rough use making her feel safer than every considerate kiss from every ex-boyfriend she’d ever had—that’s all she could think about. She didn’t know the name of the man who kissed her like she was his world before climbing back out the window he’d crept through hours before.
And she wasn’t going to find out until tomorrow, when she would be forced to come clean to her sister and confess the nightmarish thing she’d done.
Harley might actually forgive her—she didn’t tend to get too attached to her lovers, especially the summer boys she used to entertain her between epic trips abroad—but the stranger would hate her. He was in love with her sister. He thought he’d been making love to Harley, not a complete stranger.
As Hannah lay in the dark, in sheets that still smelled of sex and sweat, she was forced to admit that she was a terrible person. She wasn’t the good twin, after all. She was weak and selfish and obviously unfit to become a psychiatrist and counsel troubled kids, not when she was so messed up in the head that she’d slept with her sister’s boyfriend.
The first time, he hadn’t given her time to protest, but she could have stopped things before they came together again, before he held her on his chest and promised she would always be under his protection, or before she whispered “I love you, too” as he eased out onto the tree limb beneath the second story window.
Liar. She was such a miserable liar.
She didn’t know if Harley loved the man, but Hannah barely knew him. It was impossible to love a man you had just met and barely spoken to aside from some scalding hot pillow talk.
She knew that, but as she got up to put the sheets on to wash and start a pot of coffee—sleep was going to be impossible, might as well help the insomnia along—she couldn’t help wishing that she didn’t have to tell her stranger the truth. A selfish, wicked part of her secretly hoped that Harley would never come back to her summer apartment, that she would hop the next flight to Paris and disappear the way she sometimes did, usually right when Hannah needed her the most.
And then Hannah could meet the man again, learn his name, and start figuring out what it would take to make him hers.
In the years to come, she would think of that selfish, wicked wish again and again, wondering if wishes like that had a power others didn’t. Wondering if her greedy longing was the reason her sister had been murdered and Hannah would never see her best friend’s face again.
Even when her Aunt Sybil spirited her away from Harley’s very private, very secret wake, insisting it was past time she learned about the darkness that haunted their family, Hannah couldn’t bring herself to blame fate or her father’s enemies for her sister’s death.
She would never forget that one wonderful, terrible night, or that she had wished that Harley would disappear and that hours later she had.
Forever.
CHAPTER THREE
Hannah
Six years later
Freedom doesn’t come for free. Neither does forgiveness.
Every step Hannah had taken from the moment she’d learned Harley was dead, to the morning she awoke to find Aunt Sybil crying on the back steps of their storm-battered bed and breakfast, had been taken with one goal in mind: Absolution.
She wanted more than survival. She wanted release. She wanted to shed her skin and leave the sins of her former life far behind her. But the past has long arms and sharp claws that dig in deep and hold on tight. The past was a monkey on her back. A monkey with an ugly sense of humor she swore she could hear cackling at her attempts to escape the Mason family curse.
In the past six years, The Mahana Guesthouse had been damaged by gale force winds, lost three cottages in an electrical fire, suffered through two Dengue fever outbreaks that scared the tourists away for months, and nearly been reclaimed by the sea when Hurricane Isra swept through last week.
The morning after the storm,
And she wasn’t going to find out until tomorrow, when she would be forced to come clean to her sister and confess the nightmarish thing she’d done.
Harley might actually forgive her—she didn’t tend to get too attached to her lovers, especially the summer boys she used to entertain her between epic trips abroad—but the stranger would hate her. He was in love with her sister. He thought he’d been making love to Harley, not a complete stranger.
As Hannah lay in the dark, in sheets that still smelled of sex and sweat, she was forced to admit that she was a terrible person. She wasn’t the good twin, after all. She was weak and selfish and obviously unfit to become a psychiatrist and counsel troubled kids, not when she was so messed up in the head that she’d slept with her sister’s boyfriend.
The first time, he hadn’t given her time to protest, but she could have stopped things before they came together again, before he held her on his chest and promised she would always be under his protection, or before she whispered “I love you, too” as he eased out onto the tree limb beneath the second story window.
Liar. She was such a miserable liar.
She didn’t know if Harley loved the man, but Hannah barely knew him. It was impossible to love a man you had just met and barely spoken to aside from some scalding hot pillow talk.
She knew that, but as she got up to put the sheets on to wash and start a pot of coffee—sleep was going to be impossible, might as well help the insomnia along—she couldn’t help wishing that she didn’t have to tell her stranger the truth. A selfish, wicked part of her secretly hoped that Harley would never come back to her summer apartment, that she would hop the next flight to Paris and disappear the way she sometimes did, usually right when Hannah needed her the most.
And then Hannah could meet the man again, learn his name, and start figuring out what it would take to make him hers.
In the years to come, she would think of that selfish, wicked wish again and again, wondering if wishes like that had a power others didn’t. Wondering if her greedy longing was the reason her sister had been murdered and Hannah would never see her best friend’s face again.
Even when her Aunt Sybil spirited her away from Harley’s very private, very secret wake, insisting it was past time she learned about the darkness that haunted their family, Hannah couldn’t bring herself to blame fate or her father’s enemies for her sister’s death.
She would never forget that one wonderful, terrible night, or that she had wished that Harley would disappear and that hours later she had.
Forever.
CHAPTER THREE
Hannah
Six years later
Freedom doesn’t come for free. Neither does forgiveness.
Every step Hannah had taken from the moment she’d learned Harley was dead, to the morning she awoke to find Aunt Sybil crying on the back steps of their storm-battered bed and breakfast, had been taken with one goal in mind: Absolution.
She wanted more than survival. She wanted release. She wanted to shed her skin and leave the sins of her former life far behind her. But the past has long arms and sharp claws that dig in deep and hold on tight. The past was a monkey on her back. A monkey with an ugly sense of humor she swore she could hear cackling at her attempts to escape the Mason family curse.
In the past six years, The Mahana Guesthouse had been damaged by gale force winds, lost three cottages in an electrical fire, suffered through two Dengue fever outbreaks that scared the tourists away for months, and nearly been reclaimed by the sea when Hurricane Isra swept through last week.
The morning after the storm,
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