She meant to have fun. Really, she did. But the gin and tonic was watered down, the dance floor was so crowded she’d gotten elbowed and damn near molested in the five minutes she’d spent on the floor, and the pumping, throbbing music was going straight through her head with glass spikes.

Great. All I need is a migraine. Why can’t I enjoy myself like everyone else?

Lucy was having a fine time, shaking her thang on the dance floor with a guy who looked like the epitome of Latin Lover, right down to the poufy white shirt. She looked good, and the guy was leaning in, talking in her ear or nibbling. They were rubbing hips, and Lucy had her hands up in the air, abandoned to the dance in a way Sophie couldn’t even dream of being.

I was like that once, though, wasn’t I? She couldn’t remember. Instead, the image of copper-bottomed pans hanging over a kitchen island rose up, their bright shapes moving slightly, and a cold rill of fear slid up her back. A half-guilty glance around showed nothing out of the ordinary.

Still jumping at shadows. She couldn’t even remember what it felt like to dance without being afraid. And her nerves tingled, whether it was from weak gin or the infrequent pins-and-needles feeling that meant something bad was about to happen.

Those pins and needles had saved her from a car crash once. Or, at least, she firmly believed so. The feeling had made her sit at a four-way stop until a car zoomed through the intersection, not even pausing. Whether the driver was drunk or just careless didn’t matter.

The trouble was, that feeling would never warn her when she was, say, about to marry a man who thought “wife” meant “slave.” Or “punching bag.”