Avery thought of her afternoon, her trip to the marina, and her long walk through the streets of Manhattan where she tried to settle her own troubling memories. She had done her best to distance herself from the Montgomery family wounds, at least to hide from them. Specifically, she had tried to escape her connection to the Thief of Manhattan, as her father was known in the press. Her father’s infamy was why she had an uneasy feeling as she sat next to a former FBI agent, and her torrid past explained why she was thrown off by her attraction to Walt Jenkins. The battle that waged between her former and current selves was all consuming. It dominated both her professional and private life. It had prevented Avery from having a meaningful relationship with a man for the past many years. Her last serious relationship had been with a fellow student during her second year of law school. She ended things when the truth about her father’s firm began to trickle out to the public and the ramifications reared their ugly heads. She knew the years spent learning the law were as wasted as if she had spent them in a crack house. No law firm or municipality would hire Garth Montgomery’s daughter to put criminals behind bars. The irony would be too great for even the dysfunctional political system of the United States to swallow.

Her storied history explained why Avery was thirty-two years old and had never been in love. Relationships were tricky. Real relationships—ones that went further than a couple of months of off-and-on dating. Because beyond that point things became confusing with men. She didn’t quite know where her life as Avery Mason started and that of Claire Montgomery ended. Those dual personalities overlapped in ways that made honesty a monumental challenge. Her mind had attempted many times to navigate the serpentine roads that made up the early conversations at the start of a relationship, when both parties shared stories about their pasts, about their childhoods, about their parents and siblings. For Claire Montgomery, the canvas of her past was splattered with the drippings of a frantic artist gone mad. For Avery Mason, that canvas was blank. That both identities were forever bound by a hatred toward the father who betrayed his family complicated matters. That she couldn’t stop herself from loving the son of a bitch only made things more confusing. Put it all together and it was not hard to see why Avery welcomed men into her life—and specifically into her bed—with great trepidation.

She snapped herself back from her thoughts.

“You were in Jamaica when I called?”

Walt nodded. “I was.”

“What’s in Jamaica?”

“Some really good rum and a dog named Bureau.”

“Who’s taking care of the dog?”