I close my eyes and breathe in. It’s never been an issue that she has access to my email account. She has access to everything. Everything but my black heart. “Mind your business, Sarah,” I mutter, done with this place already. I get up and grab my suit off the back of the door.

“Is that where you’ve been recently?” she asks. “Fucking the interior designer?” There’s laughter in her tone, and it gets right under my skin. “Jesus, Jesse, she must be ten years younger than you.”

My jaw ticks, my eyes burning holes through the door before me. Don’t bite. “I’m not fucking her,” I grate, incensed by her assumption. Although, painfully, I have no right to be annoyed.

She starts laughing, and it’s like blades cutting my flesh. “Then what are you trying to do? Woo her?” She laughs some more, and I slowly pivot, my suit hanging from one hand, my face straight. Her eyes sparkle delightedly. The twisted bitch is getting a sick thrill out of baiting me.

“Shut the fuck up, Sarah.”

She smirks, standing, the bodice she’s wearing pushing her fake tits up to her chin. “You know only this life, Jesse.” Her hands rest on my desk when she bends, leaning in, getting closer. “You’d be a fool to think you can manage without it.”

“Or without you?” I ask, swinging my suit bag over my shoulder. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You think I can’t survive without you.” She’s right to an extent. Keeping Sarah close, looking out for her, defending her when she upsets someone—which is a lot—has always offered me a twisted sense of redemption. Because despite what I did to Carmichael, despite what she did too, he would want to know she’s okay. That’s just how he was. Always happy. Always forgiving. Always compassionate. Never held a grudge, and my father’s contempt for him was proof of that. So was Sarah’s attraction to me. He knew how she felt. I knew he knew. She knew he knew. Everyone knew he knew. But he’d smile it off. Tell me he trusted no one in the world more than me, that Sarah was a natural-born flirt, and her confidence was one of the things he loved about her. Their relationship wasn’t exclusive. But it didn’t stretch to me.

I let him down.

I know he’d forgive me for being weak. For betraying him. For falling into Sarah’s clutches. But I wasn’t blessed with his clemency. He didn’t have the opportunity to absolve me of my wrongs, because he died, and that is entirely my fault.

Like Jake. Like Rosie.

All my fucking fault.

“No woman will accept you as long as we’re together,” she retorts, though there are threads of doubt in her words, and they are warranted.