“You were too young, and on your way to better things,” he says, surprising me with a direct answer.

  It strikes me with frightening force that I don’t even know how old I am. I never thought about it before and only thought about my age in relation to him. The girl looking back to me in the mirror looks young, younger than he is for sure, but not by that much.

  “How old was I then?” I want to know, circumventing the embarrassment of asking him about my current age.

  A smile plays at the corner of his mouth.

  “You were eighteen, Petal. A recent high school graduate,” he says.

  “So that makes me...”

  I want to finish the sentence, trying to grasp the triumph of learning something so mundane, yet so meaningful about myself.

  But he beats me to it by revealing something that strikes me even more.

  “Today is your twenty-third birthday.”

  Chapter 63

  J

  “What brings you here today?”

  I revel in the spooked flicker that appears in her green eyes. She shifts on her seat, knowing that we’re done with the small talk. It has been more than four years since the last time we were alone in a room together, and that evening did not end well.

  I rejected her, thinking I was being responsible and right in my actions, and she took it harder than I ever could have expected. She was ready to storm out of the house, fighting me even when I ran after her, literally holding her back by force. It was dark and I knew she had nowhere to go in Newport. She was too drunk to drive and too irritated to be left alone.

  It was only after I promised her not to say another word or even look at her that night, that she agreed to stay. My Petal has always been a stubborn girl, so I wasn’t all too surprised when she refused to sleep in any of the guest rooms, but preferred the couch downstairs. I let her, if only reluctantly.

  She was gone by the time I came downstairs, leaving a little note with an apology and the promise that she will do her best not to disappoint me.

  I feared that she would feel obliged to refuse my generous offer to pay for her college as long as needed, but she was smarter than that. She may have hated me for it, but she understood that I only refused her to make it easier—for both of us.

  I was the only one who didn’t let his love for her stop her from doing what she needed to do back then. Despite my pride of her, it almost felt like a slap in the face when she received a scholarship and was no longer dependent on my help, just a few months after she left. I had her to thank for my success and the wealth that came with it, yet she feels like she’s the one owing me. I knew that a big burden was lifted from her shoulders the day she could tell me that my money was no longer needed. My congratulations on the scholarship and her short but friendly reply was the last time we had any contact.

  Until a few days ago.

  And now she’s sitting in my office, looking lost and nervous, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap as she tries to come up with the right words to tell me the reason for her surprise visit.

  “Your business really flourished,” she says, casting me a coy smile. “You seem to be really good at what you do.”

  I hold her gaze for a few moments, still waiting for her to come out and say what she wants from me, even though I’m beginning to have a pretty good idea of what it’ll be.

  “I’m the only who can do what I do,” I tell her. “That’s why people come here from all over the country to see me. And that’s why they pay as much as they do.”

  She nods, pressing her lips together before she continues. “You’re expensive.”

  “Very.”

  “Too expensive for me, that’s for sure,” she bursts out, followed by nervous laughter.

  My chest tightens, as does my hand around the pen I’m holding out of habit, not because I expect to have to write anything down.

  I don’t let her see how much her words get to me, how much they stir the desire to tell her everything, breaking an oath and crushing her feeble soul.

  “Is that why you’re here?” I want to know, jutting my chin forward. “Because you want to avail yourself of my service?”

  She looks caught, her eyes widening as her shoulders move up to her ears.

  “What if I were?”

  “Then I would ask you why,” I say. “I would ask you what it is that you want to forget. And why you want to forget it.”

  She sighs, nodding as she swallows hard.

  “Is it that boy?” I probe. “You want to forget about Kade? About the way he treated you when you were ready to sacrifice everything for him?”

  I’ve always had a way of giving voice to the uncomfortable truths that most people don’t even dare to think about it, and I usually do it in a way that makes it even more painful than it has to be. I’m a “no bullshit” kind of man, and as it turns out, even my Petal is not safe from my somewhat cruelly honest way of doing things.

  But she just shakes her head.

  “No, it’s not about him. Well, not only about him. It’s more than that.”

  Her eyes find mine, silently pleading, as if I could read her thoughts so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

  But even if I could, I wouldn’t let her get off the hook that easily. She will have to speak, no matter how hard it is for her.

  “That evening, with the gin, when we almost...”

  Her voice breaks off, her eyelashes batting like nervous butterflies as she looks up and down, trying to hold eye contact with me, but failing again and again.

  “I remember that evening,” I say, encouraging her to go on.

  “I’m sorry for the way I—”

  “Petal, please,” I interrupt her, twirling my hand impatiently. “There’s nothing to forgive. If anything, I should apologize to you.”

  She scoffs. “For what? For acting responsible when I jumped you like a horny teenager?”

  “We both know that’s not at all what happened that night.”

  She shrugs, relaxing a little. “Yes. We both wanted something, and you were smart enough to stop it, thinking it would stop me from going out into the world to pursue this dumb adventure that I’ve been talking about since I was what... fifteen?”

  She laughs, shaking her head in disbelief as she leans back in the chair, crossing her legs.

  “Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?” she adds. “Just like everything else I try, everything else I ever wanted... Nothing ever worked out. And every time I fail, I hear his voice in my head. I see him, standing before me, tall and commanding, so disappointed in his only child. He’s always right. He always told me that my place was here, in this town, taking over the family business.”

  Family business. It’s a fucking flower shop that her parents started when she was still a baby. It’s surprising enough that Robert is clinging to it like this after what happened to Petal’s mother.

  Her expression tenses, revealing that same pained expression I’ve seen on her face way too many times.

  “He’s always there,” she adds. “I can’t silence his voice, ever. Even when I moved to California, he was always there. Every decision I made, every thought I had, everything I did, I always found myself defending it against the thundering voice of my father, even when he was thousands of miles away. I hate him for it, I wish I could just cut him out of my life. But how could I? Even after everything he’s done, everything he’s denied me, he’s still my father! He may have hurt me countless times with his misguided attempts at keeping me safe, or rather, keeping me for himself. It was bad when I fell for Kade and tried to leave everything behind once again.”

  She pauses, finally finding the strength to maintain eye contact with me for longer than a split second.

  “But it was even worse after I threw myself at you, asking for... those things.”

  She needs another pause, taking a deep breath before she concludes.

  “I never stopped thinking about it, you know. I fantasized about it. I never stopped wanting it, despite your rejection. And I know I would have gone for it, I would have fought for it, if I didn’t have this voice inside my head that keeps telling me how wrong it is. That same voice has pushed me away, pushed me to try and to want things just so I could get out of its reach. But it never worked. Nothing ever did.”

  I nod along as she speaks, feeling the weight of the burden she is about to drop on me.

  “You want me to erase it,” I presume, giving her the nudge she needs. “You want me to erase your father from your memory.”

  She nods silently, slouching a little as she awaits my response.

  “That is a lot to ask,” I tell her. “Have you thought this through?”

  She frowns at me. “Of course I have. Did you think I’d just drop by on an impulse and ask such a thing of you?”

  “You didn’t even tell me you were back in town.”

  “Because I needed time!” she argues. “I needed time to consider, to realize how much I really wanted it.”

  “He is everything you have, Petal,” I say, urgency underlining my words. “He is your life.”

  “Then erase my life.”

  Her demand feels like a hit against my chest. She cannot be serious about this. It’s impossible.

  Yet the resolve is evident on her face. She holds my gaze, sitting tall, with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap. Everything about her tells me that she’s dead serious about this.

  But there remains an unresolved matter in all of this.

  “How do you intend to pay?” I ask. “We both know you don’t have the financial means, and I’m not doing this as a friendly turn.”

  She nods. “I have an idea for that. A proposition.”

  I arch my eyebrows, jutting my chin forward as I wait for her to elaborate.

  “I’ll pay with myself,” she says, not batting an eye while her stance hardens. “You’ll erase all of me—and get everything I am in return. I’ll be yours. Entirely.” She pauses, biting her lower lip, but not in doubt. Her resolve appears so set in stone that it almost worries me.

  “It’s the only way I’ll ever get what I want. The only way I ever get to be free of his judgment. The only way I can ever give myself to you the way I want to,” she adds. “A real escape. A real adventure.”

  There’s another pause, a moment she needs to clear her throat before she concludes.

  “If you’ll have me.”

  Chapter 64

  Petal

  “It’s my birthday?” I repeat in disbelief.

  He nods. The smile on his face is cautious and laced with somberness.

  “Happy Birthday, Petal.”

  I sit there, staring at him while my head is spinning.

  “Is this why you brought me down here today? As a birthday treat?”

  He whips his head from side to side.

  “Does it matter?” he wants to know. “Don’t you think you ought to be grateful, no matter what?”

  I narrow my eyes as I catch his gaze, refusing to give him a response.

  Four years, he says. It’s been four years since the things I saw happened here. Why, of all things, did I see those images? Why that particular day?

  “That day, the memory I saw. You say it was four years ago?”

  He nods.

  “Was that the last time I was here?”

  His expression stiffens and for once, he’s the one breaking eye contact. His gaze wanders, trailing through the open living room next to us while he leans forward, placing his elbows on the table and folding his hands as if to pray.

  “It was,” he says. “The last and only time.”

  “What happened since then?” I want to know. “Four years is a long time. What happened since that night?”

  “A lot.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yes, and I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Because you didn’t want to.”

  I freeze, looking at him with an aghast expression.

  Finally. He’s finally willing to tell me.

  “What do you mean by that?” I probe, even though I know the answer to that question. Malia showed me. She showed me the girl I was before all this. The girl who made a deal with this man that has no equal.

  “I mean that I erased your memory, because you asked me to do it, Petal,” he says, his eyes finding mine with a stern yet benevolent expression. “You came to me, like many others have before. I have a talent. I don’t know why or where it came from, but I’ve had it ever since I was a child. I knew I could make people forget certain things, but I didn’t know how to control this gift for the longest time. It took years to refine it, to develop a technique that allows me to target certain memories and erase them from a person’s mind. Very much like you’d delete a file or an entire folder from your computer.”

  I’m holding my breath as I listen, elation spreading throughout my chest as I watch the blanks being filled in. I knew parts of this, fragments even, but now he’s finally allowing me to see the whole picture.

  If this is a birthday present, it may be one of the best I ever received.

  “How... how do you do it?” I want to know, taking advantage of him being so talkative.

  “It’s a delicate procedure and one that comes with a lot of risk. That’s why I charge generous sums for it,” he responds. “I talk to my clients first, long and extensive. About everything. About the things they want to forget and their reason for it, but also about everything else that makes them the person they are. I need to be aware of these intimate details so I know where to stop. Then, I sedate the person, to put them in the right state. And then... I talk to them.”

  “You just... talk to them?”

  He shrugs. “Basically, yes. I know what to say, how to use their hazed mental state to take the burden off of them. I ask them to tell me all the things they want to forget, and then I add some, relying on what they have told me before being sedated. They walk out with a void, leaving their bad memories behind.”

  “And you take it,” I say, catching his sinister gaze. “You keep the memories that they unloaded on you.”

  “Someone has to. I can’t make myself forget.”

  I bite my lower lip, bewildered at my emotional response to his tale. I feel sorry for him.

  And I feel guilty.

  “That must be such a burden,” I say. “To store all those things that people wanted to forget.”

  The smile on his face widens and he lets out a huff, laced with a little chuckle. I cast him a dazzled look.

  “You’ve said those exact same words before, Petal,” he explains. “A few months ago. You said the exact same thing to me.”

  Our eyes latch on to each other for a few moments as ominous silence stretches between us. I’m surprised at his revelation, even though I shouldn’t be. Of course, we’ve had this conversation before. I just can’t remember a single thing about it.

  Because I didn’t want to.

  “But I... I didn’t just ask you to erase a certain memory,” I say, caution lacing every syllable as I try to find the right words. “I asked you to delete everything. I wanted to forget everything about myself.”

  He nods, his face strained as he averts his eyes to look down on the table between us.

  “Why?” I probe further. “What was so terrible about me or my life that I asked to have it all erased?”

  He throws me an ominous look. “If I told you now, it would all have been for nothing. You had your reasons, and I respected them. Not everyone did.”

  “Everyone?” I repeat. “You mean like the girl? My friend? She didn’t approve of this? Is that why she’s here? Or... was here?”

  He nods. “In a way, yes. She was here to protect you, to keep an eye on you, to calm you and give you support, in case I went too far with you.”

  “Was...,” I repeat. “She was here, but she no longer is? Why? Where is she? What happened to her?”

  Instead of giving me a reply, he checks the time on his wristwatch, letting out a deep sigh.

  Is he waiting for something? Or someone? I’ve never seen him check the time before.

  Just as I’m about to give voice to my questions, he gets up from his chairs, picking up both of our plates and carrying them over to the kitchen.

  “You know she told me,” I announce, desperate to keep his attention and to continue our conversation.

  It works. The plate lands on the kitchen counter with a weirdly loud sound as he turns around to me, arching his eyebrows in angry astonishment.

  “I mean, she didn’t tell me,” I correct myself. “But she... she showed me a video. Of myself.”

  He lets out an angry growl, supporting himself on the counter as he shakes his head, fixing me with an expression that speaks of disappointment and fury.

  “Of course she did,” he snarls. “I should have known.”

  “But it was a good thing!” I insist, now jumping up from my chair as well. As soon as I’m standing, I’m weirdly aware of my nakedness, especially when I notice his eyes journeying across my body, taking in the view of me with lust flickering in his hazel look.

  I withstand the urge to cover myself, allowing him to observe me all he wants as I approach. The leash loosens, gathering toward my feet as I reach the kitchen counter, standing opposite to him.

  “It gave me the reassurance I needed at the time,” I tell him. “I could tell that she was scared of showing me, because she wasn’t supposed to, but I’m so glad she did. Because it was exactly what I needed to allow myself to give in to you.”

  I can feel the heat rise to my cheeks, knowing that he sees me blushing right before him.

  “All the things that happened since then, they could only happen because of that,” I go on.

  But he shakes his head now.

  “That’s not entirely true, Petal,” he objects. “They could only happen because you wanted them enough to discard everything else. They happened because you gave yourself to me.”

  He leans forward, placing his finger beneath my chin as he tilts my eyes up to his.