Cheeks flaming bright red, she rose to point at it, careful not to touch now that he was watching. “This one.”

She heard the snap of a glove and almost jumped out of her skin.

Swallowing a lump the size of a golf ball, she mentally calmed herself down and remained in place as he plucked out the yearbook with one gloved hand. Suddenly her every inhale of air was scented of him. He smelled natural and clean and terribly good.

Only inches away, she regarded him in confusion and awe as he bent his head. A lock of hair fell on his forehead as he thumbed through the pages.

Something in that visual made her breathless. She had a vivid image of his lips fusing with hers, of her hands in his hair, and insanely thought of sun and warmth and mint and apple juice. Her mouth began to burn so badly, she brought three fingertips to fleetingly feel her lips.

His head jerked up, his eyes flashing a bright, fiery green, and the startling move made her drop her hand. “Were you aware of a page missing?”

“I …” She nervously moved away and said, “Yes.”

He set the book down, and she became the sole focus of his attention. She struggled not to squirm under his brutally intense regard. “If you don’t trust me, I can’t help you, Paige.”

Help. Someone was offering to help her. She had denied that she needed help for years, but what if she did? What if this stranger helped her?

Gathering her courage, she confided, “He left a note. A message.”

A black brow rose. “He?”

“Or she.”

“Do you still have it?”

She fished the torn page piece by piece out of her pocket, holding them out while seeing herself as she’d been less than an hour ago, hissing through her teeth and tearing the page like a mad person. “Son of a bitch! You …” She had ripped the paper into shreds just as the bastard had her family’s precious pictures downstairs, gritting her teeth until she thought they’d crack. “I won’t stay quiet, I won’t … forget forever, I won’t give you the satisfaction!”

She’d destroyed evidence! God, how sick was that!

“You tore it,” he said.

She thought she’d burst from the embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to say. “I shouldn’t have done that. It just made me so angry.”

A restless muscle jumped in the back of his jaw as he fixed his attention on the small pieces she’d handed him.

She could see him sorting them out in his mind. The image was branded in hers. Mocking. Twisted. Infuriating and … frightening.

In the yearbook photo, she’d been a smiling, glimmery-eyed senior. Her pet peeve? Natural disasters. And there, under “goals,” where the true goals of an innocent eighteen-year-old—“world peace and no hunger”—had been scratched off, bright red words replaced them.

MEET DADDY IN HELL.

SOON, MY DEAR.

“I didn’t mean to destroy it,” she said meekly.