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Charlotte didn’t think. She turned and nearly ran from the house, up the hallway and past the front room where the others were gathered. She didn’t even stop to grab her purse.

Her chest felt like it was caving beneath the betrayal of two people she adored. Yes, she had secrets, but they had to do with her past. This was something they both knew but specifically didn’t want to tell her. Though they called her name, Charlotte didn’t stop until a hand grabbed her arm from behind.

“Charlotte—”

“Not now,” she said to Torr. Without stopping, she continued down the path toward the street until he grabbed her once again.

“Yes, now.”

She spun around. “I can’t. I need to go—”

“Talk to me. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

She shook her head. “I . . .” Charlotte couldn’t breathe. “They . . . lied.” Despite the fact that she’d told him she didn’t want to talk about it, she found herself doing the exact opposite.

“Torr, they lied to me. My best friends. I was in the bathroom. I didn’t mean to overhear, but . . . I heard their voices in the kitchen and thought I’d go in there to talk to them.”

She stopped short of explaining what she’d wanted to talk to them about.

Although the street was abandoned—the two mansions sitting side by side were the only two homes on the block—Charlotte looked behind her before continuing.

“Come this way,” Torr said suddenly, nodding toward his brother’s house.

She followed numbly, her hands trembling. Alessandra and Toni were the last two people she’d ever expected to lie to her. Taking a deep breath as an errant leaf fell onto the sidewalk in front of her, she briefly wondered if she was foolish to follow Torr Derrickson home. He was, after all, the same man who had brushed his fingers between her legs at dinner.

Then again, what was the alternative? To go home and cry alone?

When Torr led her to the front porch, which wrapped around the entirety of the first floor, she began to pace. And proceeded to spill everything.

“I never meant to eavesdrop,” she repeated. “But when I heard my name . . . or maybe not my name, but I knew they were talking about me. They were discussing whether they should tell me something. Toni thought they should, but Alessandra seemed hesitant.”

She stopped.

He looked so freaking normal right now.

Hot, as always. That was just a part of him. But there was no cocky grin, no guarded expression. He stood there with his arms crossed, listening to her as if he cared about every last word bubbling up from her mouth.

“What did they say?” he prompted.

Charlotte reached up to smooth her hair.

“Anyway, they weren’t sure if they should tell me. Then they said some word I didn’t recognize and something about vampires.”

Torr’s arms flexed. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, so she could see them clearly. He probably didn’t even realize he’d done it. And then something occurred to her . . .

“They didn’t come after me—”

“I told them I’d talk to you.”

Something changed in the air between them. It wasn’t his words, precisely, but the serious air in which he’d delivered them. Torr wisecracked and joked. He didn’t do serious—or at least he hadn’t in the three times she’d been in his presence. Where did she get off thinking she knew him?

And yet she felt she did.

“Talk to me?” she repeated, making it a question.

“Sit down,” he said more gently than he’d ever spoken to her before.

Those words had only been said to her like that once before—they’d preceded her father’s revelation that they were about to lose everything. His company. His presence. Their houses. The cars. All of it.