feet from her, gazing toward the view outside of the window.

Lily suspected that he was waiting for her to apologize.

Screw that.

“Look, I went to lunch with my girlfriend, isn’t this a bit much?”

“What is a bit much?” His voice had gone very, very quiet.

“Your reaction?”

“You mean my attitude?” he snapped, glaring at her.

“Call it what you want,” Lily said, having had enough of his tantrum.

Blake’s hands clenched into fists and he took a threatening step toward her—or so she thought it was. She quickly fell back farther onto the couch. Was he going to intentionally hit her?

Before reaching her, Blake stopped and released a heavy breath. He sent his fingers through his own hair, leaving the dark brown strands sticking up.

“I wasn’t going to do this, but I want to show you something,” Blake said, his voice still a tad cold, but nothing like the Arctic frozen it had been.

Striding into the room he had taken over as an office—for want of a better word—Blake returned with an envelope in his hand and tossed it into her lap.

Lily gazed at her husband for a moment and then opened the envelope to pull out several folded pieces of paper inside…

They all said pretty much the same thing.

I’m watching you.

I love her, you don’t.

She’s mine.

Lilies will wither without sunshine.

Die, die, die, die, die.

That last one was a new one, she thought, but they were all the same theme—stalking threats.

Crafted on the plain white paper each letter of the sentences had been cut out of a magazine and pasted on the surface.

The word “die” was repeatedly pasted at the end of every message.

Having grown up the only granddaughter of Jethro Snow, death threats were nothing new to Lily.

However, she hadn’t received one in years and now so many?

Her eyes turned from the threatening notes to Blake. Lines of strain mixed with the anger on her husband’s face filled her with contrite.

Rather than yell at him for not showing her the notes in the first place, she stood and went to him.

“Why did you keep this from me?” Lily placed one palm flat against Blake’s chest.

“Because I’m worried enough for both of us.”

“If you had told me about this, I wouldn’t have turned off my phone.”

His eyes narrowed and she knew why.

She said she wouldn’t have turned off her phone. But she still would have gone to lunch with Sara.

Her chin tipped and Blake suddenly lost all of his anger. It was rather odd to see Blake going from rage to calm in seconds but in truth, Lily was glad.

They had never fought like this before.

And it left a bitter taste on her tongue.