Breaking the Rules

CHAPTER

TWELVE



Time of day had held no meaning when she was in her cell. Neesha had slept when she was tired, and had eaten whenever the food arrived. Since the food had been for the clients, too, she would know that a visit was imminent whenever a meal was laid out on her table at some strange hours of the day or night.

Of course, if there was preparation involved—a costume or other instructions regarding her hair or hygiene, one of the women would come in, in advance of the food. They wouldn’t knock on the door. They would simply enter, unannounced. If Neesha was sleeping, they would wake her. If she was watching TV, they would take the remote and turn it off.

At first the visits were infrequent—no more than one or two times a week. But as she got older, they increased to the point of one or two each day. And when she complained, the women who prepared her warned her to hush. They told her there were only two options for one such as her, who had started working so young.

One was to transition to work as a young woman, eventually being moved to a house overseas. Her days and nights would no longer be as luxurious as they had been—her visits would increase to a dozen or more a day. Which she would accept, graciously, cheerfully, and thankfully, with no complaints.

Because the other option—whether she remained here or was moved abroad—was for her to be sold for vast sums to a man who would take her to his home, where she would be at his beck and call until he tired of her. At which point, he would kill her and feed her chopped-up body to his dogs.

And she would never be missed, because she had been smuggled into the country after her mother had died—after she’d been sold to Mr. Nelson to pay her mother’s debts. She was illegal. Exploitable. Nonexistent. No one knew she was here, and no one cared.

If she ever escaped—God forbid—and went to the police, she would be arrested on sight.

Neesha knew this was true, because she’d watched news programs as often as she could, as she’d taught herself to speak and understand English. She’d seen the anger Americans held toward illegals. She’d heard the ugliness and hatred in their voices. She’d seen the rancor on their faces, even toward children.

Especially toward children.

She would be deported. Shipped off to a country where, should she let it slip that she was a sex worker, or even just that she’d lived in America and that she’d repeatedly committed the sin of fornication—regardless of the fact that she’d been willing or not—her punishment would be death. She would be stoned to death or burned or even buried alive for disgracing her family.

And she knew this was true, because she’d seen footage and pictures, shown to her by the woman who tended her. She also knew that they were meant to frighten her.

And they had done just that.

Time of day had held no meaning when she was in her cell—not the way it did now that she’d made her escape.

Now her mornings were for cleaning up and resting. She’d found a safe haven in the public library, where she’d convinced the librarians that she had accompanied her fictional father on a business trip. She would be here with him, she’d told the friendly women with the kind eyes, until the end of the summer. She always dressed the same, in dark pants and a white shirt, because it was her school uniform and she was working here in the library on an assignment to learn to read English.

She’d wash in the bathroom sinks and drink from the water fountain, and then she would curl up in the corner, in a comfy chair and look at books by a very strange doctor named Seuss.

One of the librarians found her books to read in Indonesian, after Neesha had told her that she was from Jakarta. But she couldn’t read those books, either—it had been too long. Still she pretended that she could, and thanked the woman, who then proceeded to show Neesha a computer program that calculated the number of miles from Las Vegas to Jakarta.

And she’d nearly cried when she’d seen how very far away it was—that city where her grandfather still lived—if he still lived after all these years. It was on an island that was hardly more than a small dot in the huge vastness of an ocean called the Pacific, and it was then that she knew she would most likely never again see her grandfather or her home.

She entered the library each day with caution, sitting outside, across the street and watching the entrance for about an hour before the doors first opened.

She would stay there, inside in the coolness, until the afternoon, when she went to one of three shopping malls that she’d discovered. There she would find enough food to last her throughout her day.

Nighttime was the most frightening—she feared the dark and all that could hide in the shadows. At first she’d kept moving, stayed alert, even as she tried not to call too much attention to herself—a girl on the street, alone.

Still, there were those who saw her—a group of women, some not that much older than she was—who beckoned and called to her. “Come and join our party!” And “When you get tired of wandering and decide you want to make some real money, come back and find us, here on Paradise Road. But, girlfriend? First find some hotter clothes so you at least look fourteen …”

But Neesha’s wandering took her away from the brightly lit main streets, and into neighborhoods that weren’t too far away, but where people lived not in big buildings, but in individual houses. And she returned there when darkness fell, and she curled up on patio furniture, with the comforting sounds of TVs bleeding through the walls and windows.

Sometimes she slept.

But she’d neither eaten nor slept since she’d seen the two men looking for her at the mall, since she’d known for sure that Mr. Nelson and Todd were closing in. She’d stayed far from the library, too.

She’d kept moving. All day and into the night.

But now she crouched in the shadows. And she watched the apartment where Ben lived with his sister. There was no sign of anyone else watching. Not the big man who’d been out front yesterday, or the two men she’d seen at the mall.

She was the only one hanging around. Everyone else moved quickly to get inside, away from the relentless heat.

And finally, after many hours, she knew that she had to take a chance. That maybe Ben’s sister could help her.

At the very least, maybe Ben was home. And this time she would take him up on his offer of a shower and a snack.

Her stomach rumbled as she crept from the shadows and found Ben’s key under the potted plant. Dr. Seuss had taught her to read American numbers, and she climbed the stairs to the second floor, and found the door with the two, the one, and the four.

She knocked before trying the key, but no one answered, so she slipped the key into the lock, the way she’d seen Ben do, and the door opened for her, with a click.

It was dark in the apartment, and she slipped inside, moving swiftly through the rooms, and yes, no one was home. She was alone.


Izzy stayed silent as Eden rested her forehead against his shoulder, as they still both struggled to catch their breath, as the passion segment of their insanity ended and the messy cleanup part began.

Something, obviously, needed to be said, and So, how much do I owe you? was probably not the way to start the conversation if he wanted to live to see another day. Even though her I’m afraid this might hurt, it’s been so long comment seemed like something a girl would learn to tell her clients in the very first classroom session of Vegas Hooking 101.

The only thing she’d left out was a breathless and you’re so, so big.

And yeah, the voices in his head had both been right. He was a f*cking moron, he was still in love with her, and he was pissed as hell at himself for being so weak because she definitely wasn’t going to learn to trust him if all he did was prove he was no different from all the other guys who only wanted to f*ck her.

And at the same time, he knew with an absolute certainty that he’d done the right thing for himself. Because even if he’d kept her at arm’s length, professing his undying love, she not only wouldn’t believe him, but she wouldn’t give a shit. All he’d have was a boner and a missed opportunity to get off, and he’d been there, done that. Because she was never going to trust him, and she was, eventually, going to leave again. If things got too difficult—which they probably would in about seventeen seconds—she would walk away.

It was her MO and he could count on it.

Besides, the truth was, he did want to f*ck her. Forever and endlessly. For the next solid year of his life, nonstop, if possible. After which he’d be dead, but his corpse would be smiling.

To his surprise, she spoke first as he reached forward to kick the car’s a/c up into a higher gear.

“I missed you,” she murmured, her voice muffled because her face was still pressed against his shoulder. But that was definitely what she’d said.

And Izzy didn’t quite know what to say, so he went with the naked truth. “Yeah, I missed you, too.”

She pulled back then to look at him, and even though night had fully fallen long before she’d pulled off her jeans, there was enough light from the dimly glowing dashboard so that, up close like this, he could see her face, and she could see his.

She wasn’t smiling—in fact, she looked as if she were fighting tears. And she said, in a very small voice, “I don’t blame you, you know, for giving up on me.”

And with that she nodded over at the other seat and added, “Could you …? Do you mind?”

He obeyed automatically, picking them both up and over the parking brake. Somewhere in there, she pulled off of him, neatly sliding into the passenger seat. She grabbed her handbag from where she’d thrown it in the back and dug through it, pulling out a plastic baggie filled with tissues as he attempted to comprehend.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What? I what?”

She handed him a small stack of the tissues, which he used to adios the condom, because it was definitely better to have this conversation without his dick hanging out, doing its postsex shrinky-dink imitation.

“I know I shouldn’t complain,” Eden said as she slid her leg back into both her stripper panties and her jeans, managing to slip her foot into her sneaker with dead accuracy as it emerged from the pants leg. A smooth, solid reminder that this was not her first time at the rodeo. “Since I didn’t exactly come back to San Diego to see you, after I left Europe.”

She lifted her hips to rebutton herself and adjust her pants around her, then reached up beneath her T-shirt and refastened the front clasp of her bra.

At which point Izzy slapped on the car’s interior overhead light with the back of his hand. “You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me.”

She recoiled at his vehemence, squinting at him in the sudden brightness even as she straightened her messy hair, pulling it back into a ponytail.

“I flew to Germany every single f*cking chance I got,” he told her, his voice actually breaking with his disbelief. “Every chance.”

“Sorry,” she said, bristling. “I know you were busy—of course, you were busy and it was a long way to travel. And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I know it took me forever to get my act together, but … God, you didn’t even write back.”

“Write?” he asked. “Back?”

“After I sent you that letter,” Eden told him. “At Christmas …?” She was looking at him with an added you a*shole in her eyes, but then she realized his stunned shock was for real. “You didn’t get it.”

She said it in exact unison with his “I didn’t get it.” Part of him was completely ready to buy this—the idea that their months-long separation had been due to a simple miscommunication—and was ready to fall into her arms, weeping and proclaiming his undying love.

But part of him was emotionally detached, watching as if from outside of his own recently well-f*cked body as she told him exactly—exactly—what she knew he’d want to hear.

And that skeptical part of him needed to do a serious cross-examine. “But I came to see you in January. And February.”

“You came to …?” She was convincingly confused. “You mean …?”

“To Germany,” he clarified. “I spoke to Anya.”

And now she was shaking her head, and laughing a little. “I left Anya’s right after Christmas. I got a job in Bremen. I told you that …” She rolled her eyes. “In the letter you never got.”

Izzy was now shaking his head, too. “Anya said you wouldn’t see me. She didn’t say that you weren’t there.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Eden insisted. “Because I wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, well, I’m telling you that it happened.”

“I’m not saying that it didn’t, I’m just saying—”

“I sent you e-mail,” Izzy told her, and it was hard to keep his tone from being accusatory, like she was the one with the crazy-ass story that she was making up. Which she probably was.

And she knew what he was thinking. “I’m not lying,” she said. “I didn’t get any e-mail from you.”

“Yeah, well, I sent it,” Izzy said. “Practically weekly. How are you? I’m worried about you. Please call me just so I know you’re okay …”

“To what address?” Eden asked. “I changed servers so often. And after I left Anya’s, there were entire months when I didn’t have Internet access. I still don’t have regular—”

“One was AOL,” he said. “Another was gmail. None of it bounced.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t signed on to those accounts since … I don’t know when. The AOL address was … Well, Jerry and Richie both had it, so I adjusted it so that everything that wasn’t from Danny or Ben went into my spam folder.”

Convenient. Blame it on her ex-boyfriend and his drug-dealing rapist-a*shole boss. “I guess you didn’t want to hear from me.”

“I didn’t,” she admitted. “Not at first.”

“So what’d your letter say?” Izzy asked. “Merry Christmas. I’ve sufficiently recovered from Pinkie’s death, so come f*ck me?”

She went very still, just sitting there, looking down at her sneaker-clad feet.

“Sorry,” Izzy said. “That was … unnecessarily harsh.”

“You think I’m lying,” she said quietly—her words a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, Eden,” he said, just as quietly. “I do. I think you need help again, and I think I’m conveniently here, so you just jumped me.”

“Oh God,” she started, but he wasn’t finished.

“And I don’t just think it, I know that you know that I am still so freaking attracted to you. Even after all the bullshit. Even—what is it?” He looked at the clock glowing dimly on the dash. “Ten minutes after you screw me like there’s no tomorrow and damn near blow off the top of my head, I am unable to keep from thinking about a replay. In fact, I’m already planning it. Where: pick a hotel room, any hotel room. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll get us a two-grand-a-night suite at Caesars Palace and it’ll be worth every freaking penny. How: me on top this time, with your feet up by my ears, with the lights on so I can watch. When: as soon as humanly possible, because holy crap, I’m already turned on again, just thinking about it. Feel free to grab hold of my lie detector to check.”

She was silent, looking down at her feet again, pretending to try not to cry. Or maybe she was really trying not to cry. Either way, it didn’t matter.

“So, that’s what I want,” Izzy told her. “Completely bullshit free. You need my help with this thing with Ben? You got it. Truth is, I would’ve helped you without the sex, because I’m a sucker that way. But you played that card, sweetheart, so … Game on.”


Eden refused to cry, even though her heart was breaking. It was stupid. She was stupid, but when he’d kissed her so hungrily, she’d actually hoped …

“What do you want me to say to you?” she asked Izzy quietly.

She’d hoped that they could pick up where they’d left off, that she could convince him that she’d never lied to him and that she could be trusted.

“The truth would be nice.” His face, his eyes, were hard as he looked at her in the dim dashboard light.

But Eden knew that he didn’t want the real truth. He wanted her to confirm the fictional version of his own private reality, a reality that he was convinced had happened.

“I never wrote you a letter and I ignored the e-mail you sent,” she said. “Is that what you want me to say?” Her voice shook despite her best efforts to keep it steady. “Well, screw you, because I’m not going to lie. I wrote you a letter, because it felt like the things I had to say shouldn’t come in an e-mail or a text message, and because I was too scared to call you. And I didn’t get your e-mail, and I didn’t know you came to see me in January or February—Anya never told me. And I do need your help with Ben, but that’s not why I did … what I just did. I did it because we’re still technically married, and I promised you that I wouldn’t have sex with anyone else, so I haven’t. And it hasn’t been a big deal, because I haven’t even wanted to. But seeing you again was … It made me feel so, I don’t know, alive, okay? And then you kissed me, and even though I knew it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, I just … I wanted to, okay? I did it because I really, really wanted to. And because I thought you did, too.”

The tears that she’d been holding back escaped, and she wiped at them furiously with the heels of her hands, refusing to dissolve into a puddle of pain in front of this infuriating man.

“I thought it would be good,” she whispered. “And yes, I did it so that you’d stick around, but not because I need your help. I did it because you’re not the only one who wanted to do it again before it even freaking started!”

She didn’t see him move.

One moment she was sitting there, beside him in the darkness, and the next he’d pulled her into his arms.

Only this time there were no car headlights on them.

Still, he kissed her, hard, and she not only let him, but she kissed him, equally hard, back, even as her heart broke.


Ben woke up with absolutely no idea where he was, aware first and foremost that both of his hands were cuffed up and over his head by pieces of stiff plastic that secured him to the metal frame of a narrow bed.

The mattress was plain and not covered by sheets or blankets—just stained blue-and-white ticking—and none too comfortable.

The room itself was small and windowless, with a single door down at one end, and another cot at the other end, where sure enough, another boy lay, also locked to the frame.

But he was cuffed by his ankles, probably because both of his wrists were bandaged. He was also awake and watching Ben in the dim light from a single overhead bulb.

“Welcome to hell, cutie pie,” he said. His hair was buzz-cut short, and he was dressed in gray. Gray baggy T-shirt, gray sweatpants. He pointed up toward the corner of the walls and ceiling, to the left of the door. “Security camera. But it’s visual only. No audio. We can speak freely. So, are you here for me, or am I here for you?”

His words didn’t make sense. Of course Ben’s brain was still foggy. He remembered Eden. And Greg, with a gun. And—shit—the two men and the woman, that shot of something in his butt … “Where are we?”

“I told you,” the other boy said. He was skinny, with bony elbows and a lean, narrow face and big eyes. “It’s hell. Other than that? I’m not really certain. I think maybe we’re in New Mexico. Or Arizona. Possibly Las Vegas. The interior courtyard is definitely arid. All I can say for sure is, Toto, we’re not in Connecticut anymore.”

“How long have I been here?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “You were here when they brought me in, after my latest pedicure and stone massage. That was a joke. You had your last pedi, son, maybe for the rest of your life. You meet Weird Don yet? He’s like, barely twenty-two, and he calls us younguns son. You know, I think I’m probably a visual aid, to help welcome you to the program. Like a Doobe and a Don’tbe, and I’m the Don’tbe. I’m guessing the black nail polish you’re wearing is a clue that you probably didn’t volunteer for this twelve-week torturefest. Nor did I. And see, I’m their latest problem child. Week twenty-two, and I still insist that if God wanted me to be heterosexual, he wouldn’t have made me fall in love with my boyfriend, Clark. But, WWJD—what would Jesus do? Clearly, He, too, would agree that starving me to death while depriving me of sleep is oodles better than acknowledging that just maybe I’m never going to deny my true, God-given sexual orientation.”

“Why don’t you just say what they want to hear?” Ben asked. “I mean, just to get out of here …”

“They make you chant things,” the boy said. “Over and over again. Like These urges I feel aren’t natural. And My feelings are bad and wrong, and if I don’t stop them, then I am working hand in hand with the devil … Oh, here’s a good one. My parents are ashamed of me, but I will work to make them proud. I don’t need to chant that—the first part—forty thousand times, day in and day out, to know that it’s true. I say, My parents are ashamed of me, but not half as much as I’m ashamed of them. Maybe you can do it, new boy. Maybe you can repeat their lies, and get out of here undamaged. But they keep you hungry, and they don’t let you sleep, and they freeze you in tubs of ice, and heat you in saunas until your brain feels cooked, and then the things they make you tell yourself start sounding like they might be true and … Don’t bother trying to kill yourself. It doesn’t work.”

He held up his bandaged arms so Ben could see them better. “Not that I actually wanted to die. In fact, I have real incentive to live. Two words: Clark Volborg loves me, too. Okay, that was more than two words, but you get the picture. I thought slitting my wrists would get me into a real hospital with real doctors with real degrees who would actually help me escape. But my parents signed off on a form that … See, I’m a high flight risk, so they opted—completely—for inhouse care. God help me if I get appendicitis. God help me …”

“What’s your name?” Ben asked softly.

“My old name or my new one?”

“You have a new name?” Ben asked.

“You will, too,” the boy told him. “They’ll give you one, or maybe use your middle name. My middle name was Devereaux, which, let’s face it, was just too gay. So they call me Chip, which is pretty stupid. Like Chip isn’t totally gay, too. Although, look at me. You could call me Motherf*cker Tittylover, and because that was my name? It would be totally gay.”

“What’s your real name?” Ben asked.

“Peter Sinclair, the f*cking third, of the Greenwich Sinclairs. But don’t bother, we’ll both get demerits if you use it. I see you got the double cuff. That’ll change to a single after they give you the full list of don’ts. As in don’t whack off unless you’re in the special whack-off stall in the bathroom—it’s plastered with pictures of naked women. All those breasts, it’s disconcerting, and you’ve got to keep your eyes open, and yes, there’s a camera. They’ll be watching. Particularly Weird Don. He’s probably monitoring our camera right now—you are so his type.” He laughed. “Look at you, you believe me. Well, you should believe me about Weird Don. But the whack-off stall? This is an abstinence-only program, son, and abstinence means abstinence. You so much as scratch your balls and you’ll be walking around with your hands cuffed behind your back, faster than you can sing a chorus of ‘It’s Raining Men.’

“Of course, rumor has it that the abstinence rule is dropped during the last week, right before graduation. They give you Viagra and they bring in these girls and—You have a boyfriend?”

Ben shook his head. “No.”

“So maybe it’ll be okay with you,” Peter said. “To hook up with some twenty-dollar whore for a five-minute session, just to get the hell out of here. The drugs’ll make it happen, and you can lie back, close your eyes, and think of England. But me, I made a promise to Clark. I made a vow …”

He started to cry, a soft, keening sound that he tried to hide, that sent chills down Ben’s back.

“I’m getting out of here,” Ben said. “Soon. My sister, she’s going to come get me.”

The quiet weeping turned to forced laughter. “Dream on, new boy. Because unless she’s got an AK-47, she won’t get past the front door. If she can even find the front door …”

“She’ll find me,” Ben whispered. “I know she will.”

But as Peter Sinclair the f*cking third finally fell silent, as his breathing turned from ragged to slow and steady, Ben had his doubts.


The call came around 0115, as Eden dozed beside him in the front seat of the rental car.

At around 2100, Izzy had driven them over to the main road to get coffee and sandwiches, to gas up the car, and take a bathroom break—but in truth to find an ATM, and a drugstore to buy more condoms, since they’d used the only one he’d had. When they’d returned, Eden’s mother still wasn’t home.

And as eager as he was to break open the entire box of condoms and give his loving wife the replay that she claimed she wanted, it was obvious that she was struggling to keep her eyes open after a hard day of dancing naked for the teeming masses.

Still, she’d fought it, until he’d convinced her to go to sleep by promising her he’d wake her in a few hours to take a shift watching the house. Which, of course, he didn’t do. She wasn’t the only liar in the car.

As Izzy’s cell rang in the darkness, Eden awoke, taking a sharp breath in as she realized where she was and who she was with and remembering—no doubt—what she’d recently done with him.

“It’s Dan,” Izzy told her as she pushed her hair back from her face. He answered the call. “Yo,” he said, “Gillman. I’m here with your sister. I’ve got you on speaker.”

“Great.” Danny sounded exhausted and as if there was nothing about this situation that was even remotely great. Still, Izzy gave him points for trying. “Jenn and I are in a cab, on the way to JFK. Our flight gets into Las Vegas a little before 0900.”

“You want me to pick you up?” Izzy asked.

Dan sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you. That would be terrific. World Airlines, flight 576. Although … I assume you’ve got a rental? Not your truck?”

“It’s a rental,” Izzy told him. “Considering I came straight from Germany, getting my truck would’ve been—”

“Does it seat five?” Dan asked. “Comfortably? I mean, enough to make the road-trip back to San Diego?”

“Hmm,” Izzy said as turned around to look at the backseat, even as Eden said, “Yes. We can absolutely make it work. Ben’s really skinny. You are talking about the four of us and Ben. Please say yes.”

“Yeah,” Danny said. “I just spoke to Ivette.”

“Oh, thank God!” Eden clasped her hands and brought them up to her mouth, like someone who’d just been told by an expert from the Antiques Roadshow that Great-Grandpa’s collection of outhouse seats was worth fifty thousand dollars.

“She’s been working as a home health aide,” Dan continued as tears filled Eden’s eyes, “and her current client, well, he’s dying. He thinks she’s his dead wife, and he wants her there, so … She’s been pulling a lot of around-the-clock shifts. Who knew she had that in her? Anyway, I got her to agree that Ben would be better off with me, living down in San Diego. So …”

The tears overflowed. “Thank you. Oh, Danny, thank you.”

“I, uh, didn’t mention you.”

Eden nodded as she fiercely wiped her eyes, as she sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “That’s probably best.”

She didn’t let it show in her voice, but Izzy didn’t miss the regret and disappointment that flashed across her face as she struggled to rein in her emotions. In a family filled with massive f*ck-ups, she was perceived to be the black sheep and always would be. Although Ben, being gay, had to be running a close second these days. Dan, however, was the golden boy and clearly had retained that elevated status with their mother.

That had to be hard as hell not to resent, but she didn’t. She was obviously beyond grateful that Danny had appeared and used his shining superpowers to help her set their little brother free.

And Izzy couldn’t help himself. He reached for her, gently smoothing her hair back from her face, tucking a stray strand behind her ear, as Danny’s voice continued from the tiny speaker of his phone.

“But I am going to count on you, Eden,” her brother told her, tightly, stiffly, almost formally, as she turned and looked at Izzy—an expression that he couldn’t read on her impossibly pretty face. “To be there. To take care of him when I’m not around. To keep him out of trouble. To keep yourself out of trouble, too.”

And okay, that was a pretty dickish thing to say. Izzy made a face, but Eden turned away, pulling free from Izzy’s hand as she nodded, even though Dan couldn’t possibly see her.

“I know,” she said. “I will.”

“Maybe you’ll do for Ben what you couldn’t do for yourself,” Dan said, which was a really dickish thing to say.

But Izzy held his tongue as Eden said, “Danny, I promise—”

He brushed it off. “We’ll talk more when I get there. Is your place big enough for us to stay with you while we’re in town?”

“There’s a pullout couch, in the living room,” she said, glancing over at Izzy again, almost apologetically this time. “I don’t know how comfortable it is, but … You can have the bedroom.”

“That’s not necessary,” Dan said. “And it’s only for one night. We’ll leave for San Diego in the morning, but I’m looking to save money, so … A three-bedroom apartment won’t be cheap.”

Three-bedroom? Wait a minute. Was Dan expecting Eden to live with him and Ben, too? Somehow Izzy had imagined Dan sharing a place with his brother, and Eden having her own separate apartment.

Or—yeah—moving back in with him.

Holy shit, sometime between Oh, yes and Oh, YES, Izzy had apparently gotten a little ahead of himself.

“I’ve got some savings,” Eden was telling her brother, clearly on board with the whole three-bedroom apartment plan, which left Izzy absolutely out in the cold and crying bitter tears into his pillow as he remained decidedly alone and unlaid. Unless she was actually thinking they could all live together like some really dysfunctional version of Full House. “Plus, I’m working full-time. I’ll help pay the bills. And if we need to, Ben and I can share a room.”

And … Izzy was back to weeping and unlaid. Okay, then. She definitely wasn’t factoring him into any of her plans. Good to know.

“We’ll talk when I get there,” Dan said again.

“What about Ben?” Eden asked. “Where is he? Can we go pick him up?”

“He’s at a place called Crossroads, right there in Las Vegas. I’ve already spoken to them. Ivette made arrangements for Ben to be released to me, so … We’ll go there directly from the airport. Look, we’re here, I gotta go. We’ll see you in a few.”

“Thank you,” Eden said again, but Dan had already cut the connection.

Izzy pocketed his phone. And then there they sat, in the darkness.

“Thank God,” she murmured again, and he knew she was, once again, fighting tears.

“You know,” Izzy finally said, “sometimes it’s okay to let loose. Sometimes the news is just too freaking miraculous.”

She laughed, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “It is miraculous, isn’t it? I almost can’t believe it could be this easy.”

“Every now and then,” Izzy told her, “the good guys catch a break.” He put the car into gear and eased away from the curb. “No point sitting here anymore. Shall we … get that room at Caesars Palace?”

She snorted her disgust. “I’m not going to make you spend that kind of money when I have a perfectly good apartment.”

Izzy cleared his throat. “One that you haven’t exactly invited me to.”

“We’re still married,” she reminded him. “Which makes half of everything I own yours. Not that I own the apartment …”

“Does that include half of your stripper money?” he asked, not just because he was an a*shole, but because he was currently a jealous a*shole. He was here to save the day in return for a whole lot of steaming-hot sex, only the day had been saved very nicely without him.

Eden looked at him sharply. It was the deal they’d made, back before they’d taken their vows. She’d even signed a prenup. Half of everything that was hers was his, and none of what was his would ever belong to her.

He’d had no intention of ever upholding the agreement. He’d only drafted and signed the damn thing because she was adamant about not taking advantage of him. She’d insisted upon it, because the truth was that she only married him for his health care and for the chance to give her baby his name.

Not that either of them had ever expected her to come into any great sums of cash.

But now, as she sat in the car beside him, she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Of course.”

It was clear his days were numbered. Still, if he were going to take whatever he could get for as long as he could get it, he’d have to work to be a whole lot less peevish.

“Yeah,” he said, “no, sweetheart, see, I was kidding. It was just a bad joke.”

“We had a deal,” Eden told him quietly.

“I’m not going to take your money,” he said. “That’s not what I want, okay?” He looked over at her as he pulled out onto the main road, and she was watching him. “You know what I want.”

She nodded. And then she reached over and put her hand on his package, grabbing hold of him right through his pants.

“I know because I want it, too,” she said, her voice even huskier than usual. “How about you drive this thing a little faster?”


Neesha woke up with a jolt as the apartment door slammed shut, and her heart pounded as she realized that she was no longer alone.

She’d left the light on in the kitchen—the dim one over the stove. It was enough for her to see that it was Ben’s sister Eden who’d come home, and she wasn’t alone. She was with the big man that Neesha had seen out on the sidewalk. He’d found her and … He’d bought her apparently, because he was kissing her and touching her as if he owned her.

Eden was pulling off her clothes as if she couldn’t wait for it to be over with—Neesha knew what that was like. She slipped off the couch and huddled behind its arm, near the wall, praying that she wouldn’t have to witness Eden’s shame.

But the man started to laugh. “Hey,” he said. “Sweetheart. Slow down. I’m not going anywhere. Let’s do this right. You got a bed in here, somewhere? Because as tempting as it might be to knock your pictures off the walls and/or get a rug burn on my ass—”

Eden laughed, too. “See, now, I’m just appreciating the lack of a gearshift and parking brake.” Her voice was husky and she didn’t sound at all unhappy or afraid. “My bedroom’s over here …”

“Wait, wait,” the man said. “I’m stuck. These stupid shoes, there’s a knot in the lace and … Shit, shit!”

There was a thump, as if he’d fallen. But he wasn’t angry, and he didn’t lash out at Eden. He was laughing, and she was laughing, too.

“Let me help,” she said.

“Ho-kay,” the man said on an exhale. “I’m not sure that can be defined as helping per se …”

“It helps me,” she said. “It’s been on my wish list since last July.”

“Wish list,” he said. “Isn’t that supposed to be things you want me to do to you?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she said. “I mean, it’s my wish list, right? I can put whatever I want on there.”

“You could,” he agreed. “Baking cookies in giant chicken suits could be right up there at number six.”

“Six?” she said, laughing. “That’s at least five, if not four. But only if we’re in the same suit and the cookies are chocolate chip.”

“Mmm,” he said. “Number seventeen: doing the macarena at the White House.”

“In the Oval Office,” she added. “Out on the front lawn, it’s only 117.” She whooped in surprise, but then laughed. “Are you really gonna …”

“Carrying you to bed like this is on my wish list,” he said, his voice getting softer as he moved down the hallway.

“It is undeniably hot,” she said. And the door closed behind them and their voices were muffled.

Neesha sat there, afraid to move, afraid to be discovered. But then their laughter faded, and she knew neither one would be coming out anytime soon.

So she grabbed her bag and the key she’d taken from beneath the potted plant, and she silently crept across the living room and toward the door, stepping over the clothing they’d discarded.

But then Neesha stopped, because there, on the floor next to a pair of almost frighteningly large shoes, was a wallet.

And even though she knew she shouldn’t, even though she knew it was wrong, she bent down and opened it. And there, inside, was a stack of money. It was crisp and beautiful and there was so much of it—ten whole bills, most of them bearing a giant two and a zero.

Praying that she would be forgiven, she took one of them, slipping it into her pocket before she silently went out the door.