“Do you really think I have no way of checking how long your shift really was?” Brendan raised a voice recorder, playing an audio clip of one of the restaurant workers speaking. “Deirdre McKinnon? She left at around nine,” they said. “I don’t have the deets, but if you’re looking for a pianist for your dining experience, I’m afraid you’ll have to come again tomorrow!”

Deirdre’s face turned white as a sheet. She had not expected Brendan to come up with a counter-strategy.

The fury in his eyes had only grown exponentially. “I hate being lied to, you know that? So why do you keep pushing my buttons? We’re finally out of the woods with Sterling Fuller, and you’re hooking up with Trevor Carlson now?”

Deirdre’s eyes widened. She hardly had the chance to wonder how Brendan had managed to get his name before feeling a force clutching at her jaw. Pain.

He bore down on her, his fury oozing out of him like miasma.

Suddenly, it was as if they had gone back to that time again—those cursed d