Since the day she married, Blake Pierce had been living in a waking nightmare.

He spent his sleepless nights lying to himself, repeating the same delusion until he was convinced that simply returning to Deepwater would bring Violette Ellis back into his arms.

The glass house of his dream shattered the moment he arrived.

These past few days had been his breaking point. He knew Violette had no intention of turning back—that she had, in fact, left the city specifically to avoid him—and yet, he was powerless to do anything about it.

That night, he had done the unthinkable. A man who usually treated alcohol like poison had hit the bottle until he was obliterated. The world had turned into a hazy blur. His body felt weightless, his soul drifting somewhere near the ceiling, detached from the pathetic heap of a man sprawled on the carpet.

He had looked down at himself: black hair a knotted mess, limbs splayed in every direction, curled against the bedframe like a stray dog waiting for a master who would never come.

Then came the miracle.

Violette had swiped the key card and stepped into his room. She knelt beside him, her fingers weaving through his hair, a faint, firm pressure in her touch.

He obeyed, lifting his head. His eyes were glassy, drowning in a desperate need that mirrored a dog finally seeing its owner.

"You're back?"

Violette didn’t answer. She simply brushed the stray locks of hair from his forehead.

He leaned into her hand, desperate for the warmth of her palm. "Violette, I missed you so much."

Her gaze drifted downward, landing on the floor beside his feet.

Blake panicked. A collection of empty bottles lay scattered across the rug in a chaotic sprawl. In his drunken stupor, he remembered that she despised the smell of booze. Had he reeked? Would she be repulsed?

He recoiled, pulling away from her touch, the sudden surge of insecurity overriding his desire. He couldn’t bear the thought of her disgust. He turned his face away, holding his breath to keep his exhales from reaching her, yet his body betrayed him, arching forward to invite the heat of her touch against his burning skin.

He ached for her fingers to slip between his buttons, to soothe the frantic, rhythmic hammering of his heart.

And that was the cruelest trick of the alcohol.

In his dream, it became reality.

When he woke, the void swallowed him whole. He went to the training courts, kept up his three meals a day, and played the part of a functioning human being. But the shell was moving while the marrow inside was hollowed out.

Until today. Seeing her in the hospital room, Blake felt a flicker of life spark back into his chest.

He knew she wouldn’t coddle him the way she had in that drunken fever dream, so he played it smart. He retreated into his corner, content to just hear her ask if he was doing alright.

Violette stayed silent.

He couldn't take the quiet anymore.

As the words left his lips, he realized how pathetic he sounded. They said that love which is begged for is no love at all, yet here he was, on his knees.

Violette didn't glance away from the road. The car didn't even shudder. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, her expression as blank as a screen.

She wasn't going to speak.

Blake dropped his eyes, a bitter laugh caught in his throat. "Not even one word? Can't you even ask?"

It wasn't that she couldn't. It was that dealing with Blake was never as simple as observing a stranger. They had been in love; he knew every crack in her armor.

He could dissect her silence and find the hidden thoughts beneath. Besides, his desperation was too visceral, too hungry. Give him an inch, and he would convince himself it was a mile, dragging himself closer until he was suffocating her.

Violette steeled her heart. Don't go soft, she told herself.

"I'm not doing well," Blake said, answering his own question.

He looked out the window, his profile partially hidden by the brim of his hat, revealing nothing but the sharp, rigid line of his nose. "The lawsuit will require the parties involved to go through some formalities. I’ll be in touch then. If you don’t want to see me..."

He paused. "I can have someone else act as my representative."

The shift in tone was so abrupt that his earlier confession felt like a hallucination, drifting away into the air between them.

"Fine," Violette said.

"Until the results are in, I’ll do as you asked. Not a word on Twitter."

"What about your club?" Violette asked suddenly.

Blake’s pupils flickered. "My agent is no longer managing my personal accounts. No more carefully curated 'good guy' persona. I'm free."

"I meant, how did you get them to agree to that?"

His gaze trembled. After a long silence, he asked, "Can I take that as a sign of concern?"

Violette shifted her gaze, her face perfectly composed. "We're just discussing the facts, aren't we?"

"Right. Yes. The facts," Blake nodded. The tension in his shoulders visibly slackened. "I agreed to re-negotiate my prize money distribution for the rest of the season."

"What are the terms?"

"Nine-to-one."

There was no need to ask who held the nine.

Violette couldn't help but glance at him. "Are you running a charity now?"

"I just want to play tennis. The money doesn't matter." He turned to face the window. "My family has enough to keep me in the sport."

With him putting it like that, what was she supposed to say?

Violette processed the information with a calm exterior, but beneath the surface, the water was churning. There was no clean way to cut these ties.

She gave a small, noncommittal hum and lapsed into silence.

The hotel where Blake was staying appeared in the distance. A block before the intersection, Blake signaled for her to stop.

"Just drop me off here."

He pulled his mask back up, the thin, white earbud cord dangling against his jaw. He zipped his black windbreaker all the way to his chin. He was covered from head to toe, leaving not a sliver of skin exposed, yet he still exuded that raw, restless energy of a boy.

"Aren't you going back to the hotel?" Violette asked.

Blake’s voice was muffled by the mask. "Keeping my distance."

Violette felt a slight shift in her perception of him. Back in the day, he had been fearless, unafraid of anything, pulling her into his arms in broad daylight and laughing, "If they catch us, they catch us. It saves us the trouble of a public announcement, doesn't it?"

He seemed to have grown up overnight.

Violette slowed the car and let him out at the curb.

After driving a few hundred yards, she glanced into the rearview mirror. His long, lean figure had become a tiny, dark speck, shrinking smaller and smaller until it vanished into the cityscape.

Only then did she unclench her hands from the steering wheel. Her palms were marked with a row of deep, crescent-shaped indentations.

Suddenly, her phone rang.

Violette looked at the center console. Two names flashed on the screen.

Roman Griffin.