Scandalize Me

She’d been hiding.

All this time, she’d been so proud of herself for moving on, for taking care of herself, for wresting a decent life out of the ashes of what had happened to her—but all she’d been doing was hiding. Holed up dreaming of revenge while the world turned on and on without her. Playing a game of survival across all these years.

But surviving wasn’t the same thing as living. It wasn’t even close.

Zoe looked down at herself, at the gray dress she wore, that was like all the other gray dresses she wore. Grays and blacks, dark browns and navy blues—she was wearing the colors of mourning. She’d been attending her own funeral for the past decade.

How had she failed to recognize that before now?

Any way she looked at it, standing here lit up and too bright after a night that shouldn’t have happened with a man like Hunter who shouldn’t have appealed to her at all, that meant Jason Treffen won. That he’d been winning since the day she’d escaped from his unsavory little operation and set out on her own. That on some level, this was all a game of pretend. Her fierceness, her insistence on control, her whole life.

Zoe pulled in a ragged breath. She shouldn’t keep all the bright colors she allowed herself locked away in her apartment, like some kind of Miss Havisham in reverse. She shouldn’t be afraid to be who she was, whoever that was. She wanted to feel the way Hunter made her feel—off-balance and alive. Wild and free and utterly unfettered. Even if that had all been run-of-the-mill on his part, his practiced playboy charm, it hadn’t been on hers.

When Hunter kissed her, she felt whole.

That was winning. Reclaiming who she was, or who she might have been. Not hiding anymore. Not locking herself away, still fearful, she understood now, that Jason Treffen might reappear at any moment and tell the world what and who she really was.

As if that had ever been his call to make.

No wonder she’d been holding back from pushing her revenge plans into motion, even now when she was so close to the final act. No wonder it had taken so long. She’d still been afraid.

But she wasn’t any longer. She felt free.

When she started down the stairs again, she was smiling, for what felt like the first time. Maybe ever.

She saw Hunter as she rounded the last bend, sprawled out on that medicinally white couch of his, wearing nothing but a pair of exercise trousers low on his narrow hips. He looked sleepy and gorgeous, his dark blond hair rumpled and a hint of stubble on his jaw, making him look less pretty and more dangerous, which set off a little symphony of need inside her.

He made her feel insatiable. Greedy.

Beautiful and real.

Whole.

She moved toward him quietly, almost as if she was powerless to stop herself, and he didn’t look up as she approached, too busy watching at the television screen in front of him with an intensity she didn’t understand.

The volume was turned down so low she didn’t hear that voice until she was right behind Hunter on the far side of the sofa.

That voice. Jason Treffen.

Hunter’s television screen was so big it made Jason seem bigger than the wall. Bigger than life. Certainly big enough to destroy the tiny little lives he meddled in. Like Sarah’s. Like hers. He lounged like the king of the world on some morning show couch, smiling genially, looking like the honorable and trustworthy man Zoe had once believed he was.

And Hunter sat there before his image, like the acolyte she’d somehow forgotten he’d been back then. Hell, maybe he still was.

That was why she’d chosen him.

The fact that she liked him was just her own twisted perversity at play.

Hunter turned to look at her. His eyes narrowed much too shrewdly as he sat up, as if he could read all manner of terrible things right there on her face. As though she wasn’t maintaining that mask of hers any longer.

“Zoe?”

But she was looking at the screen, not at him.

“Zoe.”

It was a command, but she was so far away then, so very far away, and it took a long time to pull her gaze away from the television and focus on the first man she’d let touch her in almost a decade. The first man she’d wanted in as long as she could remember. The first man she’d ever begged. The first man she’d liked like this in what she was fairly certain was forever.

Zoe didn’t know why she was surprised that Jason Treffen should be hanging over this moment—literally. What was surprising was that she’d let herself forget that she knew exactly who Hunter was. That she always had.

“Tell me,” Hunter said quietly. Intently. With some kind of reined-in ferocity that made the air feel heavy and unwieldy all around them. “How do you know Sarah?”