I looked away, the trembling worse, the pain resurfacing. Vast assortments of pain. Entire collections.

She was right. We’d been found where we thought we were safe in Baja. We’d been dragged back. And the torture hadn’t been just for Tommy for overstepping his bounds, daring to fall in love with the king’s princess, taking her away.

The torture had been for me too.

We both had a lesson to learn.

Everyone associated with Vincent Shade had a lesson to learn.

But I’d been first.

There was a small area of skin on Tommy’s left cheekbone that looked like it was melting.

He’d endured that for five minutes and renounced me. Promised it was over. Accepted his punishment of working by my side and never again touching me. Ending forever what we’d had. And last, committing his future to my father’s sister’s daughter.

He’d married my cousin three months later.

But for ages, Tommy had watched the oil poured along the small of my back, my upper hips, and I had not renounced him. He’d shouted. Cursed. Fought against his restraints. Begged them to burn him.

But when they turned to him, he hadn’t endured his long.

I’d endured it silently, focusing as best I could on making new plans. Plans for when it was over, we were healed and it was time to try again (this time successfully). The oil dripped on my back while I decided our next destination. How we’d get there. How we’d cover our tracks. At the same time hoping with each drop gliding pure agony, I was proving to my father that I loved the man I was accepting torment for so he’d find it in him to simply let us be free.

“Liv, sissy, you need to give up on him too,” Georgia told me gently.

Her words brought me back into the room.

“He’s a soldier, nothing more. He’s not yours. He’s ours,” she went on. “And he needs to do his job.”

She was correct.

In this world where we lived, she was absolutely correct.

It was just that I didn’t want to live in a world where things like that were the way you lived.

“Right now I hate you,” I whispered.

Her shoulders slumped slightly, but that was all she gave to me.

“It isn’t the first time,” she replied.

She was again absolutely right.

She was my sister.

But she was also her father’s daughter.

And I detested him.

“No,” I agreed and watched her fight the flinch. “And I’m sure not the last.”

Still holding my eyes, she started to round her desk. “Liv—”

“Fuck you, Georgia,” I bit out and she halted at another rare reaction from me.

“I’ll give you time,” she offered.

“Excellent call,” I returned, reaching out a hand to the doorknob. I opened the door and started through but turned back to share, “David’s hiding something. I’m leaving for the day and working from home for the foreseeable future. I’ll cover his duties while he’s out of commission. Until I find out what he’s hiding and how bad it is, you need to use your inestimable skills to shut him down. I’m sure I can count on you doing that.”

“Liv—”

I raised a brow as I interrupted her. “I can’t count on you to do that?”

Her mouth got tight before she forced out, “It’s done. I’ll go with Gill personally.”

I made no reply.

I walked across the hall, trying to ignore Tommy leaning a broad shoulder against my doorjamb.

“Liv,” he said quietly as I moved his way.

I made no response.

He shifted as I got close so I could enter my office.

He entered it with me and closed the door behind him.

“Liv,” he repeated.

Stopping behind my desk, I did not sit. I turned and looked at him.

“Now is not a good time.”

Something flashed across his face I’d seen a lot over the years. Too much. He should have learned to hide it. If not for him, for me. I’d learned how to do it for him.

Now, I wondered if he didn’t do that just so he could manipulate me.

That something was pain.

“She’s pregnant.”

At his words, my throat closed.

“Georgia has recovery plans. They might work this time. That woman your dad gave me to coming up pregnant…” It seemed he was going to say something else but shut it down in order to say, “I need to take care of my family. I needed to make that statement of loyalty. I—” he gave his explanation, much of which again I already knew.

But now he was in with Georgia and knew of her “recovery plans?”

It was worse than I thought.

And…

His family?

“Please be quiet,” I requested.

The pain in his eyes deepened.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“I disagree,” I replied.

“It’s always only been you,” he whispered.

“Funny,” I returned instantly. “When I was getting thoroughly and satisfyingly fucked against a wall last night, it wasn’t even a little bit about you.”

He flinched.

I didn’t feel that flinch.

I was over this.

All of it.

All of Tommy, our tragic history, or nonexistent future.

All of everything.

I couldn’t let it hurt me anymore.

I had to move on.

“I’m sure you have work to do,” I noted leadingly.