[PROLOGUE] Mia feels the vaguest amount of guilt for lying. Ethan didn't deserve to be lied to, but it wasn't exactly like she could tell him she was off to do illegal experimentation on genetically altered children and go on her merry way. Instead, she lied and left, unable to even look at him for much longer than necessary. (It's the guilt she tells herself, not the way she cringes for a moment when he kisses her or how reluctant she is to be intimate with him, or the way she catches herself staring at other women.)