the past.
Her grandparents had raised her grudgingly after her own parents took off, reminding her daily that they were doing no more than their Christian duty. And that was exactly what they’d done. She’d grown up in the high desert of southern California, whole worlds and a long drive away from glamorous Los Angeles. It had been bitterly cold in the winter, brutally hot in the summer, and there was always that unsettling desert wind, sweeping down from the stark, brown mountains to keep everyone on edge.
Zoe had tried her best to love her grandparents and their pinched-mouthed charity they’d never allowed her to forget would end the day she turned eighteen. She’d tried. School hadn’t come easily to her, but she’d applied herself and excelled her way into a scholarship—because she’d had no other choice if she wanted to escape.
When she met Jason Treffen at a scholarship student function her senior year at Cornell, he was charming and kind. He understood. And because he did, when he offered to help her, she let him.
She still couldn’t forgive herself for that.
He’d paid off her student loans because, he said, he knew promise when he saw it. He’d hired her as a legal assistant at his very upscale law firm in New York City, and Zoe had been so grateful. For the first time in her life, she’d felt cared for. Pampered, even. As if she’d been worthy of love after all, despite her grandparents.
It wasn’t until the second time Jason asked her to go out to dinner with a friend of his—because the old guy was lonely and Zoe was a pretty girl who could be friendly, couldn’t she?—that she got that sick feeling in her gut. It wasn’t until one or two more “favors” ended with increasingly intense negotiations for sex that Jason suggested later she should have accepted, that she finally understood. That she finally saw the wolf in his gleaming sheep’s robes.
But by then, of course, she was trapped. Jason was good at what he did. And even better at punishing the girls who didn’t play along. He was rich and powerful and connected, and, as he told her repeatedly, no one would believe her anyway.
It took Zoe three long, horrible years to buy her freedom. She watched other girls give in. To drugs, to despair. She almost wavered herself—it was so hard, and she was so alone, and did she really think she could beat a powerful man such as Jason at his own game?—but then her friend Sarah had taken her own life.
And that had changed everything.
Zoe had understood she had to escape. She had to. Or all of it—Sarah’s death, what she’d suffered those terrible years, what had happened to the other girls—would have been in vain.
She had to escape, or Jason won.
Zoe twisted her long black hair into a messy knot on the top of her head now, and tested the water in the bath, letting it run through her fingers. And it all rushed back. It flooded into her, demanding her surrender, the way it always did.
Insisting she remember everything.
Do you really believe you can run away from me? Jason had laughed at her that last day in his dark wood office so high above the city, when she’d thrown her hard-earned check down in front of him and told him she was done. Leaving. Free at last. I plucked you from obscurity. You don’t have anything I didn’t give you, and you never will. Remember that.
You made me a whore, she’d thrown at him, hatred and terror and disgust making her voice too thick. Too obvious.
Whores generally close the deal. He’d looked so pleased with himself. So smug. Not in the least bit concerned that she was getting out from under his thumb. That’s the point of whores. What you do is play dangerous games. You’re lucky there are so many men who enjoy paying for the privilege of that kind of tease.
But she’d had one or two nights that had tipped over that edge, hadn’t she? When they’d simply taken what they wanted. And the way he’d looked at her then, she knew that he knew it.
Yes, she’d hissed at him. Lucky is exactly how I feel. I’m overcome with gratitude.
You will be, he’d assured her.
Years had passed and she still couldn’t get the ring of his laughter out of her ears, erase that vicious smile from her memory.
Hello, Zoe.
He’d surprised her backstage in the green room of one of the nighttime shows that taped locally that time, where she’d been shepherding a client as part of her first job in PR. She’d stared at him, hoping he’d disappear the way he sometimes did in the nightmares she’d refused to admit she’d been having since her escape from Treffen, Smith, and Howell.
But, of course, he’d only smiled at her.
It wouldn’t kill you to be polite, he’d said, kindly, but she could see the monster in his eyes.
In fact, she’d said, it might.
His smile had only deepened, turned friendlier. Jason Treffen at his most dangerous.
Enjoy that sassy spirit of yours, he’d said, as if he’d been bestowing a gift upon her. It won’t last.
Some of her coworkers had burst into the room then and had been wowed at the sight of Jason Treffen, saint of New York, standing there with a lowly new PR associate like Zoe. She’d had to smile politely while he took pictures with them. When he’d slung an arm around her shoulders. While he’d chatted with them, doling out his usual host of platitudes and insights, all of which took on a nightmarish hue should you happen to know what lurked beneath it.
He’d engineered that meeting, she knew he had. To remind her that whenever he so desired, he could reach out and make her feel slimy and cheap. Used.
Zoe had already vowed she’d take him down some day. After that run-in, she’d determined that she wanted it to hurt. And her desire for revenge had burned in her, a naked flame, hot and bright. Eclipsing everything else.
You exist because I allow it, he’d told her at a charity event not five years ago, cupping her elbow in his hand and making her feel as if a thousand insects swarmed over her skin. Everything you own, all you’ve accomplished, is mine. I gave it to you and I can take it away, Zoe.
She hadn’t been quite so young then. And she hadn’t much cared that she was dead inside.
I can’t imagine why you’d bother, she’d said, and she’d been so proud that she’d stood there as if turned to stone, as if it didn’t matter that he was touching her.
Why do I do anything? Again, that nasty laugh. He’d dug his fingers into the tender place above her elbow, making her whole arm numb. She’d remembered that he’d liked pain. Inflicting it, watching others suffer it. But she’d only stared back at him, cool and unimpressed, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of reacting. Because I can, Zoe. I can do whatever the hell I want. Remember that.
The last time she’d seen him had been some months ago. She’d been in a very fancy restaurant celebrating the birthday of one of her former clients, who also happened to be a heavyweight in New York politics. She’d expected to see Jason there, working the party in his usual way, and she hadn’t been disappointed.
She’d braced herself for the inevitable encounter—but he hadn’t approached her. He’d been reveling in a crowd of admirers until a young woman appeared at
