I’m backward.
The SUV ended its spinout with us facing the wrong way on the sharp off-ramp.
My heart leaps into my throat a split second before the oncoming sports car veers onto the shoulder, honks, and then flies past us and onto the highway beyond with a string of obscenities mingled with what sounds like country music following after it.
Now that I’m breathing again, my shoulders have merged with my ears. My jaw is clenched at least twice as tight as it has been at any other point since my father’s driver pulled up tothe house in the Hamptons three days ago, delivering him safely home from prison. And a red haze is obstructing my vision.
I restart the engine, lift my foot off the brake, and let the car roll to the edge of the road before another night owl takes the exit the way it’s apparently supposed to be taken.
Fast and reckless.
But without the spinout part.
I put the engine in park and debate getting out to throw up as Daphne rolls her window down too. “Good job. Very nicely done. Quick question. Where are we?”
“Get out.” The order is instinctive.
Or possibly protective.
All of my plans are unraveling becausefucking Daphne Merriweather-Brown is in my car.
She smiles at me. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been dumped in the middle of nowhere, but hitchhiking home wasn’t in my plans today. And did I see a sign that said we’re in Pennsylvania when I woke up? A little far from home, yeah? You got something secret going on out here?”
“Get. Out.” As the words leave my mouth a second time, even with the sentiment ringing so hard through my entire being, I know I can’t leave her here.
Margot would kill me.
And while Margot and I are no longer a thing, and haven’t been since my father got arrested a few years ago, and never will be again, I still care about her.
Enough that I made an excuse to go tell her goodbye last week.
In code. So she wouldn’t realize it was goodbye. So she wouldn’t blow this for me.
But can’t a guy run away from home without his ex-fiancée’s little sister stowing away?
Daphne stares at me in the dim light with that perpetualthis is fungrin that always annoyed the shit out of me. “Getting out does seem like the safer option, but I’m good with a little excitement. Also, you and I need to have a discussion, and so unfortunately for both of us, I’ll be declining your invitation. For the moment, anyway.”
I stare at her while I process exactly how much control of my life I’ve just lost.
Again.
She shifts in the seat and pulls her hair off, then some netting, revealing more hair underneath.
It’s a wig.
She was wearing a wig. That’s why it was crooked. Why—never mind.
Not important why she was wearing a wig.
What’s important is that I’ve clenched my jaw through countless boardroom meetings the past few years, not saying everything I’ve wanted to say to all of the people demanding I fix my father’s mistake to keep the company going while he was serving his time. I’ve clenched my jaw through countless dinners with my mother while she pretended he was on an extendedspa vacationso that she wouldn’t have to face the reality that the company might not pull through after what he did and we might have to sell more than a few vacation homes and the artwork in three others and half of the unadulterated wine in the wine cellars to get through it.
I’m supposed to be done with my jaw-clenching days.
I’m supposed to befree.
But here I am, forcing words out of my mouth when my jaw is aching because the damn bite guard I’m supposed to use isn’t working the way disappearing from my old life will.
“What. Are you doing. In my car?”
