I tried to work on the pharmaceutical merger deal. I tried to work and saw her shivering in her seat while she slept, goose bumps dotting the delicate flesh of her neck and collarbone.

Tearing my gaze back to the screen, I tried to work again.

But I kept stealing glances.

And I kept trying to cool down the temperature my blood boiled to every time I was near her.

I ended up pulling a blanket over her body. I watched her sleep for forty minutes. Forty fucking minutes. This was bending the rules. What was worse—I wanted to break them all. With her.

I tried reasoning with my cock. There was no guarantee Help would get into bed with me. You could take the girl out of the church in Virginia, but you couldn’t take the church out of the girl. Despite her years in New York, I suspected she still wasn’t a heavy Tinder user who bed-hopped her way to her next broken heart.

Plus, she seemed to hate me just as much as I hated her.

And last but not least—I knew I was about to plunge headfirst into some dirty, nasty shit with my family.

I couldn’t afford a distraction. All I wanted was to get the help I needed from her, maybe screw her a few times, and cut her loose.

Make it stop.

We landed at sunset, slicing through sky the color of purple with a gold undertone, just like her hair. The bite of a promising new adventure filled my nostrils when I finally got out of the airport, armed with the girl I’d driven out of this place ten years ago.

Cliff, my family driver, was leaning against the black Limo, waiting for us at the curb of San Diego International’s baggage claim. He rushed to snatch her duffle—I’d overnighted my luggage straight to Todos Santos—and flung it into the trunk of the limo, firing off pleasantries I didn’t bother acknowledging. Emilia followed behind me, her eyes darting everywhere, drinking in the view she hadn’t seen in so long.

I knew she’d visited her parents a few years ago when I was already in LA, but that was the extent of it as far as I was aware.

The drive to my father’s mansion ticked by silently and gave me time to think and regulate my heartbeats. Cliff kept his mouth shut, probably remembering I was not my chatterbox stepmother. I didn’t bother to raise the privacy glass. Help squinted at the side window, pretending I wasn’t there next to her.

This weekend was important to me. It was the weekend when I would finally tell my father about my plans.

Help didn’t mention the blanket, and I didn’t mention how my brain almost fucking detonated when I caught myself doing it. Such a small gesture. Such a huge impact on my mood.

At the eight-car garage behind the house, Cliff pulled her duffel from the trunk.

“I better head to see my parents.” She jerked her thumb toward the servants’ apartment. “I haven’t been here in a while.” The accusation in her voice suggested I was to blame for that. “I hope my mother’s not in your kitchen. Or am I allowed inside now?”

Another accusation. Hey. I wasn’t the one who’d made them live in the servants’ apartment. Truthfully, I would have offered them a place inside the house, considering it was empty. It was Josephine who was a fucking haughty snob, but no one would’ve believed me. Jo’s mask was solid.

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Tonight. I have an urgent meeting with my lawyer, and I need you to take notes.” She wasn’t going there to take notes. Originally, I’d hoped to talk her through my plans for her on the plane, but she’d fallen asleep.

I sometimes forgot that other people slept. An average person would spend twenty-five years of their lifetime asleep. Not me. I was fucking wide-awake.

I was tempted to wake her up on the plane, but she’d looked so out of it, I was sure she wouldn’t understand half the crap I had to tell her anyway. And all of it was important.

At any rate, my justification for the trip seemed to pacify Help, and she shot me a polite smile.

She was starting to get comfortable around me. I pitied her.

“I’ll have dinner with my folks and see you later then.”

She clutched her duffel to her chest and ambled down the pavement leading to her former home beside the garage, while I headed for the iron double-doors at the front of the cold mansion where I’d once lived. Before I turned the corner, I twisted my head back toward her.

She was standing outside the door to her parents’ quarters. When it opened, she jumped into her mother’s open arms, knotting her legs around her thick midsection and letting out a happy squeak. Her dad clapped and laughed. Soon, the three of them were half-crying, half-laughing with joy.

When I pushed my front doors open, no one was there. Nobody waited for me. But that was hardly news.

My stepmother was probably already back in Cabo with her friends. Thank fuck. And my father was probably upstairs in his bed, marching his slow way to death after his third heart attack in the last five years.

But this time, his cold, vicious heart was going to lose the battle.

Death. Such a mundane thing. Everybody died. Well, eventually. But almost everyone fought against it. Sadly, for my father, he had silent enemies who prowled in the dark.

One of them was his son.

He was so hot on getting rid of my mother—so relieved when she finally died—that he forgot his time would come too. And it did, with a little push from Mother Nature.

Karma was working extra hard with this piece of work. Dad had been in great shape for a sixty-eight-year-old. He ate well, played tennis and golf, and had even cut back on the cigars.