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I gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turned white. Pete Greenway. He’d been on my mind for the last year. There was no reason for me to detour and go to Montana like I had. Iknew that. It was a huge risk stopping anywhere for long when I knew my parents would have found out I was gone by now, and Jonah’s fury would have spurred a nationwide search for me, regardless of the letter I’d left and the fact that the huge, six-carat diamond ring that once belonged to his grandmother had been lying a top it. That should have been enough for him to understand that I was done—that I couldn’t pretend anymore. That the life I’d been forced to live was anything I wanted.
Maybe at one point I’d loved Jonah. But that shallow kind of love wasn’t enough anymore. I’d wasted my twenties appeasing my parents. I’d spent my life trapped by their wealth and heavy expectations. I’d gone to the private schools where my only friends were chosen by them. Chosen because their families aligned with my own in terms of wealth, lineage, and prowess. They’d chosen who I dated, vetting every man who came to call and my opinions on the matter weren’t ever a part of the equation.
Then there was Jonah. Jonah Lawley, son of Senator Lawley, heir to a banking dynasty that stretched as far back as the Revolution. My parents took one look at him and decided, when I was twenty, that he was the man I was going to marry. That I was going to be his dutiful, smiling, posh and perfect wife while Jonah rose to political power and my own family’s name rose with him.
In a world of wealth and luxury, I fell into the class of new money. My parents had acted like the fact that our wealth only spanned a single generation was some kind of oppression. But me marrying into a dynasty… Well, that was their saving grace, and when Jonah’s father pitched the idea to mine, my fate was sealed.
I’d thought Jonah was interested in me. He’d courted me so passionately and swept me off my feet. I’d loved him deeply before I started to realize that everything about my life was already planned out. I’d been happy when he proposed to me four years ago. I’d been twenty-five at the time—young, naïve, and the attention that came with that advantageous engagement was so full of love and pride from my parents that for the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing something that made them truly proud.
But how stupid had I been to believe any of it was real, that it had been my choice?
A four-year engagement was a long, long time, wasn’t it?
Once that ring was on my finger my life effectively ended. I still had to live with my parents. Even with a prestigious business degree, I wasn’t allowed to work. I was made to follow my mother around like a duckling as she fluttered through her life, attending parties, and committees that gave the allusion of charity when it reality is only to show me off, show off the ring on my finger, show off who her daughter was marrying.
But the wedding date was a mystery to even me. Jonah ran for public office and lost, badly. After that, everything about our relationship changed. He was mean, cold, uninterested in me. Instead of seeing the truth behind his indifferent behavior after we got engaged, I did everything in my power to win him back, and only ended up falling deeper into the life I’d just escaped.
The mistresses stopped being a secret. His gambling was brought into the spotlight. His bad behavior did nothing to stop my parents from pushing me to try until I was left with nothing of a shell of who I was once was.
I was still pretty. I was still the glowing debutant with sensual curves and thick, dark hair that I kept long because Jonah had said it liked it that way once. I dressed in pastels, everything that touched my skin was designer. Every jewel, every pin in my hair, dripping with gold.
But it wasn’t enough.
I tried to end things. I went to my parents for help when Jonah lashed out at me about it. It was clear over a year ago that he didn’t want me, but only wanted possession of me. Only wanted the money that had been promised to him in exchange for my hand.
My entire trust fund,worth millions.
Trying to end things with him had spurred desperation in my parents and his father. His father needed that money to help get his son into politics to carry on the family tradition. My meek disposition and eagerness to please was his father’s saving grace. I would save his son.
So, the wedding date was finalized.
And Iran.
A year ago, I’d come to Hot Springs with a few of my girlfriends from college—the friends I’d kept a secret from everyone else. They were the kind of friends I was never allowed to associate with, coming from all different kinds of backgrounds. I’d lied to my parents about going to California to go shopping, saying that Jonah liked a specific designer and I needed to be fitted for a new wardrobe to try to make him happy.
Instead, I’d been picked up in at the airport in LA and spent a week on a road trip, lying through my teeth every time my parents called.
They had no idea I’d gone to a town where cowboys walked around—dirty, sweaty, dripping with pride and confidence, their hands rough and weathered from real hard work.
They had no idea I’d gone to a bar with my friends and drank whiskey and cheap beer until my body began to sway with music I hadn’t been able to listen to back home.
They had no idea I met a man who’d taken my breath away, or that I’d gone back to that same bar a year later and done what I hadn’t had the confidence to do the first time.
Pete had haunted my dreams for an entire year. Going back to Hot Springs was… the best mistake I’d ever made.
My phone rang in the passenger seat and I snatched it up, looking down at the screen. It was a burner phone, of course. Something cheap I’d bought at Walmart after I left home in the middle of the night.
“Hey,” I rasped.
“Where are you?” Jane asked, her voice heavy with concern. Jane, my best friend from college, my biggest secret. My lifeline, at the moment.
“Somewhere in Montana,” I replied, swallowing thickly. I was thirty and tired. “I’m on my way to Washington now,” I continued. “I think I can get there by nightfall.”
“You should rest at some point.”
“I… rested a bit last night,” I said through gritted teeth, regret whispering over my skin. Jane made a noise that told me she knew that was a lie.
“Where?”
