She looked away. “Blaine is my aunt’s godson, the child of her childhood friend who died young. After my mother died and Aunt Margaret came to live with us, Blaine visited her. He showed up at family parties. That sort of thing. He’s six years older than me.”

“Were you friends?”

A small shudder passed through her frame. “No. But I had a crush on him when I was a teen.”

Conor stroked her arm. She inhaled, and he knew the story was coming.

“On my sixteenth birthday, my aunt threw a huge party. Of course, Blaine was there. It was noisy and crowded with people I didn’t know. Most of the guests were Aunt Margaret’s friends. My father had missed his flight home from Munich, and I was heartbroken. He’d been touring Europe, lecturing, and I hadn’t seen him for several months. Blaine found me hiding in the library, crying. He grabbed a bottle of champagne and talked me into going down to the boathouse with him. My aunt was very strict, and I’d seen my father’s drinking problem up close. I’d never had more than a sip of alcohol before. But I was so angry and hurt, I thought maybe I’d just follow in his footsteps.” She paused, her eyelids falling to half-mast, disgust flattening her lips.

“It’s OK,” Conor encouraged. “You’ll feel better if you get it out.”

But she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “The next thing I knew, it was morning and we were both naked. I didn’t remember anything. I’d never had sex, but it was obvious that’s what had happened.”

Picturing a young and vulnerable Louisa, Conor clenched a fist and rapped it against his thigh. “What did Blaine say?”

“He was enthusiastic about doing it again.” Two bright spots of color rose into her cheeks.

“How old was Blaine at the time?”

“Twenty-two.”

Twenty-two-year-old boys generally knew how to drink. Conor had seen more than one guy try to get a girl wasted to get into her bed. “I assume he’d had alcohol before?”

“He was in a fraternity. Alcohol consumption seemed to be his major at the time.”

“Not you, though.” No, Louisa had good girl written all over her.

A sad smile twisted her lips. “I didn’t have much of a social life. Like Zoe, I was years younger than my classmates. At sixteen, I’d just received my bachelor’s degree, but I’d never been to a college party. Frankly, I was a pathetically obedient teen. The total trying-to-win-Daddy’s-approval-by-being-perfect cliché. If I disappointed my aunt in any way, the first thing she did was call my father to tell him.”

Conor’s heart pinged. Louisa identified with her lonely young intern. Both had been preyed upon, but Zoe had likely ended up dead.