My stomach sank even lower as I remembered how he’d had Frosted Flakes in his pantry before I’d ever expressed my love for them. I’d been giddy we had something so small in common. Now, it just felt like a slap in the face. A cruel joke only he had been in on.
“Of course he’d never asked any questions,” I moaned aloud to myself. “He already knew all the answers.”
My throat burned as memories from Katherine’s mixer flooded my mind.
“He was sitting next to you and Scott Kirk on the flight. I didn’t even realize he knew anyone else on that plane.”
“He wasn’t sitting next to me. I was with Aaron.”
“That’s what the flight log says, but I watched you spill a Bloody Mary myself.”
Jesus, everyone had told me I was sitting with Aaron on our way home from a ski trip.
I’d had no reason to doubt them. They were my family, my friends, people I’d made family by choice.
I couldn’t decide which betrayal burned the hottest.
A sudden pounding on my office front door made my head snap up. The anger that had been simmering in my veins reached a boiling point with every rap of his knuckles against the glass.
I knew he’d try to find me. It wasn’t hard. Especially not for a man who knew every damn detail about me. Including those I didn’t. I could’ve pretended I hadn’t heard him, but my car was out front. It wouldn’t have been long until the whole band of liars I’d once mistaken as my loyal protectors joined him. More bullshit would spew from their mouths.
The worst of it was I had no way to know the truth even if they presented me with some semblance of it. They could have told me anything—who was I kidding? They had told me anything. But now I was forced with the task of deciding who and what I could believe.
I had to give them credit though. They were good. I’d bought every word of their bullshit hook, line, and sinker.
Two lies were never the same though. If I could get each one of them alone, I could at least compare their stories and look for the inconsistencies. My stomach rolled at the thought of having to spend any amount of time alone with them. I shouldn’t have had to be a damn detective and investigate my own life, yet there I was, about to open the door to a man who would have all the answers that deep down I wasn’t even sure I wanted to hear.
My boyfriend. Or was he still my fiancé? Either way, the only title that suited him was traitor.
I drew in a deep breath, wishing like hell it didn’t hurt so bad. But as much as I wanted to bury my head in the sand, there were no answers to be found there. With a broken heart, a false bravado, and eyes wide open for what felt like the very first time, I forced myself up and walked to the door.
The moment I came into view through the locked glass door, palpable relief washed over his face. He pressed both palms against the glass, every inch of his strong body sagging.
Seeing him now, knowing who he truly was, I realized he wasn’t even that good-looking. Those eyes that had captured me with a single glance, his stupid jeans and fitted T-shirt I’d once found so attractive, hell even his perfect lips that had made promises against my skin… They weren’t that great.
Truthfully, he was a seven at best. And that was being generous.
I swept my gaze along his form once more, giving myself a reassuring nod. Definitely nothing more than a seven.
And a half.
Fine. A weak eight.
Oh, who was I kidding?
Bowen was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Even though he was a liar, I was drawn to him like the cliché moth to a flame. My entire being, body and soul, drank him in. A tear rolled from the corner of my eye. Fuck.
I stopped in the middle of my lobby and stared at him.
“I can explain,” he pleaded from the other side of the glass. His voice was gravelly, like his throat was just as shredded as my reality, and I hated that it simultaneously felt like the softest feather dancing across my skin and a rusty razor blade carving a torturous path through my heart.
“With more lies? Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” I had to give myself credit. Unlike Bowen’s, my voice was strong and carried across the short space that divided us. Somehow the pain and anger that continued to wash over me in waves wasn’t evident when I spoke.
He hung his head but raised his voice, the timbre still not the strong man’s I’d thought I’d knew. “No. No more lies. I swear on my life. Please, Remi. Just open the door and I’ll tell you everything.”
Walking closer, I crossed my arms over my chest. “What exactly does everything entail to you? How you pretended you didn’t know me and used some sob story about a dead fiancée to manipulate me into your bed?”
He blanched and shook his head. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t lie to you about Sally.”
Fury rose inside me. How fucking dare he?
I’d seen the damn video, watched as he along with my entire family sang “Happy Birthday” to a woman who he’d claimed was dead. To a woman who was me.
Still, he had the audacity to stand there and act like this was just some misunderstanding, that he could tell me a few pretty lies and everything would be cleared up. That we could go back to being a couple, two strangers from a crash who were not only lucky enough to be alive, but to have found each other and fallen in love.
What a fucking joke.
Turning on a toe, I marched back down the hall.
“Remi!” He slammed his hands against the glass as I disappeared into my office.
I reemerged holding Quincy the cactus. The gift he’d given me the day he’d shown up slinging bullshit about the mazes of his past.
My throat was raw, but I managed to speak at a decibel he could hear through the door. “You didn’t lie? You stood right here”—I gestured wildly with my free hand—“barely two months ago, looked me straight in the eye, and told me you’d lost your fiancée. But you didn’t lie?” I hurled the cactus as hard as I could across my lobby, not giving a shit if it shattered the door right off the hinges. Just my luck, it crashed into the wall instead. “You didn’t lose anybody!” I roared. “I’m Sally!” I jabbed my finger into my heart, punctuating each word. “I’m alive! Standing right fucking here! Alone. Utterly and completely alone.” My chest heaved as I fought back another round of tears threatening to spill over. “You didn’t lose anyone. I am the one who lost everyone.”
“No, you haven’t,” he implored, more desperate than I’d ever heard him. “I’m here. I’ve always been here. Everything I told you about Sally—”
“Sally. Doesn’t. Fucking. Exist!”
He slammed his hand against his heaving chest. “She does to me! She was my entire life. And then one day, I didn’t exist to her.” His wild eyes locked with mine as he pressed his scarred wrist against the glass. “We share these scars because whether you remember it or not, we traveled through hell. Together. The only difference between us is that you got out. Please, just open the door and give me the chance to explain.”
I tore my eyes from his and looked down at my wrist. The heartbreaking stories about his life with Sally crashed over me with the weight of an avalanche, and my mind tumbled over the cliff.
She’d been kidnapped.