Unknown number:You always did have a talent for humiliating people.
The world tilts.
I can practically hear his voice in those words. Smooth. Controlled. Cutting. My father doesn’t send messages—he sends precision strikes. He doesn’t need exclamation marks or all caps. Just a few carefully chosen words to slice you open.
My heart stumbles, then rockets into a sprint.
He knows where I am. He found me.
The room suddenly feels too small. Too exposed. I look wildly around like there’s a camera tucked in the curtains, a lens at the crack of the door. The photo is from the night at the lake. That means whoever took it was there. Watching us.
My skin crawls.
“Faith?” Dallas is still thick with sleep. “Everything okay?”
Okay?
Nope. Absolutely not. Not even in the neighborhood of okay.
I angle the screen away on instinct. Like the proof will burn him if he sees it.
Dallas reaches for my wrist, and I jerk back like I’ve been shocked.
He pushes up on one elbow, eyes narrowing against the light.
“Hey,” he says, softer now. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t seem to pull my gaze away from the words.
You always did have a talent for humiliating people.
The old, familiar shame slams into me hard and fast. It’s been waiting just offstage for its cue. Memories pile up.
My father’s face when I spilled an entire glass of red wine on a donor’s white blouse at a gala. His tight smile as he took me aside afterward. “Do you enjoy making me look like a fool, Faith?”
His voice on the phone when I said I wanted to try an art class instead of another business elective. “You have no idea how childish you sound.”
What will he do with this? With me in a small town, in a cowboy’s arms, after vanishing from a wedding he sold as a merger?
What will he do to Dallas?
My throat closes.
“Faith,” Dallas says again, more urgently. “Talk to me.”
I realize my hands are shaking. The phone trembles between my fingers.
“I…” The word scrapes. “I need to go.”
Dallas blinks. “Go where? What happened?”
I sit up too fast, dragging the sheet with me. The room spins. I yank my clothes from the chair, pulling them on with fumbling fingers. My heart is hammering so loud I can hardly hear myself think.
“I just… I have to get home,” I manage. “To my mom’s. I can’t… I can’t be here.”
Tears sting my eyes. I blink them back, furious at myself, at him, at the whole messed-up world that taught me the easiest way to survive was to keep my head down and my voice soft.
“What’s going on, Faith? What happened?”
