Jerry’s voice still spewed obscenities from the speaker.
“You know how many strings I had to pull? No, of course not. You only think about yourself!”
The weight of disappointment threatened to pull her back under.
“Gia! Are you even listening to me?”
She wasn’t. Not anymore.
Curling in on herself, arms wrapped around her chest, she closed her eyes. She tried to summon Milo’s soothing voice, her yoga instructor-slash-therapist. He’d taught her to use her breath to center herself when she was getting overwhelmed.
Breathe. Center. Survive.
Over and over until the darkness came. Not the threatening kind. The quiet kind. The peaceful kind.
She wasn’t tired. She was exhausted. Bone deep.Souldeep.
Maybe she should sleep, and things would be a little less bleak when she woke up. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t wake up at all.
Gia’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. She’d fought too hard to let those demons back in. Her decision was made as she let her body melt onto the mattress.
It was time to go home.
One
GIA
“Gia?”
The sound of a stranger calling her name yanked Gia back to the present. Mortification flared. She was standing outside the airport, and an older man was watching her with concern. How long had she been rooted there, lost in thought?
The past few days blurred together in an overwhelming mix of indecision, tears, hyperventilating, and more tears. She’d holed up in her apartment, ordering food daily and giving the housekeeper the week off so she could hide. She needed time to figure out the next steps. And to let her bruises—which were now an attractive mixture of green and yellow—and swelling fade. Eventually, she gave in to the voice in her head urging her to book a flight back to Willowbrook.
She’d ignored the more alluring voice—the one whispering to call Alex for something to help her take the edge off. Anything to help her weather this downward spiral. Mental, professional, and personal—entirely of her own making. There was no way she could ever bounce back from this. Not this time.
She had burned the bridge, and there was no turning back forher.
“You’re going to regret this, you dumb bitch.”
“Gia?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. That’s me.” She was grateful the man snapped her out of the memory. She met the kind, brown eyes of a dark-skinned man, his salt-and-pepper brows furrowed.
“I’m here to take you to your destination.”
“Oh. Right. Thank you.” Her cheeks heated. He probably thought she was a scatterbrain. An airhead celebrity.
She nearly forgot about the car service her assistant, Kim, had booked. When Gia called in the middle of the night, Kim hadn’t even sounded surprised to hear her crying. After all, Kim had been her assistant for years, longer than anyone else before her. Kim was also trained to recognize when “vacation” meant rehab.
Months at a luxurious rehab had almost stitched Gia back together. But that was a while ago. Now, it felt like all her hard work had been for nothing. She was unraveling. The fragile seams were fraying. The broken girl beneath them was starting to show again.
When she called Kim, Gia half expected to be ordered back to rehab. Instead, Kim booked her flight and car to Willowbrook—with the condition that she check in regularly.
Kim knew little about Gia’s life back home. She never talked about it, but Gia told herself reconnecting with her roots would help her center herself.
A lie that tasted like ash.
Going home might shatter her completely. Still, she couldn’t ignore the pull anymore. Minh’s voice had been soft but insistent.
