Come on, Oliver. I’m saying no.”“Is it a fake no? Because your body keeps saying yes.”“My body doesn’t know anything.”“What does your heart say?”“That’s number one on my list of unenlightened organs. It believes anything it hears. It’s screwed up in some way.

He terrifies me, Aunt Peg.” I don’t have the backbone to say it to her face. “Oliver is such a self-contained person. He’s always so calm, so at ease, so refined. I’m the one who’s always losing my mind over nothing. He is unbelievably amazing in a way I don’t know if I can reciprocate. His voice is calm and patient. It makes me feel like he will sit me down and tell me everything’s going to be okay. And his eyes. Have you seen his eyes? They’re so kind and gentle.

Okay, you have to understand I was drunk.”“So?”“So don’t believe anything I said.”“What about now?”“I don’t know. I don’t trust myself around you. Talking to you is like drinking tequila. One minute I’m in control, and the next I’m—”He holds me hard against him, then he claims my lips, brutally, violently, the way I was secretly hoping he would. And I kiss him back with so much force it nearly knocks all air from my lungs.

Everything about you fascinates me, Sophie. The smell of your skin. The sound of your voice. Your long legs. Your sense of humor. Your personality. You don’t seem to need me, and if you don’t need me, it is much more gratifying that you want me.

I can talk to you about my past, Oliver, not to make you pity me or make myself look weak for attention, but to let you know who I was and what happened. What made me cry. What gave me nightmares. I prefer to hide. In fact, I may have even masked the version you know of myself. I can show you my trophy room, gladly. But…I’m afraid to open the door hiding what makes me vulnerable and imperfect.