I sit in the darkness of the guest house, shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. The phone slips from my numb fingers and clatters to the tile floor. I don't pick it up.
The parallel is undeniable. It's not just similar—it's a carbon copy.
Nicholas Crawford saw Olive. Wanted her. Sent her a check to make her come to him. And she did. She went to his paradise, lived in his house, wore the clothes he bought her, ate the food he provided. She gave up everything—her independence, her identity, her best friend—for the fairy tale he sold her.
And now, a generation later, his son has done the exact same thing to me.
Phoenix saw me. Wanted me. Sent me a check. And I came running.
The thought makes me want to throw up.
Is this love? Is any of this real?
Or am I being played by a man who learned at his father's knee exactly how to trap a woman?
I draw my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. The moonlight has shifted, casting long shadows across the floor. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the ocean.
Phoenix is still sleeping, unaware that everything has just changed. Tomorrow, I'll have to look at him and pretend I don't know.
Or maybe...
Maybe I need to confront him. Ask him about his parents. About whether the check, the plane ticket, the beautiful house by the sea—whether any of it was ever really about me.
But the thought of that conversation makes my chest tighten until I can barely breathe. Because what if Mom is right? What if I've walked straight into a trap that was laid for me before I even knew it existed?
What if I'm already too far gone to escape?
I don't know how long I sit there in the dark, turning the same questions over and over in my mind. Long enough for my legs to go numb. Long enough for the tears to dry on my cheeks.
When I finally stand, my whole body aches. I pick up my phone from the floor and stare at the cracked screen. Mom's number is still there in my recent calls. I could call her back. Apologize. Beg her to forgive me.
But I don't.
Instead, I slip back across the lawn, through the sliding glass door, and into Phoenix's bedroom. He's still sleeping, one arm thrown across the empty space where I should have been.
I stand at the foot of the bed and watch him breathe.
Is this the face of a man who loves me?
Or the face of my captor?
I don't know anymore.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
17
PHOENIX
She came back to bed last night, but she didn't come back to me.
I felt it the moment she slipped under the covers—the careful distance she kept between us, the way she held herself rigid when I reached for her. She let me pull her close, but her body was a wall. Stiff. Guarded. Somewhere else entirely.
I pretended to be asleep. Watched her through half-closed eyes as dawn crept across the ceiling. She didn't sleep at all. Just lay there, staring at nothing, her mind clearly racing somewhere I couldn't follow.
Something happened. Something changed between the time she fell asleep in my arms and the time she came back from wherever she went in the middle of the night.
Her phone. I remember now—she took her phone when she left. Slipped out so quietly she thought I wouldn't notice.
