I was six when my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. It was a painful and unexpected loss, but I focused on my future as I grew up, he didn’t get a full long life so I want to live mine fully in his honour. I thought I could use my inheritance to get myself ahead somehow. He spent so much time investing and working his way up in the real estate firm to build a solid pot for us to live with. He wanted us to be able to keep up with his peers, as well as getting an education for me. But my mother, Eleanor, had something to say about that. She lost her husband, and because of that, she thought she was entitled to all of his money. That was the first time she told me she wished I was never born. I’ve seen pictures of my parents when they were younger, so in love and happy. But the woman in those pictures at fancy galas is not the one that raised me. I don’t think she every really wanted to be a mum. It was just the thing everyone around her was doing so she felt like she would have been an outsider if she didn’t and she couldn’t stand that. She was a perfect wife and for her, that meant she had to be a mother, too. Even with her lack of maternal instinct, Eleanor was hardened further by my dad’s death, and I was all that was left of him. She planned to make me great, someone who, in her eyes, would be a good wife and marry rich so I wouldn’t need my father’s money.

But I haven’t married rich, and she didn’t get her money. In his will, I was his main beneficiary. I thought about giving it to her, thought that if I did she might let me be free. But it was too big of a risk. Instead, when I turned eighteen, I left her a note telling her why I was leaving and jumped on the first flight from London to Seattle. I wanted to be out of her clutches and using Dad’s money was the only way I could do that. I may have gotten out from under my mum’s thumb, but I’m not free. Now, instead of being ruled by her, my own body rules me instead.

Liam holds me, stroking a gentle hand through my hair in what I think is an attempt to slow my heaving breaths. He murmurs against my hair to follow his breathing.

“Ellis, please. I need you to breathe in for four,” he says, worried. I try my hardest to follow along with his commands. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for four.