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Prologue

No No No Not the black Not the choking dark Not the plastic bag Panic overwhels I can’t breathe I can’t breathe The metallic taste of fear rises in her throat I need to do this It’s the only way Be still Be calm Breathe slow Breathe shallow Just like he said This will be over soon It will be over, and then I will be free Free Free

Go Now Run Run Run Go She runs hard and fast but doesn’t look back Fear drives her forward as she dodges a few late-night shoppers in her quest to flee Luck is with her: the autoaudy holiday decorations and through the entrance into the parking lot On and on she runs Between the parked cars and into the woods She runs for her life, down a s her face She runs until her lungs are bursting Go Go Go Don’t stop

Cold Cold Too cold Fatigue fogs her brain Fatigue and the cold The wind howls through the trees, through her clothes, and into her bones She huddles beneath a bush and gathers the fallen leaves to build a nest with numb hands Sleep She needs sleep She lies down on the cold, hard ground, too tired to be afraid and too tired to weep The others Did they get away? She closes her eyes Did they escape? Let them be free Let them be warm…How did it come to this?

She wakes She’s lying between trash cans, wrapped in newspapers and cardboard She’s shivering She’s so cold But she needs to move on She has an address She thanks her nana’s God for the address With shaking fingers she unfurls the paper This is where she needs to go No

One foot in front of the other Walk It’s all she can do Walk Walk Walk Sleep in a doorway Wake and walk on Walk She drinks water fro

She’s cold Hunger claws at her sto thelights and Christmas th she has left It’s worn and torn from so many days hidden in her boot Tired So tired Dirty So dirty and cold and frightened This place is her only hope She raises her tre hand and presses the doorbell

Magda is expecting her Her mother wrote and told her She welcomes her with open arms And then backs away quickly Jesus, child What’s happened to you? I was expecting you last week!

Chapter One

Mindless sex—there’s a lot to be said for it No commitments, no expectations, and no disappointments; I just have to remember their names Who was it last time? Jojo? Jeanne? Jody? Whatever She was soreat deal both in and out of bed I lie staring at the rippling reflections fro, unable to sleep Too restless to sleep

Tonight it’s Caroline She doesn’t fit the naory She’ll never fit What the hell was I thinking? Closing my eyes, I try to silence the still, s ain She sluht of the January s entwined with mine, and her head on my chest

This is wrong, so wrong I rub , and she stirs and shifts, waking froernail skims down my stomach and over my abdominal muscles, then circles ers slip towardit to ht, Caro?” I kiss each finger in turn to take the sting out of the rejection I’uilt that gnaws at ut This is Caroline, for heaven’s sake, my best friend and my brother’s wife Ex-wife

No Not ex-wife His

It’s a sad, lonely word for a sad, lonely circumstance

“Oh, Maxiet,” she whispers, and plants a war her fair hair away fro lashes, her eyes shining with need and grief

I cup her lovely face and shake

my head “We shouldn’t”

“Don’t” She places her fingers onme “Please I need it”

I groan I’ to hell

“Please,” she begs

Shit, this is hell

And because I’, too—because I miss him, too—and Caroline is my connection to him, my lips find hers and I ease her onto her back

When I wake, the rooht winter sunshine thatover, I’ behind a lingering trace of regret—and a note on my pillow:

Dinner tonight with Daddy & the Stepsow?

Please come

They are , too

ILY x

Fuck

This is not what I want I close lad, despite our nocturnal activities, that we decided to come back to London two days after the funeral

How the hell did this get so out of hand?

Just a nightcap, she’d said, and I’d gazed into her big blue eyes, bri with sorrow, and knohat she wanted It was the saht we learned of Kit’s accident and untimely death A look I couldn’t resist then We’d alnedinevitability I fucked my brother’s wife

And noe’d done it again, with Kit laid to rest only two days ago

I scowl at the ceiling I am, without doubt, a pathetic excuse for a human But then so is Caroline At least she has an excuse: she’s in , scared for her future, and I’m her best friend Who else could she turn to in her hour of need? I’d just pushed the envelope on co

Frowning, I crumple her note and toss it to the wooden floor, where it skitters to a stop under the sofa that’s piled with ht and dark see to taunt me I close my eyes to shut them out

Kit was a good man

Kit Dear Kit Everyone’s favorite—even Caroline’s; she did choose hi beneath a sheet at the hospital mortuary appears unbidden into dispel the memory, as a knot forms in my throat He deserved better than dear Caro and me—his wastrel brother He didn’t deserve this…betrayal

Fuck