She considers this for a moment. “If I come spend the night at your house, can we have those conversations all over again? So I don’t feel like I missed out on the best night of my life?”

I laugh at her. God, this girl. She does it for me. I want to make her world perfect. I want to keep her happy. I want to give her that fairytale and I want to be her prince. “We can have a total repeat, Grace. As many times as you need to hear what I had to say, I will tell you. Last night wasn’t perfect. We were fighting and I was so worried about losing you. So worried that you’d walk out on me again… well, I rushed it, I think. I won’t rush it tonight, I swear.”

“OK,” she whispers out on the slightest breath of air. “OK, I’ll keep an open mind.” She wraps her arms around my neck and then leans up on her tiptoes so she can plant another one of those sweet kisses on my lips.

I smile all the way through it.

Chapter Eight

#IReallyDoNeedAPrince

I STAY out of the way for the wedding. I feel awkward and a bit of a failure, if I’m being honest. The wedding I planned for Kristi is about as far from this low-key event as you can get. The Blazen family is transported over to the resort and I help Kristi’s brother set up chairs and direct the caterers and florist. By the time we’re ready for the ceremony, it’s almost ten PM. But one look at Kristi and Johnny, and I can tell they do not care what time it is. They are in love. Kristi’s meltdown is history, and Johnny places a hand over her belly as he says his vows.

Vaughn and I stay until the reception starts and then we slip away quietly. He’s clearly anxious about something, and for a while I thought it was just the stress of the day. Because really—what a day. But I think it’s about more than that. It’s the media, sure. It’s the attention. And yes, that scares me too. But there’s something else going on with him that I just can’t put my finger on.

We have one of the limo drivers take us to the small-jet airport in Vegas, and we spend the entire flight lounging against each other, watching a movie. Like this is just another day for us. Like we always take private jets home from midnight weddings in Vegas. And don’t even get me started on how my life went from completely ordinary to being Vaughn Asher’s girlfriend. Because that’s how he’s treating me now. Not like his plaything or his submissive. But his girlfriend.

And the scariest thing is, it feels very… normal.

I don’t do normal, so the whole time we’re in the jet I’ve got this little nagging feeling in the back of my head. Just picking away at me. Normal implies that my future is not dictated by my past. But it is.

We didn’t turn the news on all evening, so I have to use my imagination about what they’ve been saying about me. But Vaughn has this little crease in his forehead from the narrowing of his eyes.

He insisted earlier that my long-ago abductor couldn’t find me and he’ll never get me again. So why would he say that if he wasn’t worried about it?

I know better anyway. I lived with that sicko for eight months. I am quite possibly the only person who knows exactly what he is capable of.

“What are you thinking about?” Vaughn asks as we pull up to a large home somewhere in the movie-star neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I am not familiar with LA at all, so even though I know his home address from my stalking, I have no idea what the neighborhood is actually called. It’s hilly, and pretty, and I can see the lights of LA off in the distance, shimmering the way they do on a hot night. It’s hot tonight, a lot hotter than it is in Colorado in late September, and we have the air-conditioning on. It segregates me from the outside world, muffles the noise of traffic and activity.

“Nothing,” I say. I would be so lost in this city if Vaughn wasn’t here. That makes my heart flutter with suspicion and fear for a second, but a calming hand on my leg as we pull into the attached garage of a modern mid-century rambler brings me back from a panic attack.

That worries me a little. The fact that I still freak out if I’m not sure where I am. It’s like nothing ever got better.

After I came home I was unable to talk. Not just unwilling, I was that too. But unable. Too many months of forced silence. I was re-educated, they said. I looked that word up and it scared the shit out of me because it came with other words attached to it. Thought-reform and compliance and persuasion. How did one man turn me into something I wasn’t over just a few months?

I don’t know. I didn’t understand what happened to me back then and I don’t understand it now. And even though it looks like everything is fine, my sudden paranoia betrays the things I’m hiding inside.

Vaughn turns the ignition off and we sit in silence for a second. “You ready to see my awesome bachelor pad?” he asks with a wide grin.

I nod. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

We get out and walk to the door that connects to the house. He unlocks it and an alarm beeps until he keys in a code to make it stop. “After I adopted Felicity, we bought this house for just us. And we had a deal about dates. Because you know, she’s not my kid. She makes that clear every chance she gets. But I’m protective of her. She’s sort of a cross between a best friend, a daughter, and a sister. So I told the designer to make it feel… like a home.” He looks down at me with a smile as we enter the main room and I have to admit, this is not what I was expecting Vaughn Asher’s house to look like.

The couches are black leather, that’s totally him. And there’s a huge TV on the wall. That’s him too. But there are dishes on the coffee table. Coffee mugs on the kitchen bar. The bar stools have jackets and sweatshirts hanging off them. And it’s not exactly a mess. It’s just… lived in. Comfortable.

“It’s weird, huh?” he asks me. I give him a quizzical look complete with a raised eyebrow. “Adopting a sixteen-year-old girl when you’re only twenty-six. I get it, most people don’t do that. But… she really needed me, Grace.” He draws in a long breath. “And I needed her too. She’s the only thing that made me good for a while there.”

I take his hand and give it a squeeze. “Why are you trying to justify it, Vaughn? I think it’s awesome. I was adopted at fifteen, so I can appreciate how much you probably changed her life.”

“Bebe?” he asks me. I nod. “Her mother was your lawyer?”