Elaine’s fretting in the entryway when I step through the front door just as a new smattering of raindrops lashes at the eaves of the old house. Rickety Thornfield Manor sways in the wind, caught helplessly in the tempest. One good gust and the whole thing might blow away.

It’s like the entire two-story structure is a literal metaphor for Elaine. Weak and pale, with patchy paint partially covering the glaring flaws. Skinny structures, draped in white and left to wait for Thorny to enter and exit as he pleases.

“Oh my God!” Her eyes widen, and she sinks to her knees, grabbing my arm. It’s a patchwork of browns and purplish hues. “What happened? Did you fall? James!” She calls for him until he appears in the doorway, a wine glass in hand. “Look!” she exclaims. “Should we take her to the emergency room?”

Thorny takes one look at me and scoffs. “She’s fine.” He dips a finger into his wine and comes close enough to swipe the liquid over the deepest, darkest of my “bruises.”

Like magic, they wash off, revealing pale, unblemished skin underneath.

I snatch my arm back, foiled again. “It’s just a little dirt,” I tell Elaine with a smile.

“Oh…” She frowns when I tap my muddied shoes against the polished floor but musters up a smile of her own once she catches me staring. “Well, I put your suitcase in your room. We can toss your things in the dryer if you need to.” Her lips twitch. Guilt, I guess.

Difficulty with emotions is one of the many flaws my therapist lumped into a long, complicated diagnosis to explain my behavior: Maryanne displays some symptoms of borderline personality disorder. She has difficulty recognizing and processing emotions. Up is down and down is up to a freak like me. I struggle to interpret…oh how did he put it?

Compassion and love in a healthy way.

My broken brain is dangerously suspicious of both. Like how Elaine must be when Thorny takes that fancy new car of his out for a spin. Just who is he trying to impress?

Not her. Elaine is a rock, easy to please, with a few accessories glued onto her lifeless frame for funsies. You can pet her. Maybe love her. But it doesn’t really matter in the end, does it?

It’s not like she’ll leave. The poor thing has no legs.

“I made dinner,” Elaine says, clearing her throat as the storm picks up. “We can wait for you to wash up and change. Oh, and a friend of mine—James’s—might stop by. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course not.” What’s a good homecoming party if it’s not hijacked by old acquaintances? Faking a smile, I take the stairs two at a time and then enter the room designated as mine. For now. I can almost see the inevitable expiration date stamped on the damn door as I pull it open.

Elaine left my suitcase by the bed. How sweet. She even folded her hideous sweater and left it there, too: my costume in their twisted family charade.

I should wear it. Make myself smile pretty while she and Thorny play happy families before I ruin everything and prove him right. I’m a broken screw-up. He’s banking on that outcome.

That’s why I don’t even bother to unpack. Instead, I kick my suitcase open and snatch a dress from the haphazard mess thrown inside. The only thing I bother to treat with any care is my file containing its oh-so-precious documents. I scan the room for a good hiding place, eyeing the white dresser in the corner. No, too obvious. I cross over to the bed and shove the file beneath the mattress.

Across the hall from my room, I find a bathroom, where I shower. And shower. And shower.

Through the spray, I can hear angry footsteps stomping up the stairs. Heavy. Impatient. They march in my direction with purpose. Thwack! The bathroom door jumps as someone knocks just once.

“Maryanne.”

The water is scalding. It makes my cheeks catch fire and ignites an inferno beneath my skin—not him. Even still… I’m hidden behind inches of wood and a plastic shower curtain, but I do that thing only he can make me do: bite my lower lip and think, just for a second.

I’m not used to hesitating—another quirk the therapists like to point out. Hesitation is normal to help with impulse control, Maryanne. You should think through your actions.

“It’s been two hours,” Thorny says. Like always, a sigh laces his words and he speaks to me in two languages. One is English. The other is nonverbal James Thorne: Elaine made me check on you, he grouses. You’re pushing it. “Are you planning on joining us for dinner?”

I don’t answer, still thinking. Two hours—has it really been that long? I inspect my pruned fingers and my shriveled toes. Then I pick up a damp washrag and scrub some more. La-dee-da. I pretend not to hear him sigh again.

“Ten minutes,” he warns before stomping away.

The moment his footsteps fade, I switch the water off and climb out. Through a cloud of steam, I eye myself in the mirror, inspecting blurred, obscured limbs and a pale, blobby face.

I’m pretty, they say. Pretty like my mother before she got her nose job. Pretty like those boring girls placed beside the starlet in movies. Oh, so pretty.

Not beautiful like Elaine. Or any of Thorny’s three sisters.

Poor self-esteem is why I overcompensate with sparkling clothing and outrageous headbands. My style is calculated to draw the max amount of attention and drama. I’m incapable of confining to social norms; therefore, red sequins and six-inch heels make for the perfect dinnertime outfit, in my opinion.

Or something like that. I read it in a book.

I’m in the middle of brushing my hair when I hear the front door open downstairs and a man’s voice call out.

“Elaine, you look stunning! And come here, you son of a bitch.”

“Oh, Jeremy,” Elaine simpers.

I groan out loud. Jeremy Weston. Thorny’s literary agent once upon a time. Now, he’s a famous author in his own right. He bragged as much at my father’s funeral—and even Grandmama’s.

I hate him.

But the more the merrier. I leave my room noisily, balanced on my impossibly high heels, and follow the sound of meaningless chitchat to the back of the house.

“Maryanne.” Elaine humors my outfit with a forced grin when I finally make my way into the elegant dining room just off the main entryway.

Thorny scowls. He’s holding a glass of wine, keeping the bottle closer to his place setting than Elaine is. At least three chairs separate them on the same side of the table.

Like a good daughter, I claim the one directly between them.

“Look who showed up,” Jeremy says, giving me a wink. “It’s a movie star.”

Where Thorny aged with a stubborn grip on his good looks, Jeremy threw attractiveness to the wind. He’s gained at least ten pounds. His dark hair has a glaring bald spot right over the center of his head, and a layer of cologne can’t disguise the stench of old cigars.

“Long time, no see, Mary,” he says. “You’ve certainly grown up.”

He stares at my chest.

“That’s an…interesting outfit, Maryanne,” Elaine says politely.

I finger the neckline of my dress and shrug. “What? This old thing?”

Thorny says nothing. Out loud, anyway. His gaze gives me a slow, scathing perusal I feel down to my goddamn toes. My sparkly, scarlet evening gown doesn’t draw his ire, or my wet, damp curls—he knows the truth. Caught, a part of me whispers as my stomach clenches in that naughty-girl way.

Gritting my teeth, I ignore it and reach for a glass of water Elaine already had waiting for me because she’s fucking perfect. I down it. Then I smile.

“What’s to eat?” I say it solely to prompt Elaine’s prideful glance at the food steaming before us on three porcelain platters. I wonder if she had to reheat it while waiting for me. The corner of my mouth quirks. Of course she did.

“It’s just a little something I whipped up to celebrate,” she says, preening in her simple blouse and skirt. “Um, there’s spaghetti with fresh basil. A tossed salad. And some cut fruit for dessert.”

She worked so hard. I can practically taste her blood, sweat, and tears in the humid night air. With the rain having stopped, she and Thorny left the windows open, allowing in the breeze blowing off the ocean. How quaint.

“It all looks so lovely,” I gush. “But…”

Thorny braces his hands on the table, inhaling sharply.

“I’m allergic to tomato sauce,” I say, pointing to the spaghetti. “And fruit.” My finger darts to the glass bowl of fresh strawberries and watermelon. “And I’m allergic to salad.”

“Maryanne.” Thorny didn’t even put effort into huffing my name that time. He shoves his plate toward the center of the table and stands. “I’ll be in the study.”

“But it’s dinner.” Elaine struggles to hold on to her perfect smile. It quivers at the edges, clinging to her pink lipstick with all it’s worth. When Thorny meets her gaze, her lips fall flat. “I-I could make something else?” She looks to me, her eyes wide, pleading for me to laugh. To confirm I was joking, haha. With one little gesture, I could salvage her charming meal.

“I have a long list of allergies,” I say, but I don’t look at her as I do.

Thorny’s eyeing his wristwatch, shaking his head. Tsk, tsk. What a waste of time I am. Of space.

“And you know what?” I tell her. “I’m not really hungry, either.”

“W-wait!” Poor Elaine stares on in horror as I skip past Thorny.

My work here is done. So pleased with myself am I that I don’t see him move until it’s too late.

“Oh no you don’t.”

My arm is in his grip. Like a leash, he uses the limb to drag me from the room, out of Elaine and Jeremy’s line of sight.

“I’ve heard the horror stories,” he hisses near my ear with far more vitriol than a good daddy should muster. “But my God. You really don’t have any goddamn shame, do you?”

He lets me go in disgust. As his upper lip pulls back from his teeth, a part of me exclaims, Aha! There he is: the real Thorny I remember. The man with eyes like those stagnant pools of water left after a rainstorm. Dark, frothy things with plenty of unseen horrors lurking within.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say softly, brushing my fingertips along my throat. “I really am allergic. One bite and I could die.”

He smiles ferally, which is something he excels at: making harmless gestures into insults. From him, a grin is a missile, loaded with double meaning.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t ship you back to Los Angeles,” he says, daring me again. “Give me a reason.”

I blink, fluttering my eyelashes so hard that my view of him is sliced into snippets. I can track every nuance of his expression in stages like this. His jaw tenses, tenses. Boom, he’s frowning and something makes me take a step back.

So he can see me better, the bane of his existence.

“One reason? Hmmm…” I tap my chin with my thumb. “How about: I’m sorry, Daddy?”

“You’re not.” He reaches out, snagging a fistful of my skirt. One tug yanks me closer to him. Close enough to breathe in the wine tainting his breath. “Lily told me she was missing clothing after you left,” he says, eyeing me through a narrowed gaze. “Dresses. Shoes. Jewelry. You know—” His grip tightens, but I dig my heels into the floor to keep my balance. The harder I resist, the more he tugs, until I’m forced to take a hasty step toward him anyway. “You may be seventeen, but she could still press charges against you.”

His eyes ignite with smugness. Poor Thorny. He doesn’t even know what game we’re playing. Rising onto tiptoe, I press my lips to his cheek. They barely make contact as he jerks out of my reach, letting me go.

“She won’t,” I tell him, confident of the fact. Smoothing my hands over my skirt, I cock my head thoughtfully. “But, even if she did, there are plenty of secrets about her and her husband I could spill in return. Wouldn’t that be just marvelous?”

He watches me, his expression unchanged. There’s no surly frown of defeat. No hint of curiosity. My stomach twists again and I grit my teeth. I hate this fucking feeling—not knowing what he’s thinking.

“Good night, Daddy,” I say. “Tell Mommy I’m sorry about dinner.” I blow him a kiss and turn to make my exit. Even he has to admit it now: I have the upper hand.

“One month,” he says, and my feet stop in their tracks.

Sneaking a glance back at him is too risky. My cheeks feel hot again. Inflamed.

“Hmm, Daddy?” I call over my shoulder.

“I bet you couldn’t last one month without fucking up.”

“You shouldn’t make wagers without naming a price, Daddy,” I tell him. Again, I start for the stairs.

“Our share of your inheritance,” he says. “I wager all of it if you can act like you have some damn sense. No mind games. No sarcasm. No silly little stunts. I’m not even suggesting you last the full three months because there’s no way in hell you would. Hell, I’d go as low as a week, but fucking up in one day would be child’s play for you. One month. You’d have your full inheritance—”

“And an apology for being so very doubtful of me?” I sound like I’m bluffing.

I’m not. Neither is he.

I can only wait for his response as my chest tightens against a heart that’s beating too fast. Bit by bit, my skin feels hotter. It’s only by the sheer grace of being near a window that I can blame the breeze for shifting away from him.

“Apology?” Thorny harrumphs. “I’ll write it on the fucking wall in my own damn blood if you want. In fact.” He laughs again, that maddening sound. I picture him throwing his head back. Maybe he’s not so averse to dramatics after all. “I’ll even throw in the car.”

I bite my lip to disguise my shock. He’d really part with his cherry-red status symbol? In theory. That’s how convinced he is I’ll fail.

Touché, Thorny. A part of me hums—impressed? No, more like…intrigued. Is Elaine’s happiness worth so much to him?

“And one more thing?” I turn, schooling every muscle I possess to meet his gaze without flinching. He’s stormy again, old Thorny. I’m sliced through like a peeled banana—but he doesn’t need to know that. “You give me Thornfield, too. I’d even let you live here…maybe.”

His upper lip quirks, but it’s in the wrong direction. Up, not down. Another fleeting smile catches me off guard.

“Done,” he says.

Or at least that’s what his words convey. His body language is a mixture of tense shoulders and flexing fingers that curl into and out of fists. Annoyingly, I can’t get a read on just what they mean. Nervousness? Anticipation?

“So, what does a good girl do, Daddy?” My finger creeps into my hair before I can stop it. By then, it’s too late. He’s watching as I twist a curl around my pinkie and another flashback unfurls from the mental crevice I shoved all Thorny memories into.

“She hasn’t stopped tugging at her hair since it happened.” Grandmama’s voice drifted through the doorway, gruff with perpetual disapproval. “The girl might go bald by the time of the funeral. Please…James. Just comfort her, if you can?”

I bit my lip, alarmed by her tone. Grandmama commanded. She never groveled. She never pleaded.

She was never refused.

“No,” Thorny said, his voice a disapproving baritone even then. “I can’t stay. I’ll ask Elaine to look after her.”

“Good girls?” the present-day Thorny wonders, still eyeing how my finger is nudging a lock of my hair around and around. He frowns. “A decent human being would go upstairs, change into something appropriate, and eat her goddamn dinner.”

He storms into the dining room without taking the time to gloat. Or snicker.

He makes me believe, if only for a second, that he could have meant the dare for real.

I have just seconds to decide whether or not to believe him. I know it. An invisible clock counts down every precious bit of time I waste staring after him. He’s lying, of course. I should go in there and overturn every platter of carefully prepared food. Scream. Shout. Cause a scene.

My throat contracts as I approach the staircase instead. Slowly but noisy enough that he can hear and call it off. You didn’t think I was serious, did you, Maryanne? Not stuffy, gruff me?

I rap my fingers loudly along the banister, listening to the echoing silence. I mount three steps. Three more.

He says nothing. Not even as I enter my room and yank my dress off. Something appropriate, he said. Like Elaine’s plain, pretty ensemble? I rummage through my ramshackle suitcase until I find a white blouse with a plunging neckline and one of my old plaid skirts from Whorton’s.

Decent.

I braid my hair and kick my heels off, leaving my feet bare. Hushed voices seep from the dining room as I return downstairs.

“...starting to wonder if this was a good idea,” Elaine says, sounding oh-so worried. “I mean, what if she—”

“It’s fine,” Thorny says, raising his voice. When I round the corner, I see why: he’s facing my direction and most likely heard me coming. His eyebrow arches at my outfit and his lips part, but I beat him to the punch.

“I want to apologize,” I say, mustering up my most contrite expression. I even bow my head in shame. It’s an Oscar-worthy performance, but no one claps. “I just find that all of this has been so overwhelming…”

“It’s all right,” Elaine says, regaining her strained grin. “I…I, um, found some things in the fridge and made you a sandwich.” She nods toward a delicate creation balanced on a porcelain plate matching the platters. At a glance, it looks to be a lovingly made watercress. She even cut the crusts off.

“Thank you,” I say, reclaiming my seat. With two fingers, I nudge the sandwich aside. Then I drag the platter of spaghetti toward me, scoop a heaping pile onto a plate, and shove as many noodles as I can fit onto a fork into my mouth.

Elaine just stares, her smile frozen, her gaze constricted. Thorny, on the other hand, clears his throat—a warning.

So he meant it after all. Be a good girl for a month. He thinks I won’t. I bet I can, just for the hell of it.

Forcing myself to swallow, I pat my lips with a napkin. “It tastes marvelous, Ellie.”

“You think so?” Elaine turns her wide-eyed gaze to Thorny, who seems more interested in his bottle of wine than validating her culinary skills.

He pours a glass and takes a sip.

“Well, I agree,” Jeremy declares, coming to the rescue with that smarmy tone of his. Writers are supposed to be suave, they say. Good with words, but his always sound slimy. “It’s damn good spaghetti, Elle. It’s not every woman who can cook.”

“Thanks.” Elaine simpers, fighting a smile. “It’s a family recipe on James’s side.”

“Oh.” I nod with mock interest. “Maybe you could teach me? Since I’m family to James as well.”

Thorny clears his throat more deeply this time. Less a warning and more an outright threat. Enough.

A part of me twists like a piece of bait on a hook. Straining. Flailing. The threat is a leash, yanked at his discretion. Five minutes in and maybe he’s right. I couldn’t last a week.

“So, Maryanne,” Elaine says as if sensing the tension. Like any good housewife, she’s adept at changing the subject. “Are you excited to continue with school?”

“School?”

“Yes. You’ll be graduating soon, I hear? I know you’ll only be here a few months, but I’m sure you’ll finish out the year strong.”

Finish out the year. My brain seizes on those words and jumps to a dangerous scenario. “Am I going to Walden?” I look from Elaine to Thorny.

“No,” Thorny says after draining his wine glass. “You will be tutored by a professor from the school while you’re here.”

For however long that may be, his disinterested tone tells me.

“But…” I fight to keep my voice at an “appropriate” level. “Why can’t I go to the actual school?”

“It’s the end of the year, Maryanne,” Thorny says. But that’s just a lie. The way he meets my gaze directly imparts the truth: I had to get you an education somewhere, but that doesn’t mean near me.

Indigestion. That’s the name I give to the sinking, twisting sensation in my stomach. Mere indigestion and nothing more.

“It’s not like I want to go.” I roll my eyes. “But I’ve finished out the year at a new school before.”

Many times, in fact. My junior year of high school was spread amongst four different boarding schools and two stints of inpatient psychiatric treatment. I’m a literal expert at slotting myself into a desk and following along with a teacher’s droning monotone. You’ve been to one corporal prison for girls, you’ve been to them all.

“I can catch up,” I say.

“You can’t.” Thorny doesn’t even look up from the depths of his glass. The remaining coating of wine has his full attention, as if he’s hoping the last drops will float onto his tongue. “Besides, your grades wouldn’t allow you admission anyway.”

My teeth clench tight over the half-eaten noodles still in my mouth. I force a swallow down and loosen my jaw. “I have straight A’s.”

Thorny raises an eyebrow and shifts to face me directly. “Straight A’s,” he echoes. “And yet you’re so far behind that I’ll have to pay your tutor double just to give you a prayer of graduating on time. The answer is no.”

My fork sprays droplets of sauce onto my lap—I’m gripping it that tightly. “But—”

“The answer is no.” His expression all but dares me to challenge him: eyebrows knitted, mouth stretched into a long, flat line.

“Can… May I be excused?”

“No, you may not,” he says, reaching for his wine. “Eat your dinner.”

“L-look at it this way, Maryanne,” Elaine chimes in from her end of the table. “You’ll have way more free time. The tutor will only be here for about half the day. You’ll have the rest all to yourself.”

She makes it sound so damn tempting. A whole handful of hours to play with. All for me. Hours of sulking on her and Thorny’s property, knowing they have a calendar hidden somewhere with my birthday circled in the brightest pen ink imaginable.

They’ll use me for their own ends, but I’ll get some free time out of it. Hooray for me.

“How about I sweeten the pot?” Jeremy makes it sound like he has a golden ticket in his pocket, the key to unlocking all of my hopes and dreams. “I’ll send you a signed copy of my latest manuscript. Hot off the presses, before anyone else can even get their hands on it. Elle claims it’s another award winner.”

“Oh, that’s so kind of you, Jeremy.” Poor Elaine sounds so impressed. Too impressed. Pink cheeks make her resemble a schoolgirl, singled out for the teacher’s attention. “I know I’m not a literary expert”—her gaze flickers toward Thorny, who downs another sip of wine—“but I really did love it.”

“It’s no problem,” Jeremy insists. “Anything for you.”

He winks.

I choke.

Ugh.

“Wasn’t your last book about a woman who hated her husband so much she got her uterus removed or something?” I ask. Something, Something Matrimony, I think it was called. The darling of the NYT bestseller list, and the eventual winner of some stupid literary prize. Gag. Barf.

Jeremy’s cheeks turn cherry red. “I’ve heard it described a bit differently than that—”

“We’re out of wine,” Thorny grunts, rising to his feet. “I’m getting more.”

“James…” Elaine watches him go, her cheeks pinker. “Why don’t we call it a night? Thank you for coming, Jeremy.”

She walks him to the door, but I stay seated, picking at my dinner.

Thorny’s little proposition is looking better by the hour. Way more tempting than even making him face me every day at Walden. “I’m sorry” written in blood, he said? Oh, hell yes.

So I do what a nice, obedient daughter does best. I shove my pride down my throat with a forkful of spaghetti, and I envision every delicious way I’ll ruin James Thorne’s perfect life—for funsies.

Not because I actually give a damn. Still, I’ll take my time and do it the old-fashioned way.

One bite at a time.