Chapter 1

one

Olympia

First order of business—remove the shit from my nails. By shit, I mean the white tipped gel Mom always demanded I decorate my nails with. I’d once made the mistake of choosing what I thought was a stunning, beautiful bold blue, like my eyes. I’d gotten a tongue lashing for my unladylike behavior, which I returned with a brave whip of my own before I got the wooden spoon. Hard. I’d been sixteen.

What sixteen-year-old girl on the cusp of womanhood gets hit on her bare bottom with a wooden spoon? Me, apparently, and often.

The saddest part—the spoon wasn’t even the worst of it. The thin leather belt encrusted with tiny rhinestones that connected like a whip—now that left a mark across my ass cheeks. I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow it, no matter the gimmick products I try to erase the thin, puckered scar. I’d earned that scar when Mom’s driver witnessed a nobody boy steal a kiss. The ass-kisser reported my wanton ways to Remira, and I was punished. It had been my first, and last kiss, to date. Sloppy as it was, it wasn’t worth it.

It hadn’t been until high school when I met Charlie, my very first real friend, that I realized being spanked at all wasn’t the norm. Never mind being spanked with an object, and at such a mature age.

“Learn from the lessons taught to you, Olympia.”Remira Laurier’s cool voice echoes unbidden in my mind, and I cringe. “I spared your sister and look what she did. The whore she became. I will spare you nothing. The rod, you get.”

My mother has the personality of a solitaire diamond dripping blood. She glitters and shines, she’s impossibly hard and ruthlessly cutting, but there’s nothing on the inside. Nothing unique or wonderous or daring or soft or loving.

There was a time when she wasn’t so—her. But those memories are faint now that years have passed. They’re buried under all the hate and rage and hurt I keep locked down deep. They’re shoved beneath spiteful, vicious words and cruel, angry touches.

“Argh!” I huff when I find myself picking at the impossible-to-pick gel. My hands slap against my bare thighs, exposed by my rebellious shorts, and I give a concerned glance around the darkened porch.

I’m not sure what kind of night creatures roam in L.A. that might have a taste for young women, who are, apparently, stupid enough to show up at some man’s house in the dead of the night by taxi, only to find herself stuck on his porch with two suitcases as her companions.

My phone vibrates in my pocket as I think of stalking mountain lions with gnashing teeth. I’m pretty sure I recall reading about mountain lions here. With a shiver I do my best to shrug off, I pull it out to see Charlie’s name on my screen.

Charlie:

Did you make it? Or are you dead in some ditch?

I roll my eyes, about to text back when another comes in.

Charlie:

I can be on my way to the cops in five. I’ve got the tracking app, so they’ll find you ASAP. That’s if your killer hasn’t run away with your phone. Then they’ll find him.

Gee. Confidence much?

Proof of life, bitch. Or I’m driving to the boys in blue.

I roll my eyes but can’t help my laugh. I love Charlie way too much. I’d almost went through with it all—just to stay close to her. But then I imagined his hands on me, his body inside mine and…

I force a smile the untrained eye wouldn’t detect a thing amiss with, and send Charlie her proof of life.

Happy?

No. I thought you left so you could stop with all that.

All what?

The fake shit. The phony smiles. The plastic princess bullshit.

My shoulders slump.

You know me too well.

No. I just love you.

You’re the only one, Charlie.

Love you, too.

So…why are we sad?

And why are you sitting in the dark?

Don’t. It’s not like you can come back.

She’s right about that. The way I left—I’ll never be welcome back. Not without a lot of painful groveling and even more painful submission. The punishment…

The cruise ship. The glitter and glam. She show. Him…

I’d run from it all.

From the room he promised to have ready for me. From the silk ties that would bind me, helplessly, beneath him. From the blood he promised to drain from me. The vow he made to paint his flesh with the red of my life.

If I went back…

I shiver at the thought of submitting to him. To the deceiving evil that lurks under his beautiful flesh. I won’t do it.

He’d break me, with pleasure.

This has to work, Pippa. My inner voice cracks, weakness slipping into the faux courage as I pull my shoulders back, determined. This will work.

Headlights flash between the trees. My heart summersaults up into my throat. I swallow it down, nearly gagging on the lump of it, and send one last text.

He’s here. Gotta go.

Kill it, babe.

I feel like I’m going to vomit. Nerves swell inside me until they’re all I can feel. I don’t even recall what it felt like to be cool and calm, which is saying something, because I’m the master at keeping my emotions firmly, solidly, completely under a block of ice.

But not when it comes to him. Cole Taviera.

The only man who has ever made my heart flutter.

The only man with enough sway to truly make it sink.

The SUV rolls to a stop, and headlights threaten to blind me as I stare into a dark windshield.

Oh shoot. What if he has a woman with him?

Why did I think showing up here at night was a good idea?

Frick, frick, frick. I know his reputation. I’ve cyber-stalked him long enough to know he’s got a hell of a dating—that’s a kind word for what Cole does—history.

I should have known better.

Still. I’m here.

The driver’s door swings open without the headlights flicking off, and a man gets out.

Theman gets out.

My throat goes instantly dry, like it’s coated in dust.

My fingertips tremble, the skin tingling like I’ve been caught in a frosty storm. Not like I’m standing outside on a warm L.A. night.

I can’t move. I can hardly breathe. The salt in the humid sea air has crystalized in my lungs, trapping air.

He’s so much more than when he left.

Apart from cyber stalking him, I’ve had no contact with Cole since his mom passed, and he ditched. The man hadn’t accepted a single request of mine on social media. I know next to nothing of his true life. Sure, I follow every profile he has open to the public, but his posts are all surface level, and mostly about Devils Heartbreak. When it comes to him, I’ve always craved the deep. I’ve always yearned for a taste of his secrets. Always lingered, hopelessly praying for those eyes to land on mine.

It’s been so long.

Seeing him in the flesh now is a shock. He’s so big.

Really, images online don’t do the man justice. He’d been big eight years ago, but now. Whoa, boy.

Defined muscles stretch the material of his black t-shirt over his chest as he angles his head back another slow inch, taking me in, and then my suitcases next to me on his porch, before they slide back to me.

He takes a single step forward, so I do the same, taking a single step down from his porch. My knees wobble. My heart lurches in my chest painfully. It’s a true struggle to keep my mask in place.

Finally, I hear his deep voice rumble, “Pipsqueak? Is that you?”

No. Don’t call me that. I’m not that little kid anymore.

I lift my chin higher. “It’s just Olympia, now. Or Pippa, if you prefer.”

I give myself a mental high-five when my voice remains cool and calm. Unaffected.

I’m anything but unaffected.

I’m a mess of emotions and forbidden feelings.

Did I mention his voice?It’s dropped at least ten decibles since the last time I saw him.

Because I couldn’t tear my eyes from him if I tried, I see the way his jaw tightens, a muscle twitching. I’ve seen enough of that kind of tensing to know he’s pissed at me. Inside, everything coils tight. Outside, I’m a cool cucumber.

It’s the same body mask I wear when Remira gets it in her mind that she can beat the wild out of me, so I might not embarrass her like Ophelia. Only, I’m not wild. I do nothing with my life that can be claimed wild. This—running away from a lifetime of pain—is the wildest I’ve dared to be since everything that went down, went down.

Even though, technically, Ophelia is the one keeping our mother from living like one of the people she gives ‘charity’ to. Remira’s kindness cloaks something much uglier. A need to surround herself with those she views as less than, so that she can pass superior judgement.

I know it’s not nice to hate. But, honestly, I think I might hate her.

“What are you doing here?” Cole juts his chin to the suitcase as he widens his stance, folding massive arms over a wide chest.

I keep my hands hanging at my sides with effort. I want to cross mine like him. I want to put that faux barrier of protection up to guard against the onslaught of his obvious hate for me. For my last name.

For her.

I’m not her.

I swallow hard and take another step forward. “I need your help.”

A single brow lifts. Even though nothing else of his face changes, I know I’ve surprised him.

It’s been eight years, and here I am, no longer the little girl he remembers, on his porch with a suitcase. I can only imagine the things that are running through his mind.

I almost want to laugh, but that might make me seem unhinged. I don’t want him to throw me off his property before he hears what I have to say.

“Go on, Pipsqueak.”

I fight my flinch, but a little seeps out. That moniker had once been filled with affection, but now there’s something hideous in it.

“Don’t call me that.”

He cocks a mean grin, and I know I’m in for it. “What the fuck do you want, Olympia?”

You. It’s only ever been you.

I don’t say that. Instead, I say, “I want you to tarnish me, fully, and completely. I want you to wreck and ruin me. I want you to sully everything they think is pure. I want them to hate me like they hate you, so I can be free, too. The only one who can help me—the only one who can ruin me like I need to be ruined, is you.”