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And I couldn’t breathe.
A pin drop could be heard in that moment, and even though my parents’ house had vaulted ceilings, I could hear my own breath. I could hear Red’s who was right there in front of me.
“What was fake?” Dad asked, casually taking off his coat. I looked a lot like my father, dark hair, curly. He was the tallest person in the room outside of myself, but his confusion was evident upon seeing what he was seeing. He knew Fawn and I had broken up, but here she was standing in front of me. “Son?”
My mom had the same question, that same confusion in her dark eyes. She had shopping bags in her arms, and my sister did as well. The three of them had gone Christmas shopping, and I’d bowed out because I was a moody prick.
Dad had his own bags. They were currently on the floor as he must have placed them down to take his coat off. He wasn’t picking them up, and my sister, Sloane, wasn’t moving toward Bru or her boyfriend. This was unusual considering she hadn’t seen our brother in months, and anytime Dorian was in the room, my twin had blinders. She’d normally be in his arms in seconds, but currently, she had fingers to her lips. Like she was trying to determine what was going on here and was just as confused as our parents. They all must have come through the back entry and happened to come in right at this point in the conversation.
Everyone was confused, clearly. Dorian, Wells, and Thatch also stayed in place. They weren’t moving, and their heads were cocked while looking at me. The only people who weren’t confused were Bru and Fawn. Bru was holding his big arms and looking like some kind of pissed-off dad. Like he was waiting for some kind of explanation from his son who’d fucked up. Actually, Fawn was the only one who wasn’t looking at me, but she did when I gazed at her. She probably thought I’d lie and throw her under the bus in that moment.
I mean, I had before.
“Fawn and I, our entire relationship, was fake,” I said, refusing to break eye contact with her now that I had it.
I think it gave me strength.
CHAPTER THREE
Fawn
“So, um…” Wells Ambrose acquired a couch cushion beside me and dropped his arms between his long legs. He was the lankiest out of all the Legacy boys, but he was still solid. He played football like the rest of them too, so that much was a given. He opened his hands. “How did this all happen?”
Thatcher Reed gazed over from his easy chair, and Dorian Prinze did the same from his position by the door. I was surrounded by Legacy boys, and people on campus called them that because of the influence they came from. Their families were rich, powerful, and I managed to get caught up with all of them because of Wolf.
I can’t believe he told the truth.
I was left without any allies here in front of the Legacy boys. Shortly after Wolf’s confession, he’d been ushered away, and that went the same for Bru and their sister, Sloane. Their parents called a family meeting, and Bru had had no choice but to attend.
Of course, that hadn’t sat well with the rest of Legacy. Things had gotten elevated before Mr. Mallick shut things down and called the meeting. They’d gotten loud as the Legacy guys had their own questions about the whole fake-dating situation.
This is such a mess.
I knew it would be, which was why I wanted to stop all this. I hadn’t wanted all these people hurt in all this just because Wolf was completely screwed up.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that was the only reason you did it.
I would tell myself that. Wolf had been cruel to me, sick and cruel and terrible. A fake relationship was unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg when it came to the reaches of his cruelty. He’d used my internship with the New York Times against me, as well as threatened my enrollment at my college, Pembroke University. He dangled them both above my head to force me into doing what he wanted, and let’s not even go into how far the whole fake relationship itself had gone. It had gotten physical in the end, sexual, but if things had only stopped there, I would have been okay. Wolf was a gorgeous guy, and I could fuck him with no strings, if anything as penitence, but that wasn’t what had happened.
That was when his savagery took on a new level. Things had gotten physical. They’d gotten intense and lines had gotten completely eradicated not just blurred. I hadn’t been wrong for sleeping with Wolf countless times. Where I’d gone wrong was thinking those times meant something to him. He’d led me to believe something and ended up using me in more than one way.
“Better yet, why did this happen?” Thatcher Reed put his phone away. He’d been tapping on it and restless like the rest of these guys. He frowned. “Why would he do this?”
I definitely didn’t want to be here, answering these questions.
Bru, where are you?
He was somewhere in this gorgeous house, the place decorated with winter flourishes and twinkling lights. The Mallick family clearly got into the holiday spirit. I’d spotted at least three Christmas trees on the way into this room, and I’d only seen three rooms on the way to this one. I rubbed my hands. “He, um, came to me toward the beginning of the semester. Wolf did.”
I had Dorian Prinze’s attention now. The big blond shifted from his position at the door, and he hadn’t left it. He was the only one standing in the room and had his meaty arms crossed. He kept staring out of the door like he was ready and waiting to take action. I didn’t know what kind, but I assumed that had something to do with the family meeting going on somewhere in this big house. Honestly, they probably wouldn’t even have been excluded from it if not for the explosion in the foyer. These guys had big personalities, but Mr. Mallick wasn’t having it. With just a word from him, they exited the room, and they’d gone like soldiers. They undoubtedly respected him.
I released a breath. “He came to me saying he needed a fake girlfriend and blackmailed me into doing it.” I watched the guys’ reactions to that, each of them exchanging glances with one another. “He threatened an internship I had with the New York Times and my enrollment at Pembroke if I didn’t do it.”
Thatcher’s and Wells’s mouths parted, and a heavy confusion laced Dorian Prinze’s eyes. Thatcher scrubbed into his dark hair. “But why?”
I really, really didn’t want to answer that. At this point, I didn’t care about putting Wolf’s business out there, but this was personal. This was a family, and these guys were his family too. I’d seen their connection, their brotherhood. There were a lot of people affected by Wolf’s actions, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell them why he lied.
I really needed Bru and hadn’t realized the extent of that need until he’d been forced to leave too. His attention had been on nothing but me before he’d left, and it reminded me of when we’d been in school. We hadn’t known each other very long, but we had quickly formed a connection and he’d been there during some really dark times. He’d been there when I couldn’t see beyond my trauma. My dad had died in high school, and Bru knew what it was like to see someone going through tough times. He’d had a parent he basically had to take care of due to mental health issues, so he knew how to deal with people who were suffering…
