It is the exact lie men like Flynn depend on, because a woman busy blaming herself is a woman who will not, for precious hours or days, pick up a phone and fight back.

I felt that shame for perhaps thirty seconds.

And then, thank God, thirty years of my grandfather’s voice rose up underneath it and burned it off, and I remembered that I was not a woman something had been done to.

I was Cornelius Ashcombe’s granddaughter, and I had been raised, whether I’d noticed or not, for exactly this.

Chapter 6 — What Flynn Forgot

For five years, Flynn Locke had looked at me and seen a quiet, accommodating wife.