He waits with endless patience. I can see the bulge in his slacks. I can see his arousal, but it doesn’t change anything. This is for me, which makes it somehow more humiliating that I should derive my pleasure in this way.

I rock my hips experimentally. The pressure feels wrong.

His fingers, his mouth, his cock. I’ve been spoiled by a man who knows how to please me.

But this? This is awkward. And ironically that’s what makes it hotter.

I rock again and close my eyes.

“No,” he says. “Watch me.”

I look into his eyes, into their fathomless depth, as I press my sex to the top of his shoe, again and again, until climax overtakes me in a sudden, bright, almost painful burst.

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Emily Rochester

I don’t like the courthouse.

I’ve never liked it, from the time I went to school here. The building’s the same style as most of the city buildings, but something about the courthouse just feels foreboding and vaguely threatening. It’s one of those places where your life can be made or ruined.

Neither of those things happened to me today, unless your life is ruined if you have to testify against your brother, which I did.

It’s over now, and I want to leave. Paige is with Beau and Jane, and I want to get back to her. I want to get back to anywhere that’s not this trial, and this courthouse. Anywhere I can be with my daughter and out from under the dark cloud of my brother’s actions.

Getting out won’t be easy.

I mean to exit the courthouse at full speed. It’s not an option. Reporters crowd around the door. They stand in front of it and block me from opening it all the way, and when they let me out, they’re like snapping dogs.

Not the kind of crowd you’d probably see in a big city, but enough of one that my stomach turns over. I don’t want to have to push my way through them. Step close enough and they converge on you. They’re not afraid to jostle.

I hold my purse tighter and try to keep my head down. It’s pointless. I’m the woman who came back from the dead. I testified against my brother. Shutters click, again and again and again until I want to scream.

One voice cuts through the others. A voice I hate. This photographer is always pushy. Always in my face.

“How did it feel to go against your own family today, Emily?” he shouts. He’s so loud. “What message do you think this sends to your daughter?”

“No comment.” I want to say more. I want to tell him to shut the hell up about Paige and never mention her name again, but then that’s the story.