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“Well”—he kisses me, still laughing into my mouth—“that wish was not granted. But your list was long, baby. So I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“I had a wish list? That doesn’t sound like me at all.”

“I know. I loved that drunk Grace had grabby hands for so many things.”

“So the dress?”

His fingertips touch my lips and I open my mouth, my tongue darting out automatically. “Nah,” he says under his breath. “Nah. I don’t want to spoil it. I want you to remember all on your own.”

I think I make him sad. And it kills me. I want to remember so bad.

“It’s OK, sweets. It’s OK. I’ll wait. Now close your eyes. Enjoy the sunshine. Enjoy the peace. Let’s just float.”

And we do. We float down River Asher and my whole body just sighs with satisfaction. I think I relax. Really relax, for the first time in… well, ten years.

The masked man is dead. And yeah, I get that I’m fucked up. I understand now. Vaughn was right about that. I need help.

But not today. Today all I need is Vaughn. That’s it. One man who knows me. Who loves me. “I’m glad we’re married, Mr. Asher.”

“Mmm. Me too, Mrs. Asher. Me too.”

I fall asleep after that. And I dream. I dream of Bellagio fountains and underwater candles, and wedding dresses. Blue wedding dresses. I dream of cotton eyelet lace nighties with pink bows and bottles of champagne. I dream of the white sheepskin rug and making love to Vaughn, the soft fur against my back, under my knees, pressing against my stomach. In my dream, we have sex so many times on that rug, I lose count.

Sometimes later, after the sun goes down because the trance-inducing warmth evaporates, I wake. Cooled and refreshed, but in pain. After all this, Vaughn carries me to his bedroom. I wince from the throbbing in my leg, my pain pills forgotten as we were floating.

Vaughn feeds me the little white tablets with a bottle of cold frappuccino and that drags me back to dreamland. The sheets are cool and the air-conditioning gives me enough of a chill to make me reach for the fluffy down comforter.

I’m growing used to the heat of a man next to me at night.

I never want this to end. I want to keep Vaughn Asher forever. I want more than anything to remember the night he promised to be mine.

But tonight is not my night for that. Tonight is just the first step towards healing.

Chapter Four

#GoingDownTogether

G
RACE
sleeps
,
but I don’t. I lie there with her for about thirty minutes, my mind on the time.

Twenty-four hours was all I had before my deadline expires. Twenty-four hours of perfection. I have my wife in my house. She’s safe. She’s even happy. Still denying herself memories of our wedding night, but I have a feeling they will come back soon. I have a feeling that the reality she twisted to help her cope with her abduction as a teen is somehow mixed up with giving herself to me.

I’m patient. With Grace, at least.

I throw the covers off and get out of bed. I dress quietly in the closet before walking into the living room. I press Ray’s number in my contacts and wait for him to answer.

“Looks good, boss,” he says as he picks up. “No action outside at all.”

“OK, you stand by and Bigmy stays in the house.”

I end the call and go out to the back yard. Bigmy and I cross paths as we exchange places, him taking up watch in the house while I go down to the security building. There’s a path on the other side of the pool that leads down the hill. It’s banked on both sides by thick green foliage. I never showed Grace this side of the property. Not because I want it to be secret that I own so many lots on this hill. I just never had the chance.

I make my way down the winding path until I come to a small stucco building. I open the door and the cool air washes over me. “Hey,” I say to Ray. He looks like shit. But he won’t go home until this is settled, even if I tell him to. He’s my number one guy. He takes care of the number one priority and he always takes care of it himself. He’ll sleep here if he has to. And the overnight bag on the floor near the door tells me he has to.

“I’m ready for you. You have thirty-two minutes until your twenty-four hours are up. Should we wait till the last one?”

“Why bother? I just want to go back to sleep. So let’s get this over with.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, handing me a phone. “Just press send.”

I press the tab and the phone starts ringing. She picks up on the third ring sounding incoherent. “Hello?”

The bitch has the audacity to be asleep? “Carey Keefe? I hope I’m not waking you.”

She clears her throat. “Mr. Asher. Why”—she chuckles sleepily—“I had assumed you’d forgotten about me.”

“Nope.”

“Do you have a time to meet that’s good for you?”

“Now. My house. My security man will pick you up one street over. Here he is. He’ll give you directions.”

I don’t wait for an answer, just hand the phone to Ray. He rattles off the street and tells her twenty minutes. I’m not sure if twenty minutes is reasonable or not, considering I’m up in the hills. But who cares. I’ll be here if she’s late.

After Ray hangs up he leaves to go wait it out. We have a path that goes down to the street below. I own four lots on the street just below my home. Most people don’t know that. I’m a paranoid fucker when it comes to my privacy at home.

Public sex on Saint Thomas is one thing. Stalkers on my property in LA is something else entirely. I used to get stalkers often, photographers hanging out by the end of my gate when I lived in Trousdale, but ever since I moved here, things have settled down.

Part of that was my obsession with never being seen in public with girlfriends. Only dates. And dates were business deals. Negotiated with contracts and signatures.

The sex came from other places. The subs. But they had contracts too. I tried to leave them satisfied, if unhappy. Money does that.

When Felicity and I first moved here, I had some paparazzi hanging out in front of the gate. Mostly it was the
Buzz
assholes. But I never did anything interesting. I never brought girls home. I never got drunk and made scenes. I grew up the son of Adam Asher and he taught me well.

Keep your head down and work.
That should be our family motto.

Of course, not all child stars have such guidance and power behind them. I knew there was stuff going on behind the scenes—hell, I saw it at the release parties from a very young age. But every time a star fucked up, my father was there to point out how they get what they deserve.
You want to party, Vaughn?
he’d ask me.
You want to go out and have fun? Just know, nothing you do is private.

That was the lesson drilled into my head. And I heeded it. I never got into any trouble as a teen. But like most kids who go off to college, you get that first taste of real freedom. Couple that with the money I had in the bank, and well, I did a few things I regret.

But money… it might not fix everything, but it fixes most of it.

I go back up to the main backyard and walk over to the pool, then wade in up to my knees. God. I love this backyard. Felicity thought it was an extravagant luxury to put in the river and spend so much. But I love it. And Grace loves it. And even though we technically met in a bar, we met properly on that lazy river in Saint Thomas.

Just thinking about that day makes me smile like an idiot. I stunned her, throwing her dirty words back in her face. All I wanted at that moment was to possess her. Like a thing.

But even then I had this feeling about her. Like she was different. Denying my drink offer in the bar. I shake my head and smile as I recall that morning. Mr. Buttinski, she called me. Silly girl.

I sigh as I picture her back then. So carefree and happy. So sure of herself. So feisty.

And now? I’ve been in her life a matter of weeks—not even a month has passed—and I almost can’t find the old Grace anymore.

Did I do that? Did I force that change? Do I still make her sad?

I like the old Grace. No, I
love
the old Grace. I love her dirty mouth and her sassy self-assurance. I never wanted to tear that down.

You lie, Asher. You lie. That’s all you thought about. Taking her in the way that pleased you. Making her submit to your contract and your fetishes. Corrupting her sense of wellbeing to knock her down and keep her wanting.

I’m a sick fuck.

My phone buzzes a message in my pocket.
Coming up the path
, the text says.

Well, the bitch must live close, because that was only fifteen minutes.

I make my way back to the security building and then keep going right past it, down the hill a little ways.

The plan was to take her through the backyard of one of the houses below, and then leave her waiting next to an empty pool. So that’s where I’m heading. I’m quiet until I enter the gate that separates this path from that yard, and then I make a lot of noise on purpose as I wind my way through the overgrown tropical trees until I find the pool area.

She’s standing and on high alert when I enter the open space. There’s no light back here so I imagine she’s all sorts of freaked out.

Good. Bitch.

She lets out an audible breath of relief once she recognizes me and I take a lot of satisfaction in that.

“Ms. Keefe, I presume?”

“Yes, Mr. Asher.” She stretches out her hand but I ignore that gesture and take a seat in the old webbed lawn chair across from her.

“Hmm. Well,” she says as she sits back down. “This is some place you have here.”

“Yup. I love it. It’s the perfect place to have midnight meetings.”

“It’s three AM, Asher.”

“Discretion, Keefe. It’s all about discretion.”

“Perfect. Then I assume we’re going to make a deal here?” She fishes through her bag and comes out with a small digital recorder. “Mind if I tape this?”

“Tape away.”

She turns the little machine on until the red light blinks and then mutters some words into it and checks to make sure it’s working. “OK, we’re ready. Why don’t you start by—”

“Why don’t I start by telling you what’s gonna happen now?”

“Excuse me?” She looks up with fake doe-eyes. Like she’s stunned. Like she expected this to go her way.

She cannot be that stupid.

“How. This. Will. Go,” I repeat slowly. “It’s simple really. You can fuck off. You can print whatever the hell you want. Photos of my wife? Fine. Stories about me? Go for it. But before you do that, Keefe… just make sure you tell your star reporter that I’ve got pictures too. And that shit will hit the public the minute I see my wife in your magazine. Or on your stupid little cable TV network. Or anywhere else for that matter. If my wife’s private photos exchanged on Twitter appear anywhere, her past goes public too.”

Keefe clicks the little recorder off and shakes her head. “I thought you’d take the easy way out, Asher. I really did. But you’re gonna regret this. I can’t control her, I can only appease her. This was your only chance. I’m gonna let Amy go tomorrow. So whatever she does, it has nothing to do with me. And I could care less if you release things about her past. It’s not my problem.”

“Oh, it
is
your problem, Keefe. Because whether you know it or not, that secret she thinks I’m hiding is not about me.” I wait for her smug look before I deliver the last line. “It’s about you.”

“Ha,” she laughs. “Right. I have no idea what you two are talking about. I have no idea how you know each other so well. But I do know this. Your threats are as fake as your on-screen alter-ego. You having a superhero complex, Asher? Newsflash, asshole. The Invisible Man isn’t real.”

“Oh, he’s real. Keefe. He’s real. He might take the form of well-concealed video equipment these days. But he’s one hundred percent real.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t know me.”

“I know more than you think, Keefe. A lot more. You want to know what this is about?” I stand and she stares up at me. “You want to know what Amy has against me?”