Looking back, it had been the same with Ben. He was the first guy to be interested in me and actually wanted to have sex with me, and I’d just been so . . . so damn lonely. I just wanted to be wanted, and I stayed with him well past the expiration date on that romance just because I so desperately wanted to feel again.

This was a consequence of reading way too many romance novels, because I wanted what the characters I read about had. The mind-blowing, all-consuming attraction like I had for—

I cut those thoughts off, opening my eyes. I was not going down that road. No way. No how. I’d been doing so good for the . . . for the most part.

Okay. I was kind of lying to myself.

Truth was, there wasn’t a week that went by where I didn’t think about Brock. It used to be not a day would pass. Sometimes even an hour. Making it to a week without wondering if he was happy was a major life improvement, so I wasn’t going to go backward just because he randomly appeared at the restaurant last night.

I’ll see you again soon.

A shiver danced over my skin. What the hell could he mean by that? Unless he was planning to hang around town and make use of the training facility here, there was no reason our paths should cross. Even though he hadn’t mentioned the fact that I would be working for the family business, I wouldn’t be at all shocked if Dad had mentioned it to him.

Knocking a strand of hair off my face, I thought about the first time I’d seen Brock. It had been in the middle of the night and I’d woken from a nightmare. Whatever I’d been dreaming about I couldn’t remember, but I had been thirsty, so I’d left my bedroom.

Cold sweat dotted my forehead as I held onto the railing, quietly creeping down the staircase. Hearing my father’s voice, I stopped a few steps from the bottom. Daddy sounded weird to me, his tone tense, like I sometimes heard him speak to my uncles.

“When’s the last time you ate, boy?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” an unfamiliar voice, filled with hesitation, responded. “The night before last, I think.”

Curious, I tiptoed down to the last step and peered around the wall. I saw my daddy standing in the center of the room, arms folded across his chest. Then I saw a boy several years older than me, sitting on the edge of the couch.

I placed a hand over my mouth when I saw his face. There was a gash on his forehead and a horrible cut under his lip, one that looked angry and raw. An eye was swollen and black.