Chapter 1
Hazel
I stare at the pee-soaked stick in my hand, feeling my heart whack the walls of my chest like the housekeeper beating a Turkish wool rug.
Two lines.
I check the instructions again, though there’s no point. It’s the fourth test I’ve taken this morning, all of them yielding the same result.
Pregnant.
That’s what it says, right here in tiny black script. There’s even a diagram in case my overpriced Ivy League education left me ill-equipped to gauge what two looks like.
It looks like my world spinning out of control.
It looks like the biggest mistake of my life.
It looks like a moment I’d go back and change if I could.
Gripping the stick, I squeeze my eyes shut. I picture the whole thing like yesterday, though it’s technically been more than three months.
Three months, thirteen days, and roughly eight hours and thirty-two minutes.
Shall I set the stage? Sketch out a map to show how I journeyed from ice princess CEO to un-showered floozy wearing her father’s old dress shirt while dunking a stick in a Waterford glass of urine?
Picture me driving the damp coastal pass, wind whipping my hair in my black Mercedes-Benz AMG GT 43. It’s raining a little, so it’s silly to have the sunroof open as I cruise home from seeing my father at Oregon’s federal prison.
But it’s also silly to keep having the same conversations with Dad. His words fill my ears, expanding an ache that balloons through my shoulders and belly.
“You owe me this, Hazel.” Dad always finds the best words to pierce through my armor. “If my own daughter hadn’t turned on me?—”
“Stop it!” Squeezing the wheel tight, I ease off the highway and onto the side road that leads to the stupid-huge mansion I live in alone.
That was part of the deal when Dad went to prison. I took over his house, along with the reins of his construction and development firm. Not much of a stretch, since I’ve practically run things since the day I brought home a shiny-new business degree, along with my keen eye for numbers and details.
Suffice it to say, that’s how I found the breadcrumbs that led to my father’s conviction for arson and fraud.
“Fuck!” Pounding the steering wheel with a fist, I curse the stupid voices in my head. The ones whispering that I’m a bad boss, a terrible daughter, a not-so-great human. That I’m destined to end up lonely and rich and rotting as my cat eats the eyelids off my well-dressed corpse.
I should get a cat.
“What the—” I brake hard, wheels skidding on wet asphalt as I take in the scene at the edge of my property.
A battered green truck, parked at an angle next to the black iron fence ringing my home on the lake shore. The nose of the truck nearly touches the gate. The bent, crumpled gate that my father kept locked when he lived here.
I never shut it, and judging by the wrecked state of things, I’m not likely to do so anytime soon.
“Son of a—” I stop when I spot him. A broad-shouldered man, on his knees at the edge of the driveway. He’s inspecting the gate with a wrench in his hand, eyes flashing up as I skid. “Oh.”
Luke Lovelin.
I know who he is. Luke moved here a few years ago, working as a groundskeeper for his famous brother-in-law while securing a job on one of my father’s construction crews. His background check revealed time spent in prison, not that Luke tried to hide it. He wrote it right there on the job app, and I sleuthed out more detail before I let Dad sign off on his hiring.
Luke watches me pull to a stop beside him. The tool in his hand and his guilty expression leave no doubt he’s responsible for the destruction. Drawing a few calming breaths, I hit the button to close off the sunroof. The gentle rain sprinkles have switched to a downpour, a fact that’s abundantly clear as I step from the car and catch a fierce slap of rainwater right in the face.
“Ow.” A wet shank of my waist-length dark hair whips from my chignon and clings to my cheek like a sea snail. Peeling it off, I glare at Luke Lovelin. “What the hell?”
He’s on his feet now, wiping his hands on ripped jeans that look like he chewed out the knees, then dragged them behind his old truck. “What a mess, huh?”
