On the bright side, her work was getting done by someone else. She hadn’t seen Luke since the coffee shop on Monday, but he’d called her both nights since then. They didn’t have phone sex last night, just talked. It was strange yet soothing. She couldn’t remember exactly what they said, and she thought she might actually have cried, but she couldn’t say for sure. Sometimes she felt like she was in another world, disconnected. Luke’s voice brought her back.

He’d tried to get her to meet him for coffee again, but she’d put him off. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but there was so much pressure in rushing to work and rushing home again. Besides he made her nervous. What else would he ask for? She was still amazed he wanted to date her. She hadn’t dated since college. Dating had been bad, twisting her insides up. She’d given it up for simply having sex. With sex, she was more in control. With sex, it was just physical. She didn’t have to give them anything. For a little while, a man desired her and she was special. That’s all she’d wanted and needed for a long time. When a man stopped making her feel that way, he was replaceable.

Then suddenly, there was Luke, offering more, and after the initial rush of inexplicable fear—most women would have died and gone to heaven for a man like Luke to take her out for expensive dinners at fancy restaurants—Bree had started to think about it. Wanting something more than sex from a man always made you vulnerable. You got dependent on that something. Still, over the past two days, she’d fantasized about a real date. Finally, she’d started to want it.

Except that her father was dying in the hospital bed she’d consigned him to on Sunday.

“Brianna, would you give him the morphine? He won’t take it from me.” Her mother held the pill in the palm of her hand.

Bree shuddered as if it were a big, ugly spider. She’d been peeling potatoes for dinner. Her mom did most of the caretaking, running up and down the hall so many times she was wearing new holes in the tired old carpeting.

But there were things Bree couldn’t avoid, like feeding him. Or getting him to take those damn pills.

“I’ll try, Mom.” She washed her hands, dried them, took the pill, and left her mother to finish the peeling.

In the bedroom, the bed was cranked up to a sitting position so her father could watch TV. She wasn’t sure he understood the words anymore, but the flickering images were something he could fixate on.

She sidled around the bed, putting her back to the window and the dollhouse still visible in the quickly fading twilight. His flesh was sallow, and jaundice had set in. His veins were a patchwork of blue lines beneath his paper-thin skin. She had to cover his legs, which were no thicker than sticks; the sight of them frightened her. He was four days and a hundred years worse than he’d been at the beginning of the week when the hospice man had put him in the bed.

“Here’s your pill, Father.” She held it out along with the cup and its straw, not telling him it was the morphine he’d just refused from her mom.

He looked at her, blinked slowly, a crust along his upper eyelids. She’d clean that away once she got him to down the pill. The previous one would soon be wearing off, and when it did, he would start a pitiful moaning that sent chills along every nerve ending in her body.

“You’re trying to kill me,” he snapped, flinging his hand out. It fell back to the bed, missing her entirely.

“I just don’t want you to be in pain. This will help.”

“You want to kill me so you can have all my money.”

She was patient. At least he wasn’t calling her a stupid slut. She hated the word stupid. “I don’t need your money, Father. Now take your pill.”

“Bitch.”

She’d been called far worse by him. The word sounded so much better in Luke’s deep voice. She had to admit she deserved it, though, these past few days for sure. She’d refused to let her father get out of bed. She’d had the hospice aides put in the necessary tubes so they didn’t have to help him go to the bathroom. He’d screamed at the indignity, but eventually he’d stopped trying to pull everything out, thank God.

“Daddy, please take your pill.” She hadn’t called him daddy since she was eight. The term only came into her head in bad moments. But if it worked now, she’d use it.

She was too close when he batted at her this time, and the pill went flying. The water splashed her face and dripped down onto the bedclothes.

“I want my fucking whiskey. Where’s my whiskey? Nobody gives me my whiskey anymore.”

She bent down to feel around on the carpet, but she couldn’t find the pill. “I’ll get you another one.”

In the kitchen, she took another from the medicine bottle, then poured half a shot of whiskey.

Her mother gasped. “Brianna, you can’t mix morphine and alcohol. It might kill him.”

“Mom, he’s been taking morphine for months now. A little bit of whiskey to wash it down isn’t going to do a damn thing to him except get him to take the pill. Then he’ll sleep.”

She marched back into the bedroom. “Here’s your whiskey. But you have to take your meds first.”

He swallowed the pill with a sip of water like a child taking sweet cough syrup. Then she put the straw into the shot glass and let him suck down the whiskey.

He fell asleep so quickly, she thought she’d killed him. Grabbing his wrist, she felt for a pulse. She couldn’t find it. Oh God, where the hell was it? Dear Lord, her mother was right, she’d murdered him. They’d put her in prison. Her blood rushed to her head, and she thought she was going to faint away in a panic. Then she felt a tiny pulse beat. Almost nonexistent, but then it always was.

Her head cleared. Of course she hadn’t killed him. But even if she had, would it matter that he died tonight instead of tomorrow or the next day? On the other side of the bed, she closed the curtains on the now complete darkness outside. Then she left him alone.

Back in the kitchen, her mother was slicing the potatoes and putting them in the pan to boil. “Mashed tonight, don’t you think?” she said, not mentioning the morphine or the whiskey.

“Sounds good.” Bree opened the fridge, pulled out the wine bottle, and poured them both a glass.

“Cheers,” her mom said. They clinked and drank. Her mom liked the sweeter stuff, and over the last few evenings, anything would do for Bree.

A quarter of an hour later, seated at the table in the breakfast nook, they ate baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli while her father slept.

“What movie do you want to watch?” her mom asked.

“Beauty and the Beast.”

“You’re such a little girl,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah.” Bree would have suggested Pitch Black, but her mother wouldn’t like all the gore.

The doorbell rang when they were doing the dishes, Bree washing the pans, her mom loading the dishwasher.

Bree glanced at her watch. “The aides are early.” The hospice workers came in around seven to get her father washed and ready for bed. Not that he wasn’t already in bed, but certain things had to be changed.

“I’ll get it.” Her mom’s hands were dry while Bree’s were covered in dishwater. She padded through the nook, the dining room, and into the front hall.

As Bree set the last pan in the drainer, a man’s deep voice drifted back into the kitchen. So far, they’d had only one male aide, but that man’s voice had been higher. This was a new one.

“Bree,” her mom called.

She had the ungrateful wish that her mother would show them the way to her father’s bedroom on her own. Yet she dried her hands and headed out to the hall.

“Hello, Bree.”

Her heart stuttered to a full stop as Luke smiled at her.

What the hell are you doing here? She managed not to say it, but she felt like a viewer at a tennis match, her head bobbing back and forth between her mom and Luke.

“Your friend dropped by to see how you’re doing.” And oh, there was so much more absolute delight in her mother’s voice than that understatement suggested.

“I’m fine,” Bree said, her voice almost squeaky until she caught it. “Thanks for checking.” A million questions ran through her mind. How did he know where her parents lived? Why was he here? What did he want? And oh God, what would he tell her mother about their relationship?

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Dear Mom, ever so polite, always looking after her guests. Not that she’d had many. Her father hadn’t liked to share her attention.

Luke didn’t hear her silent plea. “I’d love one, thanks.”

“Bree, why don’t you take Mr. Raven into the living room while I get the coffee?” Obviously, he’d introduced himself.

“Please, call me Luke,” he said, his voice dripping with sweetness.

Her mother beamed and cut back through the dining room to the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed at him as soon as they were in the living room on the other side of the front hall, far enough away so her mother wouldn’t hear from the kitchen.

“You wouldn’t meet me for coffee and last night you cried on the phone. I was worried, so I came.” He didn’t try to touch her, but she felt his body as if he were straining toward her.

“How did you find me?”

“I followed you on Monday,” he said without a hint of remorse in his tone.

She gaped at him. “You’re a stalker.” The words were harsh, her voice hurtful.

“I’m your master,” he said simply.

She glanced over her shoulder to make sure her mom wasn’t on the way back with the coffee. “My parents’ house is off-limits.”

He was silent for an excruciating count to ten. “Nothing is off limits where you’re concerned. I take care of my submissive. And I was worried about you.”

He was only using those words to control her. They weren’t really master and slave. It was a game. It had always worked before. Until he wanted to turn the tables. Her skin felt stretched like a rubber band, ready to snap. Her ears were suddenly oversensitive, listening for every noise from the kitchen, wondering how much sound traveled back to her mother.

Then her mom was carrying a tray across the dining room, and Bree ran to help her. Or maybe she was running away from him.

“Luke, please sit down,” her mother said brightly.

Bree set the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa as her mom indicated. The room had been used so rarely that the twenty-year-old couch was still pristine white and the roses on the pillows a deep red. The curtains were pulled even in the daytime to keep everything from fading. Her mother vacuumed and dusted once a week whether it was needed or not. The cleanliness and perpetual darkness was oppressive.

“It was so good of you to come over to see Bree.” Her mother perched beside Luke on the sofa as Bree poured.

She gave Luke his black, then sat in the chair on the other side of her mother.

“It’s my pleasure, Mrs. Mason.”

“How did you and my daughter meet?” The smile on her mom’s face was too wide to be real. Plus there was that hurt look she shot Bree. “I’m afraid she hasn’t talked about you, Luke.”

“Her company did work for my firm,” he said vaguely, without giving any specifics on how long he’d known her. Or that he’d found her with Derek at a sex club.

“What do you for a living, Luke?” The question was none too subtle.

“I’m CEO for a company here in Silicon Valley.”

“CEO?” Oh so innocent.

“Chief executive officer,” Bree supplied. For God’s sake, her mother knew what a CEO was. Next she’d be asking his annual salary and how much his stock options were worth.

“That must be a wonderful and important job.”

God, her mother, gotta love her. At that point, Bree actually smiled as she looked at Luke. He’d let himself in for a matchmaking mama by coming here. He deserved what he got.

“I enjoy it. Bree and I hit it off. But your daughter’s cagey, and I’ve been hard-pressed to pin her down for a date.”

Bree almost rolled her eyes. Yeah, right, like she’d give him her parents’ address and cry on his shoulder about her dad if they weren’t even dating. “I told you that’s not possible under the circumstances, Luke.”

“Don’t be silly, dear,” her mom interrupted. “You can go out for a date. You probably need the time away.”

What happened to the whole don’t-leave-me-alone thing, which was how her mom had sucked her into coming back home? They weren’t talking about her father; they were all studiously avoiding the issue. “I can’t right now, Mom, you know that.”

What if something happened? Honestly, she didn’t want her mother alone for that.

“I’ll be fine for a couple of hours, honey. I can ask one of the volunteers to come over and sit with me.”

Dammit, she was taking away all of Bree’s excuses.

“Bree’s right, Mrs. Mason. I didn’t mean that she needed to go out with me now. Just in the future.” At least Luke was trying to save her.

Her mom reached for Bree’s hand, squeezed. “No. Please. This weekend. I insist. Bree’s done so much to help me already. She deserves a nice time out.”

She was trapped, and she felt awkward, as if her mother was saying, Hey, it’s okay if you two go out while her father’s dying in the back bedroom. Bree had to close her eyes a moment, to breathe, to stuff it all back down.

Then, as if she’d said enough—or she’d heard a noise from the other end of the house—her mother jumped up. “I’ll be back in a minute. You two decide where you want to go.”

When they were alone, Luke looked at her. “I’m more than willing to wait to get what I want.”

She couldn’t say anything for a few seconds. She didn’t know her own feelings. She’d never brought a man home. The kind of men she’d known in the last few years, her father would have killed her if she’d brought them home. Was Luke that much different? He’d found her in a sex club, for God’s sake. He hadn’t been just watching, either. He’d been there to play. She’d never asked him exactly what he’d done that night before he found her. She still didn’t want to know.

“But you are different,” she whispered almost without thinking. “I don’t know why.”

He didn’t move from his spot on the couch. “I am different,” he murmured, low, almost hypnotic. “We’re different together, different from anything we’ve ever been to anyone else in our lives. I will make you a believer on Saturday.”

She looked beyond him. To a place he held out to her like a gift. Or a mirage. She wanted to be special. She needed him to treat her that way. She wondered if he could do it without the sex. Could she? Because the only thing she had to offer men was that, her body, her sex. Without it, she didn’t know what to say or do. But she knew what she wanted for one night.

“Treat me like a queen and I’ll go with you.”

“Done,” he whispered.