Tequila, anger, and hurt collide and ignite my tongue. I push against his chest and reel back, and all but snarl, “Why the f**k do you want me here? Because you do, right? This is one of your many secrets, right? You wanted me to join you in f**king half of Paris.”

His expression is searing anger, his voice a growl permeating the music. “This is not my secret, Sara.Secret, singular.

There’s only one thing I haven’t told you.”

“That’s news. Even how many secrets you have seems to be a secret.”

His eyes lash. “I don’t want you here in this place now or ever. We’re leaving.” He turns me toward the exit, itting me under his arm, at his hip, and it’s a good thing. The tequila has my feet not listening to my brain, and I stagger, then stumble.

I grab Chris’s Superman shirt for balance, and he tightens his hold on me. Our eyes collide and for a moment we stand still, lost in an intense clash of sexual heat and anger. He is warm and strong and sexy, and I just want to wrap my arms around him and hold him. I can barely remember why I can’t, or shouldn’t, until someone bumps into us and the spell is broken, and reality zooms back into place.

Chris sets us in motion again, and not even the tequila can block out the bodies pressed to bodies, or the scent of sex in the air. I ight the urge to scream, or run, or . . . I just need out of this place. Now.

Chris pulls me to the stairs leading to the small walkway to exit the club. Thankfully, this time they’re free of the na**d bodies that blocked the way during my earlier attempt to leave. The instant we’re on the stairwell, out of sight of prying eyes, I twist around and confront him, needing to know just how well connected he is to this place. “How did you know I was here?”

He gives me a hard look. “Why didn’t I know you were here, is more important. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Answer the question, Chris. How did you know I was here?”

“Tristan had a moment of conscience.”

“Tristan?”

“Yes, Tristan. Why didn’t you call me?”

“You were helping kids.”

He’s looking at me with such accusation that I feel like I’m the one who should feel guilty, and I’m confused. I do feel guilty.

“Amber told me Tristan was going to beat her. I’ve seen the welts on her arms.” My head spins and I have to lean on the wall. “I tried to call her a cab, and she stopped answering her phone. I thought I could just grab her and get out of here.”

His gaze slides up and down my body, before he presses a hand above my head and leans closer. His wonderful earthy scent calls to me, even as his accusations push me away. “Why did picking up Amber require ‘come f**k me’ clothing?”

I linch as if I’ve been slapped. “Because I feel as if I’m being judged by a past I don’t even understand.” My eyes burn and I turn away from him, wobbling down the stairs. He follows. Despite the wicked mix of emotions inside me, I’m acutely aware of how he’s stopped touching me, and how much I want him to touch me, and how, considering the implications of this place, I shouldn’t. But then, I’m brilliant at being stupid tonight, both with and without the help of tequila.

We stop at the coat check and I dig for my ticket in my boot, but can’t seem to make my hands work. “I can’t get it,” I say helplessly, frustrated at myself for drinking. I hate being like this, and what good did it do me?

Chris squats down and unzips my boot. The memory of him just like this, seducing me into the logging, sends a rush of heat up my thighs. He glances up at me, holding the ticket, and I see the mix of anger and desire in his face. He’s thinking about the same thing I am, and he isn’t any happier about it than I am.

He’s pissed at me, and I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I guess it depends on why, and what this place really is to him.

He stands up and presents the lady with my ticket, and she hands him my things. Chris takes it upon himself to slide my purse cross-body over my head and I hate that he thinks I’m too drunk to manage it myself. I hate that I might be. I don’t meet his eyes. I can’t meet his eyes. I wait, and when the strap settles into place and he steps aside, I rush for the door and I don’t stop. I push past it, stepping outside and inhaling the cold air, trying to sober my mind and body. I walk as fast as I can away from this place; I’d run if I weren’t afraid of falling.

“Sara,” Chris calls, then he grabs my arm and turns me to him.

I explode on him. “Is this what you want from me, Chris?

Because it’s not me. I can’t and won’t be part of what I saw in there. I won’t.”

“Does anything about this place scream ‘me’ to you?”

“No. But I know Isabel is connected to this place, and you’re connected to her, and Tristan and Amber. And”—my voice hitches—“I didn’t think Ava was a murderer, or that Ella would blow me of like I was nothing, either. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew me, through you. And if I don’t know you . . . I don’t know what I know.”

He pulls me against him, his hard, warm body absorbing mine. “You know me, Sara. And I know you.We are not that place.”

“I want to believe that, but you don’t even know me well enough to believe I can handle whatever you haven’t told me.

You keep putting it of. You dread it that much—and then you wonder how I can think this place might be the secret? If you know me, what else could you think would make me react like this?”

“Nothing. There is nothing.”

He stares down at me, his eyes hard, his jaw tense. “I’ll tell you. In the car.” He draws my hand into his and starts walking, pulling me toward the street.

I’m stunned. He’s inally going to tell me?

I’m suddenly not sure I should have pushed him. He said next week. He said that was important to him. Why did I push?

Why did I come to this damnable place? Why why why?

Chris turns us to the left and stops by a black sedan a block down, opening the back door. “Where’s the 911?”

“There was car service at the museum. It was faster than getting my car from the garage.”

He was that anxious to get to me, that upset I was here. I step toward the door and stumble. Once again, Chris catches me, his strong hands steadying me. The world spins around me and I squeeze my eyes shut. Damn tequila. Damn bad deci-sions.

With Chris’s help, I slide into the sedan. He follows me inside, says something to the driver in French, and the driver gets out of the car.

Then we’re alone. And silent. We sit in the darkness, each by a door, and the space between us feels miles wide.

Chris inally turns to look at me and says, “Not even in my younger, experimental days would I have been drawn to that place, Sara. Amber knows that. She was trying to hurt me through you.”

I whirl on him again, ignoring the protest of my head and stomach. “Then why do you let her in your life? She’s not a nice person, Chris. She plotted and schemed to get my sym-pathy tonight, to get me here. She’ll tear us apart if you let her, and I know you know that—yet she’s still in our life. If you think that didn’t afect how I responded to everything that happened tonight, from me thinking she was worth trying to save, to hearing her lies, you’re wrong.”

He cuts his gaze away, his elbows settle on his knees, and his head drops between his shoulders. His hands tunnel roughly into his hair and stay there, like he’s trying to relieve pressure.

He can barely force himself to say whatever he has to say—and I can barely breathe, waiting for him to tell me.

Scrubbing his jaw, he sits up, still staring ahead and seeming to struggle before he speaks, his voice a soft, raspy, emotion-laden confession. “Next week . . .” He hesitates. “Next week is the anniversary of my mother’s death.”

My shoulders slump and I feel as if I’ve been punched.

His words replay in my head. There is a right place and a right time. You’ll understand what I mean, soon, I promise. I’m asking you to trust me on this. I shouldn’t have pushed him. I should have waited. “Oh God. Oh Chris. I—”

He turns to face me. “Ten years ago, during the week of the anniversary of her death, I took Amber and her parents out to dinner. We were walking to the car when we were mugged by two armed men in ski masks.”

“Oh,” I breathe out. “No. Tell me no.”

“I took one of the attackers’ guns and he ran of, but the other one . . .” He looks at the ceiling a long moment before his eyes meet mine again. “I saw his eyes and I knew he was going to pull the trigger on his weapon. I shot him, but not before he shot Amber’s parents. He died, and so did they.” His lips tighten. “He turned out to be a sixteen-year-old kid.”

My hand presses to my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick. “Chris, I—”

“I don’t feel guilty for killing him, Sara. I saw his eyes. I saw how coldhearted he was. What eats me alive is not killing him before he killed them.”

I’m across the seat and linging my arms around him before he inishes, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry I did this to you. I’m so sorry. Chris, I—”

He kisses me. “Don’t. Don’t say you’re sorry. I should have just told you. I should—”

I kiss him, tasting the salty tang of my tears on both our lips, and I can’t stop touching him. His face. His hair. Our foreheads come together and I press my hand to his cheek. “I love you. I love you so much. How could you think I would judge you for this?”

“I killed a sixteen-year-old and I don’t feel guilty, Sara.”

I lean back to look at him. “You put it in a box, Chris, and it’s locked away. You only have so much capacity. It’s your mind’s way of surviving what you can’t control. You saved Amber’s life and your own. You’re a hero. You’re a hero in so many ways and you never see it. But I do. I see it for both of us.”

I have to swallow against the churn of my stomach. “And I hate that I drank tonight, when I promised you I wouldn’t get drunk again. I hate that I still can’t shake it, and think of all the right things to say to ix everything I did wrong tonight.”

He frames my face with his hands and stares down at me.

“You did nothing wrong tonight. You tried to help Amber and she played a game with you and us. And I let that happen by staying silent too long.”

“I did many things wrong tonight, Chris, but more than anything, I should have let you tell me everything next week when you were ready. I know this wasn’t about secrets, now.

It was about how you deal with things, about you limiting the temptation of the whip by choosing how, when, and where you told me everything. I don’t know how to make this up to you. I don’t know how I ever can.”

“Tell me you can live with what I can’t some days. Tell me you know me and you won’t doubt me anymore.”

“I can’t live without you, Chris, and no more doubt. Not ever again.”

He studies me a moment and then leans back against the seat, and pulls me close. I rest my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, sensing he has more to say, this time waiting until he is ready.

“I wasn’t in love with Amber before the mugging,” he says softly after a few moments. “I knew we didn’t have a future, but after that night I couldn’t leave her. She resented me, though, and between her resentment and my guilt, I got pretty f**ked up. That’s when things got extreme for me and when Isabel came into the picture. I wanted pain and Isabel gave it to me.”

I lean up to look at him. “While you were with Amber?”

“No sex. Just pain. And Amber knew. She also resented the fact that I didn’t trust her with a whip in her hand. She hated me. That’s not someone you want punishing you.”

“She loves you.”

“Ah, yes. A ine line, isn’t it? She’s very confused, Sara. And Tristan loves the hell out of her.”

“He whips her horribly. That isn’t love.”

“Isabel whips her. Tristan refuses to do it.”

“Isabel?”

“Yes. Isabel. When I wouldn’t stop seeing her, Amber decided she’d escape reality the same way I did.”

“With the whip.”

“Yes. Just another reason for me to feel guilty. She’s followed me down the wrong path.”

Chris did this to me. Now I know what Amber had meant that day in The Script.

“That’s when I knew we were destroying each other,” Chris continues. “I broke things of with Amber, told her we’d always be friends. But not before I helped her self-destruct, just like Mark did Rebecca.”

“You didn’t,” I say quickly. “She made her choices. We all do.”

“She’s not as strong as you, Sara. I inluenced Amber in ways I can’t undo. But when Tristan came into the picture a few years ago, I was hopeful that maybe Amber was inally moving on. It didn’t happen, and Tristan says that’s my fault. He says Amber will never be able to move on until I do.

“He doesn’t understand why I can’t just cut the ties. He doesn’t understand the guilt, shame, and responsibility I feel over everything to do with how Amber’s life has turned out.”

He runs a rough hand through his hair. “And maybe I should. I just don’t know.”

I want to tell him all the reasons he shouldn’t hurt like he does, but my gut tells me that isn’t what he wants to hear right now. So instead, I say, “I don’t know either, but we’ll igure it out. Together, Chris. Together we’ll ind the answer.”