year of learning how to avoid him, how to pretend it didn’t matter. A year of believing I had to put up with it to protect my career and everything I’d worked so hard for.”
“Did he—I mean, how far did he take it?” Liv didn’t know how else to ask the question and felt guilty for even asking it.
“You mean did I sleep with him?”
“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Yes.”
She said it so softly that Liv wasn’t even sure what she meant at first. But the look on Alexis’s face gave it away.
“You asked why I’m ashamed. That’s why. I gave in to him. What does that make me?”
Alexis didn’t wait for Liv to answer. She stumbled to her feet, a gag evident in her throat. Liv watched helplessly as Alexis raced to the garbage can and retched.
Liv walked to her friend and hugged her from behind. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
Alexis braced her hands on the edges of the trash can, panting and sweating. Liv gripped her shoulders and forced her to turn around.
“What does that make you?” she asked, cupping her friend’s cheeks the same way Rosie and done to her earlier. “It makes you a survivor.”
Tears dripped down Alexis’s cheeks. “I slept with him. Willingly, Liv.”
“It wasn’t consensual. Not in a real way. And even if it were, who gives a fuck? He had power over you. He knew you were vulnerable because of your mom. He took advantage of that. Of you. And you did the only thing you thought you could to protect yourself and your mom.” Liv remembered the book with a small smile. “Fear is a powerful motivator, but so is love.”
Alexis’s face crumbled, and she gave in to her sobs. She bent and pressed her forehead to Liv’s shoulder, and Liv held her like that. Rocked her. Rubbed her hands up and down her friend’s back until sobs became hiccups and hiccups became shaky breaths. Until it was over.
Alexis pulled back with a groan and turned around, her hands swiping at her cheeks. “God, I hate crying.”
“I know. I’ve done enough of it in the past twenty-four hours to last a lifetime.”
“Why?” Alexis sniffed, turning around again.
Oh. Right. She didn’t know about Mack. Liv shrugged and brought her up to date.
Alexis’s mouth dropped open. “Wow. There’s been a lot going on in your life.”
“Pretty much.”
“And . . . it’s over with him?”
A lumped formed in Liv’s throat. “I said some unforgivable things to him.”
Alexis tilted her head then, and Liv knew something profound and very Alexis-like was about to be stated. “Maybe he needed to hear them.”
Liv groaned and rolled her eyes. “I had that coming, didn’t I?”
“Yep.”
God, what if she’d ruined everything? “He didn’t need to hear them, though. He needed me to be understanding, to hold him. And I didn’t.”
Alexis put a hand on her arm. “Deep breaths.”
Liv returned to the counter, poured another shot, and fired it back. Alexis joined her and did the same.
“You know what I really want to do?” Alexis asked as she set her glass down.
“Get sloppy drunk and bitch about men?”
“No. Well, yes. But I’m talking about after that.”
“What do you want to do?”
Alexis poured two more shots and handed one to Liv. “Destroy Royce Preston.”
Liv clinked their glasses. Because this was one thing she could get right. “Girl, same.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
For the first time in his life, Mack wished he were unemployed.
Because after leaving Liv, he’d stumbled home, grabbed an unopened bottle of Jameson, and carried it to bed with no intention of going anywhere near his clubs or a single living person for as long as it took to forget the taste of her, the feel of her, the memory of her.
For three days, he hadn’t showered. Barely ate. Ignored every phone call and text. Threw some shit. Broke some shit. But mostly he slept and drank, and when he drank too much, he thought really, really hard about calling and leaving her slurred voice mails, but thank God he didn’t because sometimes he even cried.
Because his heart was hemorrhaging in his goddamned chest.
On day four, his bedroom door crashed open. “Oh my God, what the fuck is that smell?”
He rolled over. His friends stood in the doorway with matching expressions of disgust on their faces.
“What do you want?” he growled.
“We’re here to save you,” Gavin said, “but I think we’re going to need gas masks.”
“Fuck off.”
Gavin held his hand over his nose and mouth. “Seriously, Mack. It smells like