Ash raises his eyebrows. “Connected?”

I’m about to do it, about to delve into the lie, but then something rolls through Ash and he points to the space in front of his shoes. “I want you here when you tell me this.”

“I don’t kneel for you,” I say irritably. “Not like this.”

Ash unbuttons his suit jacket. “Would you like me to make you? I would like to make you. Just say the word.”

Glaring at him, I get up and sit on the coffee table in front of his chair. “Here. I’m in front of you. Good enough?”

He gives me a slight frown, but he nods after a minute. “Yes. I can see your eyes this way.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because you were about to lie to me.”

I can’t bear his gaze right now, and I look away.

“Go ahead, Embry. This time without the lie.”

I consider. Abilene wanted me to tell a certain kind of story to Greer, and to do that, she thought I’d have to convince Ash as well. But Ash is exactly the person who would suffer the most if he knew the truth. I have to walk a narrow path between two sets of lies, and I’m not sure that I can.

“Abilene approached me in Seattle,” I say, trying to forge a thin wire of truth. “She wants us to be in a relationship. I agreed.”

“Look at me.”

I look at him.

“Why?” His voice is dispassionate but his eyes burn. “Why did you agree?”

Here the lie is also not a lie. “To protect Greer.”

“Did you fuck her?” More burning eyes.

“No.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

He relaxes. “So this arrangement—to protect Greer—is purely a public one?”

I let out a breath. “Partially private too. Greer has to believe it. That’s what Abilene wants. For Greer to believe it and be hurt by it.”

Ash regards me. “This will hurt our princess a lot, Embry. Maybe irreparably. Is this ‘protection’ worth that?”

I think of all the sacrifices I’ve made to protect the ones I love. What’s one more at this point?

“You don’t know what I’m protecting us against, Ash.”

“Can I know?”

God, above all things, Ash can’t know.

“No.”

“No what?”

Greer appears in the office, sweet and self-possessed, looking for all the world like she’s spent the morning reading T.H. White and not listening to strangers talk about her public cuckolding of Ash. I feel a spike of panic, and I look over to him, but he shakes his head as if to say don’t expect any help from me.

Belvedere pokes his head in through the door with an apology ready on his lips and Ash holds up a hand to forestall him. “It’s fine, Ryan,” he says. Belvedere disappears, looking relieved, and closes the door behind him as he does.

Greer settles onto Ash’s lap—only inches away from me perched on the coffee table—and reaches for my hand. “You told me to come find you if I felt strange after this morning,” she says quietly to Ash, pulling my hand into her lap. Despite everything, the brush of my knuckles against her thighs sends blood pumping to my groin. “Belvedere said it was only the two of you in here, so I thought…”

“You didn’t interrupt anything state related,” he assures her. “But Embry has something he needs to talk to us about.”

She turns those huge silver eyes on me, and I think of all the times I’ve already let her down. How she must have felt after Chicago, all those times I met her and Ash still smelling like whoever I’d just fucked. The moment I let my inner monster take her in Carpathia and let our twisted connection be captured on film.

Shame fills me, but no shame is enough to outweigh the fear of Abilene right now. So I just say it. The lie that will tear her apart and hopefully save us all.

“Your cousin and I started dating. I thought you should know.”

When I get to Number One Observatory Circle, I already know who’ll be waiting for me there. My security team radioed while I was in the car, and I gave them permission to let her through the gates, but it’s still jarring to see Abilene Corbenic perched on my veranda swing as I walk up the steps.

“Hello, loverboy,” she purrs teasingly—and convincingly—as she stands up to greet me. “How’d it go? What was her face like?”

I think of the way Greer’s shoulders had stiffened, her fast blinks as she let go of my hand. But I thought it was just the three of us now. Are Ash and I not enough for you?

“Fuck you,” I tell Abilene in a pleasant voice. I stick my house key in the lock and realize the door isn’t locked; I must have forgotten to lock it up last time I was here.

She follows me inside after I open the door. “But really—her face, Embry. Did she look angry? Hurt? Confused?”

You’re more than enough, but Abilene is special, Greer. I can’t help it.

You have to help it. My wedding night—you promised to cherish me—we all promised to try to make this work!

And then the lie that stung the most of all because it confirmed her worst fears about me. You know how I am, princess. I like to fuck lots of people. I don’t like to stay in one place too long, and Abilene is my new place.

She bit that plump lower lip, her composure struggling. Is it because I’m not as pretty as her? As fun? The words rushed out, like they were against her will, like she couldn’t bear to say them and yet they couldn’t bear not to be said.