Chapter 1

It's the flash of white on the side of the road that draws my focus.

That glimpse of brightness stands out from the black pavement, damp from the afternoon rain.

It contrasts with the green shooting off in every direction on either side of the winding road—the dry, brown rolling hills of summer transformed into something that's lush and beautiful and sandwiching me in peaceful oblivion.

Except for that bright white.

Trash maybe—bags or a mattress dumped by some asshole.

Or maybe an animal of some sort?

A dog or a horse or a cow?

It wouldn't be too much of a surprise, not amongst these small, local farms and isolated plots of land that aren't found in other parts of the Bay Area. Fences give way, barbed wire breaks, and…

The white object moves again.

Animals get out.

I slow down because, strictly speaking, I'm in violation of my contract by riding my bike. Taking it out like this—well within the speed limit, on a deserted road, the sun going down behind me and the wind in my hair, on my face—is barely cleared for off-season use.

In early November? When the season is just barely underway and an injury would be catastrophic for my game?

If anyone finds out, I'm dead.

It's just…

Too good of a day.

I need this—one last time—before I put my bike up until the following summer.

That white moves again, and I slow down further. No crashes. No injuries. Nothing to fuck up my life and career and future?—

Except…slowing down means that I have plenty of time to see.

That the white isn't a plastic bag caught in a bush, waving in the winds.

And it's not a cow or a horse or a dog.

It's a person.

A woman in a huge, poofy white dress.

And a veil that glitters with crystals in the setting sun.

A woman with long blond curls hanging down her back?—

A woman…

Whose face I recognize.

I hit the brakes hard—too fucking hard considering the slick road—and nearly skid out. It takes far too much effort to control my bike, to wrestle it back upright, to calmly stop and put the transmission into park when I manage to do so.

I flick down the kickstand, slide one foot off to rest onto the pavement. Then I'm lifting my other leg over the seat, rounding my back tire, and hurrying over to the bride-to-be.

"Rory," I say, skidding to a stop and reaching for her. "Are you?—?"

But I don't finish the question because the moment my palms touch her shoulders, she's flinching back…

And stumbling over the hem of her dress, falling backward into the little gully on the side of the road.

Water—from the same rain that left the pavement slick—splashes, soaking into the fabric of her dress, the long blond curls cascading along her spine, and up onto?—

Her face.

"What. The. Fuck?" I snarl as red hazes across my vision.

Most of her face is done up in makeup—what my sister Annie would call The Works. Lashes and glittery eye shadow, her brows on fleek, pink shit on her cheeks, lips filled in with a bright red color that makes her mouth look all too kissable.

That's beautifully done.

Making Aurora somehow look even more gorgeous than she is normally—and, for the record, this woman could have her head in a goddamned paper sack and she would still be breathtaking.

But it's not her makeup that has rage snarling through my veins, tearing like lightning through my middle.

It's what's showing beneath the smudged edges of her foundation, what's being revealed ever more clearly as water from the puddle drips down her face.

A bright red mark on her jaw.

A fucking handprint on her throat—complete with the impression of four fingers on one side and a thumb on the other.

And a bruise forming across her fucking cheekbone.

I bend over—slow and steady so as not to scare her, but inexorably because I'm not going to stop moving, not going to leave her there, wet and cold and fucking terrified on the side of the road even if we don't get along, even if she despises me, even if every interaction ends in a fight.

I slip my arms beneath her back and scoop her up into my arms.

She cries out in pain.

"Sorry, princess," I murmur, shifting her even more carefully, holding her even closer as I scale the embankment and carry her over to my bike, settling her onto the seat.

Climbing on in front of her.

Bring her arms forward, wrapping them around my middle, holding them in place.

She's shaking, and I don't miss that tears are soaking into my back.

"Who?" I whisper before I start up the engine.

"Phillip."

I turn the key.

I'm going to fucking kill her fiancé.

No.

Her ex-fiancé.