Prologue

Almost Two Years Ago

SARA

“I guess it’s time,” Ian says, turning from the window where he’s been standing for the last hour. Or has it been longer? I’ve lost all sense of time and space in the midst of this unavoidable, unyielding panic that’s been gripping me for the better part of the last two days.

The cold, silvery light of dawn is making everything look sharp like a knife’s edge, even the pillows on our bed and the lacy curtains on the window. I look up from my hands, which I’ve been clutching together so hard in my lap it feels as though they’re stuck together. They’re shaking now as I pry them apart and stand up to join him by the window. They should be shaking, because what I’m about to say is no easy thing.

But it needs to be said. And this time I mean it. Because the baby growing inside me deserves better. Better than this heartache, better than the fear I know from all the years of being Ian’s old lady. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of my reasons why Ian must never know about the child I’m carrying. Today is the beginning of my new life.

He turns to me as I reach him by the window.

“It’s over between us,” I manage to say, and my voice sounds exactly like it has the hundreds of times I’ve said it before. This time though it’s different. This time I will stay away. Forever. “You’re going to prison a single man. And you’re coming out that way too.”

His face is completely unreadable, early dawn shadows playing across the chiseled angle of his jaw, his high cheekbones, his perfectly shaped nose and lips. He’s not saying anything, not moving, might as well be cut from marble. He already looks like the statue of some Greek or Roman God, perfect in every way. Outwardly. Inwardly, it’s another story.

He’s the guy who’ll break my heart over and over again, for eternity, if I let him. Break our child’s heart. If I let him. That’s what it all boils down to. He’s the one for me, my soul mate, my cross to bear, and I can’t imagine my life without him in it. I always snap right back to him, every time I try to pull away. But this time it has to be different.

He smiles at me, the sunlight in his bright blue eyes chasing away all shadows. “For the thousandth time, Peach. I’m sorry about this. I’ll be out before you know it. Eight months tops.”

He’s currently out on bond, but has to begin his sentence today.

“You were sentenced to a year and a half,” I say as though we’re still just discussing my decision. We’re not.

“Yeah, but I’ll get out early for good behavior,” he says, that wide smile still making the edges of his lips curl up.

“Who? You?” I ask snappishly. I know Ian is excited to be going to prison, since it’ll give him a chance to prove just what a bad boy he is. I can’t believe he sucked me into discussing all this again. “We’re breaking up.”

His summery smile from before is barely a grin now. “We’ll talk about it later. There’s no time now. My ride’s here.”

There’s no anger, no sorrow, no plea, not much of anything in his voice, unless it’s dejected resignation.

“No, Ian, we won’t,” I say more firmly than I feel, because I feel like my soul is floating in the air between us right now, touching his, and I can’t believe this is the last time we’ll be seeing each other. But I have to protect our child. “I mean it this time. We’ve had a good run, but I won’t be tied down to a convicted criminal. It’s where I draw the line.”

The harshness of my words hurts me, and I’m sure it’s the same for him. Yet he’s still looking at me in that dejected, “Here we go again” way. He has no real reason to think my decision to break up with him is permanent. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve broken up in the last thirteen years since we started dating. And we’re still together. Still as in love as we ever were.

I hate to say these words now, on the morning of his departure for prison, hate to think them, but I’m keeping our baby, and it deserves a better life, a better father. One who will not put himself in danger whenever he can. One who doesn’t live and breathe violence.

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