Olivia stopped at a red light and turned to Chase. “You’ve never told anyone about being raped, have you?”

Rape sounded like the wrong word. So hard. So ugly. Chase hadn’t really thought about it as rape because her father had essentially given Peter permission. But it had been rape. She’d been a child, and it didn’t matter that she’d matured early and looked more like a woman than a girl. Peter had raped her, and her father had let it happen.

Chase stared at Olivia. “Why do you think that I’ve never told anyone?”

“Have you?”

Chase turned back, directing her attention to the light that had just turned green. A horn sounded behind them.

Olivia didn’t move.

“It’s green. Go.”

“Chase?” Olivia said, her voice soft.

“Fine. No. I never told anyone. Jesus.” Chase folded her arms and clenched her jaw. “Just take me back to Cedar Point. I didn’t sign that contract. I told you that.”

“You’ll sign it,” Olivia said again, pulling forward after the car whipped around her, the driver giving her the finger.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“Well, you seem to think so,” Olivia said, turning the radio on and heading toward Malibu. “We’re doing this thing. You made sure of that.”

CHAPTER SIX

Two weeks later

Olivia bent and eased her sandals from her feet, checking that the area around her was free of glass or sharp shells. The sand on this stretch of the beach usually lacked sharp objects that would send her to the emergency room. That’s what one got with private-access beachfront. Still, she’d seen enough social media shares of simple cuts going from benign redness around a wound to death within twenty-four hours. She wasn’t quite ready to die yet. Especially from flesh-eating bacteria.

Not when she had such a Herculean task in front of her.

She straightened and searched the beach for Chase. Today was the last day of the actress’s sobriety treatment, and Chase had received a stamp from Rick, her company’s top sobriety counselor, indicating that she was physically and mentally ready to move to the next phase of the Square One program, where Chase would hopefully construct solid ground on which to build her overall recovery. Achieving sobriety and returning to a healthy physical regimen was necessary before they could begin the process of unearthing destructive behavior and learning why, how, and when triggers diverted a person’s intentions. Olivia knew that Chase’s choices to date were a result of something deeper and that she’d glimpsed what had damaged the actress while they’d been parked in the driveway of the rehab center.

Over the past couple of weeks, Olivia had become more determined to dig beneath the brittle armor Chase had carefully put back in place after she signed the contract and settled into the Malibu house. Olivia was fairly certain she could help the actress sort through the betrayal from her father, the sexual trauma, and the escape she sought through addiction, but she’d given Chase a reprieve while Rick focused on Chase getting physically healthy. Olivia would have time to help Chase grieve the past, come into conflict with what had happened to her, and then rewrite a new story.