CHAPTER ONE

MIRA

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“Have you considered you might have abandonment issues, Mira?”

It was two weeks into my sessions with Dr. Eleanor Burdock. I’d been in the middle of telling her about my recurring nightmares when the statement just cut me off like the epiphany was too great to hold in.

It was the stupidest thing anyone had ever said to me and all I could do was blink at her like she’d inexplicably grown a tiny mushroom dick out of the center of her forehead.

All those fancy diplomas and characters after her name clearly weren’t being wasted with that level of deduction.

It truly took every willpower in my body, every restraint I possessed not to stare her dead in the eye and mutter, No fucking shit.

My mom lost custody of me when I was seven. She’d been addicted to pain pills and alcohol, and I would go for days without eating or bathing. I was torn away from her to live with my dad, a complete stranger who I only knew through yearly birthday cards living in a whole other province.

My boyfriend of fifteen months and best friend of eight years were both brutally murdered by a drunk driver the same day I found them in my bed fucking.

A month after attending their funeral, Dad was replacing a part in an industrial crushing machine and the barrels spun. He didn’t make it, and I was shuttled back to live with my dying mother and her fake husband who I had never met.

Two months after getting off the plane and restarting my entire life over again, Mom, who had been fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer for nine months, succumbed to her illness and I became an official orphan a month shy of turning eighteen.

In less than three months, I lost every single person in my life in one horrific accident after another. I was torn from my life with Dad and sent to watch my mom die slowly.

So, yeah, I think abandonment is a key event in my life. The only person who refuses to abandon me and should, is Daniel — my sort of stepdad and the only man I want to reenact every page in the Kamasutra with even though the whole shrink business was his idea.

I hadn’t wanted to go. The thought of paying some woman to sit with me for an hour and point out shit I could have Googled while getting paid five hundred dollars blew my mind. The sheer waste had me staring at Daniel like maybe he was the one who needed his head examined.

But Daniel won. He always does. Being a damn good lawyer, it’s very hard to argue with him. Plus, he’d cornered me in the kitchen when my guard was down, pinned me between him and the counter, cupped my chin and tricked my brain with his deep, male grumble.

“Please, baby. For me.”

I would do anything for that man when he calls me baby. I would have fallen to my knees right there and sucked every drop of his cum from his balls and thanked him for it.

Still, that afternoon, her stupidity had me promptly getting to my feet and walking out the door. According to the lengthy conversation she had with Daniel after the fact, the one that ended with her batting her lashes at him and telling him to call her any time, my behavior indicates that I am resistant to help and should be medicated.

Not that I’m against medication, but two, two-hour sessions is hardly enough time to diagnose me with anything.

Normal people in a normal world with normal problems don’t understand when I tell them I’m being haunted by death.

They think I’m being dramatic, but when you’ve attended four funerals in three months, you have to start taking it personally, right? Maybe the universe is telling you, you don’t deserve love.

That you’re cursed.

That you’re supposed to die alone.

It’s a terrifying thought because I only have one person left and if I lose him ... if fate, or God, or whoever is in charge of making these decisions takes him from me...

“Mi?”

My lungs suck in a startled breath as I’m yanked off that cliff and dropped unceremoniously back into the front seat of Daniel’s white Ford pickup. I blink behind the dark frames of his glasses I’d stolen while he’d been pumping gas.

But rather than ask for them back, Daniel pulled the visor down to shield his honey gold eyes from the sharp patches of sunlight spearing through tangled branches.

I find it hard to believe some days that this man is real. As a dark romance junkie, he belongs on the pages of one of my filthy obsessions, not folded in the seat next to me all tall and broad and mouthwatering.

Daniel is way too big to be a lawyer. Sitting behind the wheel alone, he takes over the entire cabin with his sculpted muscles and hard chest. Hair, the color of wet driftwood, is cut biweekly to stay sheared along the sides and wavy and swept back at the top. It’s soft. Downy and silky. I love running my fingers through the strands whenever he falls asleep with his head in my lap when we’re watching a movie. I love the little noise he makes when I scrape my nails over his scalp.

Sometimes, he’ll turn over and wrap those strong arms around my middle and buries his face into my belly and I get to hold him and it’s the most intimate feeling two people who can’t be together can get.

I expected him to up and leave once Mom was buried. He honestly had no reason to stay. He’d done all he possibly could and more. Despite being Mom’s best friend for multiple years, he didn’t sign on to become an actual stepdad when he wasn’t even an actual husband.

During one of our girl chats in the hospital late through the night, Mom told me why she married him. She told me everything and the tiny crush I’d developed for her husband over the few weeks since arriving exploded into something I didn’t have time for. It became a rooted obsession with the man who was at the hospital as often as I was. Who stayed by Mom’s side, doted on her every comfort, made her laugh and cared for her when no one else would.

Nothing ever happened between them. Not even a kiss. Even when I asked why not; Daniel is a walking fantasy. Mom had wrinkled her nose like the thought was disgusting.

“He’s my best friend. It would be like kissing my brother.”

She will never know how glad I was to hear that. Getting hot and bothered every time Daniel walked into the room was one thing, but if he and Mom were actually in love and done certain deeds, I really don’t think I could ever touch him the way I’m dying to.

“Mira?”

I realize I still haven’t answered him and quickly refocus my derailed Daniel Train. Damn thing has accidents at least twenty times a day with this man.

Gingerly, I peel the glasses off my face. My thumb finds the latch on my belt, and I untether myself long enough to reach over the console and slide the glasses over his eyes.

“Yeah?” I murmur, settling back in my seat and strapping in.

He turns his face to me for a heartbeat of a second. “You okay?”

No, but saying as much puts a shadow of helplessness over his handsome features that I hate seeing on him. I know he’s thinking of ways to make it better, to fix my pain, but he can’t.

“Absolutely,” I lie, even offer him a tiny grin I know he’s not buying because he’s not stupid.

“Want me to pull over?”

That drags a laugh out of me. My head turns to the windshield and the vast landscape of wilderness stretching in every direction, a wall of trees and bush caging us in from all sides.

“Where?”

The corner of his firm, full lips curve upwards. “Here?”

I snort and shake my head. “I’ve seen enough horror movies to firmly and confidently say, no, thank you.”

Daniel hums quietly in deliberation. “Maybe you’re right. Can’t have you getting eaten by cannibals.”

I deliberate his words with careful consideration before reevaluating my decision.

“I mean ... what do they look like?”

It takes Daniel all of a second to realize my joke and snap his head in my direction. His jaw is slack and I’m sure his eyes are huge behind the dark lenses, but it’s the horrified, “Mira!” that sends me over.

My hysterical howls are met with slow, disappointed rocks of his head. His jaw muscles work extra hard to conceal his amusement even as his shoulders shake under the long-sleeved top.

“No more dirty books for you, you little deviant.”

I gasp and snatch my paperback off my lap to clutch at my chest. “How dare you threaten my babies, and they’re not dirty. They’re educational.”

“I fucking bet!” He laughs, the sound deep and rich rolling through the cabin and down my spine.

It tangles with the flurry of moths working overtime at the base of my stomach and sends tiny currents of electricity across my nipples.

I caught Daniel skimming one of my mildly spicy — in my opinion — books a few months back. His eyebrows had vanished up into his hairline and I could swear he was blushing. He definitely had a rock-hard erection tenting the front of his sexy as fuck gray sweats.

No self-respecting man just waltzes around willy nilly in gray sweats if they don’t want to get jumped. It’s a proven fact, especially when the blessings in his pants had my vagina excited to get destroyed. All I could think was, shit, if that flabbered-his-gasted, wait till he sees the really dirty stuff. The truly devious part of me kind of wants to start leaving them all over the apartment just to maybe help coax him along to finally fuck me.

But baby steps.

Daniel isn’t a race. He’s a marathon. I have to seduce him slowly, but win I will. It’s only a matter of time.

“Do you want to know what this one’s about?” I tease.

My adorable hulk of a man shifts in his seat. One big paw lifts off the wheel and rubs nervously across the back of his neck.

I have to bite my lips to contain my giggles.

“I need to focus on driving.”

Pretending I don’t hear him, I flip through the worn pages teasingly. “There’s a Halloween scene with a mask—”

“Mira...”

I lift my chin and bat my eyes at him innocently. “Yes?”

His chest expands under that too-tight top. “Unless he’s five and trick or treating, I don’t think I’m ready to hear it.”

I purse my lips thoughtfully and tilt my head. “Definitely not five, but he does get his treat.”

“Goddamn it,” he grumbles under his breath. “Behave.”

It’s there, right on the tip of my damn tongue to give that final nudge, to be that brat and challenge him. I’m practically vibrating with the need. My panties are soaked, and he hasn’t done a thing, except tell me to behave.

“Or what?”

The challenge slips from my body with zero forethought. It explodes in the silence left behind by his threat. It rings as clear as a bell between us and I stop breathing.

He’s crushing the wheel beneath white knuckles. His lips are pulled tight in a hard line that mirrors the knot in his razor-sharp jaw. That jaw. The kind that can cut a woman’s thighs as he dives between them.

“We’re almost there,” he bites out and I know I’m not getting an answer.

I settle back in my seat and turn to watch the smear of greens blurring past. Disappointment curls around my chest, a weight that stifles my lungs. I’ve learned over the last year to breathe around it, but it’s becoming harder and harder.

I know I’m not crazy. I know I’m not imagining the bulge pushing up against the front of his jeans. I may not have all the experience in the world, but I know Daniel MacAllister wants me.

There is no doubt in my mind, but the man has a will of steel.

I fully understand that I’m being a brat, and I know Daniel didn’t sign up for that. Hell, he didn’t sign up for any part of me. I was just some broken seventeen-year-old orphan he got saddled with because his best friend got sick. We both fell into each other’s lives and somehow, ten months later, we’re still stuck.

He’s stuck.

He came into my life at my very lowest, and he put me together. He made Mom a promise to look after her daughter, swore on her deathbed to take care of me and he’s done nothing else. He moved out of his swanky condo to move in with me so I wouldn’t have to upend my life again. He paid for all of Mom’s funeral arrangements, even though I have a pretty hefty bank account thanks to the settlement fee and insurance money from Dad’s death. Plus, Mom’s insurance. Daniel never asked for a penny. He dragged my ass out of bed when the will to live was nonexistent. He forced me to eat. To shower. He hauled me out of my dark room and didn’t leave my side, not even when I slept for two months.

He held me through every nightmare and let me cry until I couldn’t breathe. He made me laugh when it shouldn’t have been possible and soothed my fears.

He made it impossible not to fall in love with him.

It happened so quickly and all of a sudden that I wasn’t even given a chance to brace. He clobbered me over the head and almost a year later, I’m still reeling with the knowledge that this man has become my entire world, and I would die without him.

That isn’t me being dramatic.

He’s mine and I know he shouldn’t be.

I know if the curse touches him, if the universe takes him from me, they will have to put up with me tagging along because I will not stay here without him.

No therapist will ever convince me that the curse isn’t real. I’m risking his life every day I don’t let him go.

And I’ve tried.

I did everything short of jumping off the balcony of Mom’s apartment to free him of me, but he wouldn’t let me. The harder I fought, the tighter he held on. He wore me down and now he’s sealed both our fates. He’s made it so I can’t let him go even though keeping him will ultimately kill him.

The overshadowing dread that always creeps in when I feel even a spark of happiness huffs out like a blanket smothering a flame. The warmth vanishes from my chest until I’m only clutching a stomach full of cold, dead coals and a chest full of panic.

Strong, firm fingers gather up my curled ones out of my lap and gently thread through mine. The sight of his large hand caging my tiny one calms the chaos in my belly. It soothes the ache in my chest. It shouldn’t, but his touch never fails to keep me from drifting off. Like he’s the tether to my balloon.

Neither of us say a word. The truck rumbles down the narrow path, plunging deeper into the wild, pushing back errant branches leaning too far out.

It’s been almost two hours since we left Mom’s apartment in Toronto to cross half the province to a town I had to Google to find.

I’ve always known Daniel came from a small town. The name and location has always been kept out of conversations for reasons I never understood, but I know he left when he was nineteen and never returned.

Jefferson, a pinprick of a dot pushed against the shores of Lake Huron barely holds five thousand people and is known only for its picturesque community and May Fair held every year. Reviews from tourists passing through describe the people as helpful and friendly.

It seems like a lovely place, but the way Daniel had gone rigid at the prospect of going back raised a few questions that I didn’t ask. Not because I didn’t want to know, but because I know Daniel. I know whatever happened that made him, and his brother leave their home wasn’t pretty. He rarely ever speaks about his parents or his childhood. Any comments he makes are brief and quickly dropped.

I know he has a brother he’s very close to. I’ve never met him, but I know they’re twins. I know he travels for work for most of the year. I know Daniel loves him dearly and always gets excited when Christian calls from whichever part of the world he’s in.

I know his mom took her own life when they were younger. I know it’s a really hard thing for him to talk about. He’d let it slip by accident and immediately walked away before I could pick my jaw off the floor, but that was enough for me to let him tell me what he was ready to tell me when he was ready.

I trust Daniel and if his past is a place that hurts him, I’m willing to wait until he’s ready to talk to tell me about it.

“Are you excited to be back?” I ask softly, tipping my head to watch his side profile.

His chest lifts with his hard inhale. “No.” He breathes the word out like it was choking him.

I skim my thumb over the bumps of his knuckles. “We don’t have to go.”

But we do.

This whole mess with his father has left no other option.

“It needs to be dealt with,” he repeats what he’s been saying for almost a week since the lawyer appeared at the apartment with papers.

But the problem started before that, almost two months before when Ryan MacAllister died of a stroke. The call came through right as we were cleaning up after supper and Daniel’s phone rattled across the counter.

We exchanged glances. It was well after seven.

But he’d twisted his long fingers in a dishrag before padding over to scoop the device up.

In the five minutes it took to stand mutely and listen to the clear, female voice, everything changed. Daniel grew rigid. His expression hardened even as it became drawn and a little angry. He thanked the woman calmly, hung up and tossed the phone down with a noisy clatter that made me wince.

“My dad’s dead,” he’d stated like he was declaring his car warranty was about to lapse.

Maybe because I actually loved my father, I waited a heartbeat for him to realize the gravity of the situation, but he’d returned to the sink and resumed rinsing the dishes.

We hadn’t even had a service. Daniel had his dad’s body shipped to Toronto to get cremated. Didn’t even keep the ashes. Told the funeral home to toss them.

At my horrified stare, he’d kissed my forehead and walked away to call Christian who was still in Prague and had zero interest in returning to say goodbye.

When the lawyer arrived to announce they were their father’s sole beneficiaries, Daniel had asked if that was necessary. Even when Daniel called to inform Christian, the two argued over the phone for almost three hours. Neither one wanted it, but both agreed it had to be dealt with.

A week later, we’ve packed up a duffle each and are halfway to visiting Daniel’s childhood home.

Daniel’s been quieter than usual. Even his teasing seems halfhearted. I know he’s not grieving, or maybe he is and trying not to show it. Whatever is going on up in that gorgeous head of his, he’s trying to work through it alone and I hate it.

“I’m excited to meet Christian,” I say, trying to distract him.

A lopsided grin tilts the corner of his mouth. “Me too. I know he’s been curious about you.” The pad of his thumb dips between our clasped hands and draws a circle in my palm. “He flew back from Istanbul yesterday morning. He called to say he landed, and he was headed back to his apartment for a fresh set of clothes, and he’d meet us at the house.”

“I can’t imagine what it’s like to just travel all the time. It sounds fun, but exhausting and lonely.”

Daniel laughs. “Chris loves it. He’s really good at what he does, and he doesn’t stay lonely very long.”

I feel warmth curl up into my cheeks at the implication.

Of course he wouldn’t. If he looks half as gorgeous as Daniel — which, as a twin, he most likely does — women probably throw themselves at him all the time.

“Do you think he’ll like me?” I ask, suddenly nervous to meet this person who holds so much sway over Daniel; what if he tells Daniel he can do better?

“I think he’s going to like you too much.”

I’m not really sure how to take that. The statement is given with both an eagerness and dread I can’t figure out.

But a soft whir of gears captures my attention as Daniel lowers his window with his free hand. I’m ready to snap at him to hold the wheel being held straight by the sheer grace of his knees when he thrusts his hand out of the opening and snaps something off a passing bush.

Curiosity has me falling silent as he brings in a bright, orange flower the size of my entire palm with thick petals speckled with dark spots and tiny barbs nestled in the center. He passes it to me without a word.

My heart kicks in my chest as I hold the offering by the short stem. A smile touches my lips at the adorable gesture, and the fact that everything about it is perfect. Not a blemish in sight, like he had somehow known exactly which one to grab.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you,” I murmur, lifting the downy petals to my nose and inhaling the faint, sweet scent.

Daniel’s watching me when I peek up through my lashes. I can’t see his eyes through the glasses, but their weight is hot and focused on my face, warming my cheeks. My whole body. I’m tingling all over and barely resisting the urge to crawl into his lap even while he’s driving and...

“Promise me something,” he says before I can give into my urges.

His tone is light but curled around a seriousness that has my spine prickling.

“What?”

“Don’t wander off. Even at the house, stay where we can see you.”

The odd request has me searching his hidden features. “Why?”

He’s quiet as we hit a break in the path and the road opens to a large gravel clearing.

“It’s not safe. Promise.”

I hadn’t planned on leaving his side anyway, but the insistence has me giving him a shrug.

“I promise.”