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again.”
    My hand curved around the bend of his arm. “I know. You won’t. I’m not going to keep sneaking you in through windows or lying about who I’m out with. I promise. I just need tonight to gather my thoughts and collect my wits before they start firing questions our way.” I glanced at the doors, half expecting them to fly open before a stream of family came crashing around us. No one came though. “Okay?”
    Boone stepped away from me until my hand fell from his arm. “I’ve never been able to say no to you. Why would that have changed now?”
    He wasn’t looking at me like I was guilty, nor did anything in his voice hint at the same, but there had been few times in my life when I’d felt more guilt. Boone was right—I’d hidden him from my family, keeping him a secret for months. Boone had it in his head that I did that because I was ashamed of him, but the truth was I’d been ashamed of them . Ashamed because I knew they wouldn’t accept him. Ashamed because I knew they were the type of people who judged a man first by the size of his wallet and second by the size of his heart.
    Ashamed because I knew they’d arrive at the conclusion that their daughter was too good for that nothing of a boy with a dead-end future, and I knew the truth—Boone Cavanaugh was too good for the likes of me.
    “Thank you,” I whispered before I made my way up to the door.
    My parents had around-the-clock staff manning all areas of the estate, and even though I knew proper protocol was to ring the doorbell and wait for the butler to open the door and welcome us inside, we were going incognito tonight.
    When I tried the door handle, I found it unlocked. It was past ten o’clock, which meant my dad was just about to doze off from his third brandy of the night, and my mom was probably layering her fifth night cream onto her face before downing a sleeping pill and passing out.
    So why did I feel like I was about to be pounced on?
    “You remember where my room’s at?” I whispered to Boone as I opened the door as slowly and noiselessly as I could.
    “Hard to forget the room of the girl I lost my—”
    “Shhhh.” I lifted my finger to my lips and fired a warning look back at him.
    “Yes, I remember where it is,” he said, his voice quiet once again.
    “As soon as I open this door, I want you to run up those stairs and don’t stop until you’re closing my bedroom door behind you. Okay?”
    His nostrils flared ever so slightly. “Whatever you say.”
    Once the door was all the way open, I waved him inside, rushed in behind him, and closed the door. The foyer was empty, and other than the clocks I heard ticking in the library and living room, I didn’t hear a sound. Maybe everyone was already asleep.
    “Hurry,” I whispered, motioning toward the stairs Boone was staring at like they were insurmountable.
    All he did was give me a look. That look said more than any words could have. Then he lunged up the stairs, taking them two at a time like my suitcases were empty.
    Once Boone had reached the top and disappeared down the hall, I rolled my neck a few times before wandering toward the kitchen. Someone was awake and around. The gate hadn’t opened itself.
    The journey to the kitchen took longer than I remembered. The house had been built two hundred years ago, during a time when excess and extravagance was the thing to do for those Southern families with money and a good name. Over eight thousand square feet and with so many rooms I couldn’t recall half of them, this place might have seemed like a palace for a young girl to grow up in. For me, it had been a prison keeping me jailed from the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to be with.
    “The Abbotts had all been cut from the same cloth” was the way people around here phrased it . . . save for one soul. Me. I’d never been one of them, though I might have shared their last name. Even from the time I was a child, I’d known that. Their goals