“Mr. Stone,” the attendant calls from behind him. “I must insist you sit.”

I need off this plane. I try to step around Liam, and talk to the attendant, though I have no clue what to say or if it will matter. Liam seems to anticipate the move, shackling my waist with one arm, and molding me to his hard, wet body.

“Let go,” I order tightly, willing away the heat stirring low in my belly at his nearness.

“We’re going to sit down now, Amy.”

“I don’t want to sit down.”

He yanks open the curtain, and using his larger size to bully me, walks us into the cabin behind us, then all but physically lifts me and sets me down in a chair. I have only a moment to assess the cabin area as identical to the one we just left when his hands go down on the arms of my seat, his arms caging me, and the engines churn roughly to life.

We glare at each other and I both loathe and revel in the way his heated, angry stare burns through me like a brand. It’s unsettling to be this drawn to him beyond reason when I’m this at his mercy. “There was a reason I left New York,” I grind out through my teeth. “Were you part of that reason, Liam?”

Emotion flashes in his eyes, something I cannot name but find I want to understand. And it’s that something else that jabs at my heart, like I hurt him. Did I hurt him? I don’t know how to react or how to handle any of this. “Liam--”

“I’m doing what I have to do to keep you safe. We’re going to New York. End of discussion.” He grabs my seat belt and hooks it into place. “Don’t make me tie you up because if that’s what it takes to keep you here, I will.”

Tie me up? I swallow hard against a lump forming in my throat, but not from the threat. From the emotion vibrating in his voice as he’s issued it. The plane starts to move. Liam pushes away from me and walks to the curtain, yanks it shut, then claims the seat directly in front of me instead of beside me. His eyes meet mine and I do not like what I find there. I do not like the distance that I’ve spent nearly two months putting between us. I do not like that I think...I think I hurt him.

We start taxiing and the plane is one big jerky nightmare with the obvious impact of high winds and a promise that I’m going where it’s going. Where Liam has decided I will go but the worry over control and even New York fade into one thing. This man. Who he is and what we are together makes all the rest irrelevant. Those things define what comes next.

Tightening my grip on the armrests, I block out the loud rush of engines and wicked shudders of the plane as we lift off, squeezing my eyes shut. I replay moments with this man as I have so many times before. The first time our eyes met in the airport. The moment in my apartment when he’d trapped my hands and I’d instinctively trusted him when I had trusted no one but some invisible handler for six long years.

Trusted him.

Just as my gut had told me to trust my handler that day in the hospital, it told me to trust Liam. And he’s done nothing to hurt me and everything to help me. My lashes lift and he’s still staring at me, watching me. I do not like the hardness in his face I didn’t see before we sat down. He is angry and...hurt? Yes. I think he’s hurt.

“I’m just trying to survive, Liam,” I confess. “You gave me reasons not to trust you. I just...I need answers.”

“That’s what I was trying to find out when you got spooked and ran off.”

“Well I’m here now. Who are you in all of this?”

 “Just a man who cares.”

It’s a perfect answer, if it comes from the right place with the right motives. “Why?”

“Every time you ask that question, I’ll answer the same.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his powerful thighs. “I care. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing in my life is that simple.”

“I am.”

“No.” I laugh without humor. “We’ve had this discussion before. You are anything but simple or normal.”

“Well then, let me make at least one thing simple for you, Amy. Anyone who wants to hurt you has to come through me first.”

His vow punches me in the chest, a bittersweet, tempting promise that could easily be a deadly poison that tears away caution I can’t afford to let fall. “You’re right. You keep answering my questions the same way and saying all the right things. I can’t just take your word. I need more. I need...more.”

He scrubs his jaw and then sighs. “I wanted to wait to do this when we were alone and you felt safe, but I can see that to ever get to that point you need to know what I know. So here are the facts.” He runs both hands over his thighs to rest at his knees. “And when we get to New York, I’ll show you all the documentation.”

“I’m listening,” I whisper, unable to find my voice, hanging by a thread over what he might confess or where in my past he might lead me.

“I knew you were running scared,” he continues, “and I didn’t trust your boss. I told you that.”

“Yes,” I agree. “You were clear on that and I was clear when I told you not to look into my background. You were clear when you said you wouldn’t. I trusted you at your word.”

“You were terrified out of your mind. What kind of man sits back and just watches that? Your boss doesn’t exist beyond a shell on paper, Amy.”

“I told you not to dig.”

His eyes narrow on me. “So you knew he wasn’t real. It was a cover story.”

He’s too close to the real me, whoever she is, for comfort. “What matters is you broke a promise.”

“But you didn’t know about the camera,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken, adding things together far too quickly. “You couldn’t have or you wouldn’t have accused me of installing it. Interestingly, the fake boss is the person who set up the Amy Bensen identity.”

It’s not a question. It’s a sharp jab in my chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His eyes narrow on mine. “Yes, you do. Amy Bensen has no school pictures, no connections of any sort, and no real life. She doesn’t even have fingerprints on file. But did you know that Jasmine Heights, Texas has an abduction prevention program that fingerprints kids? You were fingerprinted in kindergarten.”

I go still inside but my hands are shaking as I curl my fingers into my palms. “What?”

 “That’s right, Amy. You were fingerprinted, or rather, Lara was fingerprinted and supposedly died in a house fire six years ago. That’s what her death certificate says. That’s what your death certificate says.”

I can barely breathe just hearing my real name being spoken out loud for the first time since the fire, but even more so at the news he’s delivered with it. I’m dead. The real me didn’t just leave Jasmine Heights behind. Someone buried me alive. The finality of all that once was and can never be again. There is nothing left. Nothing. The shaking has turned to trembling all over. “I...no. I...no...” I squeeze my eyes shut, the flames flickering in my mind’s eye, hearing my brother’s shout. My mother’s screams. “No.” I press my hand to my face.

Liam curses and then I don’t even remember him moving but he is kneeling in front of me, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders. “I knew I should have waited until we were safe and dry.” He caresses hair from my face. “It’s going to be okay. You’re not alone anymore.”

 “Nothing is okay,” I rasp out, grabbing his shirt “Nothing has been okay for six years.”

“I know, baby, and I’m going to try to change that for you now.”

“Were you involved? Tell me if you were involved. Good or bad or right or wrong, I have to know.”

“No. God no, Amy.” His hands go to the sides of my face. “I would never hurt you.”

“Then tell me, who is making my life hell?”

He looks stunned and his hands go to my shoulders, almost as if he’s steadying me.  “You don’t know?”

“Do you?”

“No. But I’m trying to find out. I’m going to find out.”