On her way to work, she’d dropped off the used medications at the pharmacy, then taken all the bags in her car to the Goodwill donation station. This afternoon her mom was going to drop off the detritus they’d stuffed in her car. Then he’d be thoroughly gone.

Bree didn’t feel anything. Except a little peculiar that it was so easy to give away his possessions. And guilt that she should have felt something, but didn’t. Her mother seemed to have no such guilt.

As she stared unseeing at her computer monitor for long moments after Rachel left, her fingers poised over the keyboard, it came to her why she hadn’t said her father was dead. Because she didn’t want to go home. Her mother’s attitude creeped her out. It was Monday, the day after he’d died, and this wasn’t normal, yet Bree felt herself getting sucked into it. Like, what else can we throw out that’s him?

The dollhouse. She could tear it down board by board. Except that she didn’t want to go near it. Not yet. Maybe never. Could she lob a Molotov cocktail into it? Or maybe if she left it long enough, it would disintegrate under the harsh elements. What-ever, she didn’t want to go home, at least not to her mother’s house.

But if they knew her father had died, that’s exactly where Erin and Dominic would send her. When they’d lost Jay last year, neither of them had come in for two weeks. And when they finally did, they were hollow-eyed. They were still different now, too, maybe not grieving every moment like in the beginning, sometimes almost joyful for long minutes, especially over the last couple of weeks since the new year had started. But the lines of grief that had grown at Erin’s mouth would never go away, and Bree had seen a look in her eye when she caught sight of Jay’s photo on her desk, fond, loving, yet tinged with a sadness that would never end.

Bree didn’t feel like that. And they’d think her heartless. Or whacked. If she told them about her mom cleaning everything out? Good God, she wouldn’t even contemplate it.

If she could go anywhere, she’d have gone to Luke’s. She’d have rolled around in his bed, steeped herself in his scent. Even if he wasn’t there. At least she’d see him tonight. He’d said he’d come by. She could face her mom and that house if Luke was in it.

The phone rang. She almost shrieked at the unexpected intrusion. Her heart was racing as she picked up the receiver.

“Ah, Bree,” Denton Marbury said with his usual boom. She held the phone away so it didn’t hurt her eardrums. “I’ve left several messages for you, Bree. You haven’t returned my calls.”

Yeah, well, I was busy with my dying father. She didn’t say it, though she would have liked the shock value. With Denton Marbury, a man with a hide as armored as an armadillo, it probably wouldn’t have had any effect. “I’ve been busy, Mr. Marbury, but you were on my list to call first thing this afternoon,” she lied. She’d forgotten to set up that meeting time he’d requested when she saw him last week. And she didn’t feel the least bit bad about that.

“I’ve been through your files,” he said.

She quelled the sense of violation. He was supposed to go through her files, but she still disliked having him put his grubby mitts on anything that was hers. “Did you have any questions?” Of course, he did. He never failed to have questions or find fault or offer suggestions on how she should improve.

“I must say, we need to have some serious discussion about your methodology before we can even begin to handle this audit.”

She rolled her eyes, then rubbed her temple. “I can answer any questions you might have right now.”

“Oh no, no, no,” he blustered. “This requires face-to-face. You forgot I mentioned that last week. I’ll need you here for several hours.”

Several hours? That was so much bullshit. She didn’t call him on it. She never did. But some little demon raised its head inside her. “I’m afraid that with year-end, Erin can’t spare me. But I could arrange for a bit of time over here.” Hah. She amazed herself with her audacity.

“Well, if Erin really can’t spare the time . . .” He trailed off meaningfully.

“She can’t,” Bree emphasized. “Would you like me to call her in here to talk to you?”

“No-no-no,” he said almost as one word. “I understand her needs completely.”

Right. He understood Erin’s needs, but Bree’s be damned. Why did she put up with this man’s crap? Why didn’t she tell him off the way Erin would? She was such a coward.

“Let’s schedule our meeting this week.”

“Thursday,” she said. She probably wouldn’t be at work because by then she would have told Erin about her father’s death. Erin would insist she have time off. Then again, skipping out on a meeting with Marbury was putting off the inevitable. Obviously ignoring him for the past few days hadn’t done any good.

“Thursday at nine is good for me,” he said.

“Fine. Good-bye.” She could still hear him talking at her as she let the receiver fall back in place. He could bluster all he wanted now. On Thursday, she’d answer his silly niggling questions, which would turn out to be nothing, and she’d be here on her turf. She didn’t like being alone in his office with him. He always closed the door, and though he never touched her, she felt slimed by his proximity.

At two-thirty, Erin came in to shoo her out. She couldn’t very well say that her mother didn’t need her anymore because her father was already dead. Dead, dead, dead.

So she left. She thought about going to the town square in Los Gatos and sitting on the grass to soak up the sun on this perfect, cloudless day. Instead she drove home because God only knew what her mother had been doing while she was out.

But it wasn’t her mom she had to worry about. It was Luke. In suit pants, with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up, he was mowing the front lawn.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. He’d left work early, and he hadn’t even called her. Her mother had taken advantage, putting him to work. And he was going to ruin his clothes.

He simply cupped his ear, indicating he couldn’t hear and continued on merrily.

“You’ve got him mowing the lawn.” In the house, she let her exasperation flow over her mom.

Her mother let it roll right off. “He offered.”

“You must have said something.”

“I said I couldn’t start the lawn mower.” Flour dusting her apron, she cut Christmas shapes into the sugar-cookie dough she’d rolled out.

“Mom.” Bree bet she hadn’t even tried starting the mower.

“I’m making him cookies. They’ll be ready by the time he’s done. It’s a fair exchange.”

And Bree could give him sex. Gee, then they’d be all paid up. She wanted to scream. “Mom, please.”

“I like him. He’s a good man, I can tell.” Yeah, like her mom was such a great judge of a man’s character. “And he’s good for you. A woman needs a man to take care of her.”

They’d already had this argument. “I don’t need him to take care of me.” She didn’t want any man taking care of her. If you depended on them monetarily, you could never get away when you needed to. Just like her mother had said; she couldn’t leave because she was afraid she’d run into something worse. Bree wasn’t going to let that happen to her.

Not that Luke was a bad guy. He wasn’t like Mr. Asshole Marbury. But she still didn’t want to depend on Luke for her finances.

It did occur to her, however, that she depended on him for other things that at times—like when she was feeling totally stressed and crazy—were just as important as money.

“Let’s make his favorite meal,” her mother said, eagerness animating her voice as she laid the cookies on a baking sheet. “They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

Uh, not. A man’s stomach had nothing to do with it. “I don’t know what his favorite meal is.”

Her mom gave her a dramatic, jaw-dropping look. “How could you not know?”

Okay, what had Luke said about how long they’d known each other? Bree couldn’t remember what the lie was. She had a problem keeping all the lies straight, keeping all the secrets she needed to keep. “That was our first date, Mom.” She hadn’t told her mom it was bowling. Maybe if she did, that would put Luke a score down. “We had pizza.”

Her mother closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. “Your father hated pizza.” She opened her eyes again. “Combination?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my.” Then she grinned, her teeth yellowed with years of coffee drinking. “I bet he loves lasagna then.” She put the two cookie sheets into the oven and set the timer.

Instead of lowering her mother’s opinion, Bree had somehow raised it. “I have no idea.” God, her mother was in matchmaking heaven. “We should really talk about arrangements. Father’s life insurance, the bank accounts, all that stuff.”

“He left a list of everything I had to do.” At least he’d done that much. “I’m working through it.”

“I can help.”

“You have other things to occupy you. Honestly, your father set everything up so that it’s all very easy. A trust.”

“Oh.” Bree hadn’t asked about any of that. She should have during those excruciating Sunday dinners, especially after he got sick.

Opening the fridge, her mother poured a glass of lemonade. “Luke will be thirsty. Why don’t you take this to him?”

It was impossible to have a truly rational conversation with her mother. Though maybe her mom wasn’t as incapable as her father had always made out.

Luke was rolling the lawn mower back into the garage.

“Did you do the backyard, too?” she asked.

“I’ll wait for the weekend to do that. It’s a lot bigger.”

Not wanting to tackle it herself, she was grateful. Sweat stained his shirt under the arms, but she liked his scent, clean, not sour. “Mom sent me out with lemonade, and she wants to know if you like lasagna.”

“I love both.”

“Homemade, too.”

“Even better.”

“Why are you mowing my mother’s lawn on a Monday afternoon? Don’t you have staff meetings or board meetings or something CEOish to do?”

He trailed a finger down her nose, then caressed her lips with his fingertip. “You were coming home early. I wanted to be here.”

There was something in his touch that made her tremble. A tenderness. She thought of Marbury and his gruff voice, how the sound of it grated on her nerves. And how different Luke’s was, deep, resonant. When it strummed her nerves, it made them sing.

Then she thought of the ways a woman could depend on a man that didn’t include money. He had it all. She craved his touch even though she knew craving was bad. She loved the taste of his come even as she knew swallowing was supposed to be revolting. She needed to hear him whisper those naughty words in a voice that drowned out the other times, bad times, when men had called her a slut and worse. There were so many things about sex without marriage that were bad and immoral and wrong, and yet Luke made her want all of them. He even made her want an orgasm. It was the whole wanting-what-was-bad-for-you thing.

She didn’t say any of that. Instead she told him that her Mom’s lasagna was to-die-for. Her father had actually liked it even if it wasn’t plain old meat and potatoes.

Young people? Mrs. Mason was an anachronism. She couldn’t be much more than sixty-five, but she talked as if she were twenty years older, and she acted as if she’d been born into that generation, too. Over lasagna, Luke learned she’d never worked outside the home, she’d never gone to college, and she’d married Bree’s father right after her high school graduation. They’d been dating for three years, but he was five years older. Which meant he’d been a twenty-year-old man dating a fifteen-year-old girl. Yeah, Luke could do the math.

If—the big if—Bree’s father had been doing anything to his daughter, he didn’t think the mother could have known. She seemed too . . . motherly.

He learned other things about the Masons, too, that Bree had been their miracle child, coming after almost ten years of marriage when they thought there would never be any children, et cetera, et cetera. Yet he heard nothing that gave him greater insight into Bree.

Of course, he could have just asked Bree about her father. Maybe another man would have. But Bree had to be willing to talk; it had to be in her time, not his.

Mrs. Mason rose from the table and began clearing the dirty plates.

“I can get it, sweetheart,” she said, waving away her daughter as Bree stood to help. “Go change into something nicer. Luke is waiting for you.”

Bree flashed an uncertain glance between him and her mom. “I only brought work clothes.”

He wanted the date her mother was setting up. He didn’t care what Bree was wearing. For his part, the white shirt was dirty after mowing the lawn, and he’d covered the stains with his suit jacket. He might take Bree to his house first. Yeah, good idea. “She looks beautiful wearing what she’s got on.”

Mrs. Mason smiled, a happy gotcha smile she shot at Bree as if to say see, he likes you in anything. She was an odd duck. He’d expressed his condolences when he arrived, and she’d accepted, then blown them off as if she hadn’t lost her husband only yesterday. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up mowing the lawn for her. Not that it mattered, he was glad to help. But if she was grieving, it was buried so deep not an ounce of emotion showed.

She waved a hand, shooing them away. “Off you go then. Have fun. I won’t wait up.”

“I’ll get Bree home safe and sound.” He didn’t say he’d get her home early. He had plans.

Out in the car, Bree whispered, as if her mother might somehow overhear. “What’s up with that?”

“Maybe she thought you needed some fun.” He started the engine and backed out of the driveway.

“She’s pushing me at you.”

“She elicited an invitation, not the same thing.” In other circumstances, it would have been fine, but it was a little freaky now. Her husband had just died. You’d have thought she’d want the company rather than sending them off.

“Did you put her up to this date before I got home?”

He glanced at her. Her nostrils actually flared like an angry animal.

“I didn’t arrange anything.” He pulled out onto the main road heading toward the freeway. It was still early enough that commuter traffic lingered. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine.”

“I mean about your dad.”

“I told you she cleaned out all his stuff. She can’t wait to get rid of him.”

Yeah, Bree was angry, but he couldn’t tell whether it was with him or her mother. Or her dad. “She needs grief counseling,” he said. Bree should consider going with her.

She gave him a look. He was supposed to be the dom and she the submissive, but there wasn’t an ounce of submission in that gaze. “Why don’t you tell her that?”

This was a side of Bree he’d never seen before. She didn’t usually show anger so openly. In a strange way, it was almost comforting. To show anger meant she actually trusted him a little. “I’ll talk to her if you want,” he offered, though he knew her answer.

“She doesn’t talk to anyone. Not even to me.” Like mother, like daughter. “Aren’t you taking me to your house to fuck?” she snapped before he had a chance to add anything.

Whoa. Something he’d said obviously set her off. “Is that what you want?”

She glared at him, and that spunky look got him going. He was inexplicably hard and ready. Because this was how he wanted her to be. In charge. Demanding. Fearless.

“I think you should follow through on all those promises you made,” she said, pulling into her corner of the car.

He merged into freeway traffic before addressing her. “What promises?”

“All that phone sex, the stories, how you were going to take me to a sex club, how much you want to see how badly other men want me. Those promises.”

They weren’t promises; they were fantasies. After the rage he’d experienced over her story about the two doms, he wasn’t so eager to turn fantasy into reality. “I rescued you from the real thing when I took you away from Derek.”

“Maybe I liked what Derek did to me.”

He wanted to yank the wheel, pull over to the side of the highway and go at it with her. She excited him even as she pissed him off. Where was all this coming from? Did she really want another man?

Then he got it like a smack to the head. She was doing exactly the same thing she’d done yesterday morning when she ran to him after her father died. She wanted to goad him into action.

Maybe she needed a taste of what she was asking for to remind her how bad it had really been with Derek. How much better it was with him. “Fine. You ask for it, you’ll get it.”

He’d give her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. And neither would he. He was already hard contemplating it.