“I’m terrified of you.”

“No, you’re not. I know guys like you. You worship women, put them on pedestals, think they’re fragile and perfect. That’s why even though it was you on your back in the handcuffs Saturday night, you’re the one doing the apologizing. Zach…you’re afraid of yourself.”

“I’m not—”

“You are. I’ve never known a grown man to be so afraid of his own desires. What happened to you? What did you do that’s made you so afraid to let go?”

“This meeting is over.”

“Tell me. Whatever it is, I promise I’ve done worse.”

“Believe me, Nora, you’ve never done this.”

“It was Grace, wasn’t it? What did you do to her?”

Nora’s words pummeled into him but he couldn’t tell her to stop. He knew whatever pain she inflicted he deserved.

“Please,” he whispered.

“You know how to beg. That’s a good start.”

“No more games, either. I’m not like you.”

“We’re more alike than you want to admit.”

“I’m not—” he paused and looked for the right word “—free like you.”

“You could be.” She took another step closer. “I can show you if you’ll let me. The world I live in, you’ve never seen such freedom. Freedom like you can’t even begin to imagine. Try, Zach.”

“I can’t.” The sadness settled over him again.

“Come with me,” Nora said. Zach felt himself falling under the spell her words were weaving. “Let me show you what life is like lived in the moment. No past, no future, just the one perfect moment you’re standing in and there’s no guilt and there’s no shame and there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of…”

Zach closed his eyes and tried to imagine her world. But once his eyes closed he could see only darkness and he could smell only the copper of fresh fallen blood.

“I’m sorry.”

Nora was still looking at him when he opened his eyes.

“Fuck your sorry,” she said with angry eyes and turned on her heel. “I’ve got a book to write.”

16

Three weeks left…

“Why do you stay with me?” William asked. With his fingertip, he traced the outline of a welt that ran shoulder to shoulder across her back.

Caroline turned over in bed to face him. “Because of the Wives of Weinsburg,” she said as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the ladies of which you speak.” William ran his hand over her hip and she shivered at the sensation. For all the pain he inflicted on her, he resolved every day to inflict equal pleasure.

“They may only be a legend. I like to think they were real. Once the city of Weinsburg in Germany was under siege. The enemy emperor was dangerous but not unmerciful. When it became inevitable that the city would fall, the men of Weinsberg pleaded for their women, that they be allowed to flee with their lives. The emperor relented and allowed the women to leave the city with only the valuables they could carry on their backs. The day came and the gates of the city opened and the emperor watched in shock as the women stumbled through the gates nearly breaking under the weight of their husbands and fathers who they carried on their backs. Their love humbled the emperor and he declared all would be spared.”

“For these women who may or may not exist you stay with me?” he asked, laughing at her as usual.

Caroline reached out to touch his face but pulled her hand back. He’d taught her so well not to touch him without permission. There were moments he regretted how well he’d trained her.

“Every day you battle an enemy I cannot fight with you or for you. But if there is ever a chance for a reprieve, then I will bear you across the world on my back to see you finally at peace.”

William smiled at the twenty-year-old child who loved him more than he could or would ever deserve.

“But what if the enemy you think I fight isn’t the enemy at all?” he asked, reaching out to take her face in his hand. He forced her to meet his gaze and for a moment he let his eyes fill with all his darkest desires. “What if this enemy is only me?”

Caroline didn’t flinch at what she saw. He had taught her that, as well.

“Then I will save you from yourself.”

Poor Wesley, Zach thought. Did that poor smitten lad have any idea that he was the inspiration for Nora’s latest hopeless, love-struck heroine? Did Nora even know it herself? I will save you from yourself…he could hear Wesley saying those very words to Nora. He hadn’t learned yet you couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to be saved.

Zach wanted to be saved. He tried to conjure the image of Grace, six inches shorter than he and light as a sparrow, trying to lift and carry him on her back. She’d had the chance to save him once. That day he told her about the job at Royal House, that he would be moving to the States, she could have saved him with a sentence—“I’ll go with you.” She could have saved him with a word—“Don’t.”

Zach opened his email. Nora—you cut half this chapter or I’ll cut half this chapter. Either way half of it is getting cut.

He hit Send without remorse. Nora truly worked better when he was at his most brutally honest with her. He didn’t have to couch a criticism inside a compliment. She didn’t want compliments. She wanted her book to be better.

Zach closed his laptop. Stretching out on his sofa he stared around his flat. Grace would be horrified by its austerity. If she ever saw it she would tease him that minimalist was not a synonym for empty. But when he’d come to New York he knew it was temporary. He’d have about eight months at the East Coast offices until the current chief editor in L.A. finished off the last of her projects and then he was off to yet another city. He saw no reason to have anything but the bare minimum—a sofa, a bed, a television that he only ever tuned to the occasional Everton football match, and a landline phone sitting on the floor. Why even bother with an end table for the living room? Just one more damn thing to pack.

He picked up his lager and took a drink. Only seven o’clock on a Monday evening and he already felt so exhausted he considered just calling it a night. Only his masculine pride kept him from going to bed at such a geriatric hour. Even his sixty-six-year-old widowed father never went to bed before eight.

Thoughts of his father stirred a fearful thought—Nora’s pills in the medicine cabinet. He still couldn’t believe that she was as ill as the bottle portended. Perhaps it was only a mild condition, an arrhythmia or something innocuous and treatable. He tried to talk himself out of his fear but couldn’t quite rationalize it away.

Zach picked up a handful of Nora’s pages and skimmed the lines. Why do you stay with me? He had never spoken those words to Grace, though they echoed in his head almost every day of their marriage. Their marriage had begun in terror and shame and then in time changed into something he didn’t want to live without. Zach knew why he stayed. But why had she?

Standing, Zach rubbed his neck and tried to think of something or someone else for a few minutes. But his only other thoughts were of Nora and that was an even more dangerous rabbit hole. Nora… It had been over a week since their drunken night of idiocy. He remembered how her mouth felt on his skin, how foreign it felt to be touched by a woman’s hands again, how strange it was to be awake and conscious and thinking of something other than losing Grace, not thinking about anything at all except that whatever Nora was doing he would be content to let her keep doing until the day he died. Only afterward did the guilt set in—the guilt that for a few minutes he let himself stop feeling guilty.

Zach performed a quick mental calculation. Seven o’clock in New York equaled midnight in London. He knew Grace would still be up. A night owl in the worst way, she took long naps after coming home from school and then stayed up far too late reading.