She opens her mouth to argue and Connor cuts her off. “This is all very fun, but the more we talk about witches and spirits, I find myself becoming stupider and stupider. So please, for the sake of all humanity, shut up.”

I shake my head while Lo grins, finding this hilarious.

Rose combats her husband almost immediately, “You really think your intelligence benefits all of humanity? You own a diamond business.”

“And I give a large percentage of my money to charities and research, darling.”

They start to bicker, and Daisy leans closer to me. She folds a napkin into an origami swan, glancing from it to me every so often. “Want to know a secret?” she whispers.

“Sure,” I say, my arm stretching across the back of her chair again.

She smiles and says, “You’re my favorite four-letter word.” Her bold green eyes flit up to me.

She makes the corniest pickup lines sound like the sexiest things I’ve ever heard.

“The word fuck didn’t do anything for you?” I ask, my muscles tensing.

“You’ve desensitized me to it. It might as well be as powerful as the word foot.”

I lean into her ear and lower my voice. “You won’t be saying that when I actually fuck you.”

A blinding smile fills her face, and it stirs my need even more. I want her in my fucking arms. I want to kiss her so deeply that air has trouble reaching both of our lungs, gasping with wild, arresting pleasure.

One day, it’ll happen.

Just not this moment.

“I’ll go,” Lily announces, cutting in Connor and Rose’s bickering. She stands up with her magazine in hand. “Um…so there’s this picture of me in this one that really bugs me.” She flips a couple of pages and then nods. “Yeah, so I’m buying condoms and they captioned it with Lily’s spiraling out of control again.”

Rose claps, excited to have a willing participant. “Okay, now throw it in.”

Lily tosses the magazine into the flames. It falls against the logs and burns quickly.

Connor stands next, snatching a magazine off the towering stack beside Rose.

“Oh so now you believe in it?” Rose asks.

“I believe in you,” Connor refutes. “Not your superstition.” He flips open the magazine. “Connor Cobalt’s seventh sex tape has grossed over twenty million dollars. Making Scott Van Wright, the owner of the tapes, one of the world’s richest pornography distributers.” Scott Van Wright is the reason Connor and Rose have sex tapes leaked every few months. He screwed them over. After Connor dropped the lawsuits and used the publicity to grow both Rose’s fashion business and his own, I offered to personally beat the shit out of Scott. But Connor said that he didn’t want to see me in jail—even if the offer was appealing.

I hope someday that son of a bitch gets what he deserves.

Connor throws the magazine into the fire, hate actually passing through his blue eyes.

Rose is next. “Rose Cobalt is a bitch.” She nods and tosses hers in.

“That’s it?” Lo asks when she sits down. “That’s all you could come up with?”

“Those are hurtful words,” Rose replies.

“I call you a bitch five times a day and you don’t bat an eye,” Lo reminds her. Then he remembers her outburst tonight and corrects himself, “Well, not usually.”

“They’re not hurtful from you,” she refutes. “That was Vogue.” She touches her chest. “I cried for two days straight when I read that.”

“Vogue is her Bible,” Lily says.

“Does that mean I’m like your saint?” Daisy asks with a smile. She was in Vogue a few months ago. On the front of the fucking magazine.

“You’d be more saint-like if you participated,” Rose says.

Daisy brightens and then stands on the seat of her canvas chair. “Daisy Calloway ‘the baby Calloway’,” she reads and adds air quotes, “has been spotted with another male model at a Gucci fashion shoot. Close sources have confirmed that she’s been seeing him. This is the third guy this month for Daisy. Could this be a clear sign that she’s following in Lily’s footsteps? Only time will tell.” She flings the magazine and it spins to the fire like a Frisbee.

Hearing that—it hardens my face. The Gucci shoot was months ago, and even though I know she couldn’t be with those guys—we slept in the same bed every night—the accusations piss me off. Rose wants to expel bad energy, but I don’t read these tabloids for a reason.

“You go,” Daisy tells me. She tries to kick my chair over with her foot, but she doesn’t have enough strength when she’s standing up high. I don’t rise. I just look down at the magazine in my hands after finding the center article. “Ryke Meadows in another fight with a photog. And they show a picture of me yelling at some cameraman.” I lazily toss the magazine in and lean back in my chair.

“Do you feel any different?” Daisy asks as she hops off her chair.

“Nope.”

Daisy gasps and looks to Rose. “It didn’t work on him. Can we cast a spell to protect him from evil?”

Rose rolls her eyes now and then she looks at my brother. “Loren, please go.”

He reluctantly rises, but only because Lily climbs off his lap and physically pulls him from the chair. When his eyes fall to the magazine I see how they change. They sharpen and turn cold. “Another source confirms molestation rumors. Jonathan Hale and Loren Hale continue to deny them. Jonathan’s first son has yet to comment.”

No one speaks. An uncomfortable tension blankets our campsite. I wait for Lo to throw the magazine into the fire or curse me out or both. But his eyes remain on the tabloid and his brows furrow as he continues to read silently. He starts shaking his head.

“What is it?” Connor asks.

“A psychiatrist specializing in sex addiction was interviewed,” Loren reads, “and confirms that most sex addicts experience sexual trauma. We have confirmation that…” He rubs his lips to hide emotion, his eyes reddening. He shakes his head. “We have confirmation that Lily Calloway spent much of her time with the Hales. It’s suspected that Jonathan Hale might have bene an influence in her addiction.”

They’re implying that Jonathan abused her too.

I can’t see that happening. I shake my head as much as Lo. My dad may be a bad fucking guy, but he wouldn’t do that to Lily, to his best friend’s daughter. It’s something unthinkable.

And if Lo saw that happen, he wouldn’t roll over and stay quiet. He would go absolutely crazy. He would have, without a fucking doubt, killed our father.

“What?” Lily says, gaping. “Lo, that never happened.”

Lo looks up at her and his gaze immediately softens. “I know, Lil.” He doesn’t even hesitate. Doesn’t question her or think otherwise. There’s complete loyalty between them. But it doesn’t break the pain that they share between their gazes. They’re both being dragged through this.

“Throw it in,” Rose says quietly.

He does it. And I watch it burn, right along with my thoughts.

I don’t know what or who to believe anymore.

Everything’s just dark.

< 40 >

RYKE MEADOWS

I am alone with Daisy. In a tent.

“I’m not surprised,” Daisy whispers. I attached a flashlight at the top of the three-person tent and it dangles like a lamp. I can see all of her as she sits cross-legged. I lie on my back, watching her twist her hair into a bun. “Rose thought the shadows were bugs, and she rolled on top of Lily, she was so grossed out.” Daisy smiles at the image. “She’s never been camping.”

“Really? I hadn’t fucking noticed,” I say. Rose was the first to ditch the all-girls tent. She unzipped the one I was in, bracing an axe in her hand like she was ready to murder all of us. I think the thought seriously crossed my brother’s mind.

But Connor reached out for her, and she melted, like a feral cat turned into a soft kitten. Before I left, his arms were wrapped around her, and she seemed content. Lily showed up next, too frightened to be alone with just Daisy in the all-girls tent. In Lo’s words, Rose could scare off a “wildebeest” and without her, Lily decided to seek comfort with her boyfriend.

Which left Daisy all by herself.

And it gave me a necessary excuse to sleep in her tent. No one really wanted her to be alone in the middle of the woods. Not even my brother.

“Lie down,” I tell Daisy. I can tell she’s having trouble sleeping. She doesn’t want to take Ambien tonight, and I can’t push her to take that pill anymore. The side effects are too intense. There has to be another way to combat her insomnia.

Instead of lying down, she straddles my waist. She’s wearing my track sweatpants that are baggy on her legs. I fucking love her in my clothes. “I can’t sleep,” she says.

“It’s two in the morning,” I whisper, sitting up fully. I’m taller than her in this position. Being this close to her, my chest an inch from hers, strains the air and stiffens my muscles. “Have you ever imagined me fucking you?” Curiosity compels me to the question. My fingers glide along her bare hips, underneath my Penn shirt that she wears.

Her breathing shallows, probably wondering if tonight will be the night. “Yes.”

“When?” I prod. I pull the T-shirt over her head, leaving her topless, her nipples already erect. It’s over for me. I harden in a fucking instant and a large breath catches in the back of her throat as she feels me underneath her.

“A bunch of times,” she says in a whisper, the air tensing. She tugs on my shirt, wanting me bare as much as she is. I help her pull it over my head, and then she starts to trace the outline of my tattoo with her fingers. “By myself. But usually…” She pauses, her green eyes flitting up to mine. “When I was with other guys. I thought it’d help.”