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But we’re not.
While Redix and I look alike. While we both care for the same heart-stealing woman. I come from a world neither Redix nor Cade knows.
It’s one I don’t tell most about because why?
I got kicked out of it and disowned for who I dared to fall in love with. But I never wanted that life in the first place. You can’t rob someone of something they didn’t want.
But I miss my mom. And sure, I’d rather my dad be proud of me than disgraced, but I can’t be the son he wants. I’ll die inside trying.
So here we go.
I’ll slip this expensive suit on, yank a comb through the knots in my long hair, and slide on these bespoke shoes custom-made for me. And I’ll take Cade Bryant on a fancy date.
She’ll hook her gorgeous arm in mine, and we’ll enter the lion’s den together.
And nope.
I ain’t fuckin’ scared.
But maybe I should be.
CHAPTER FOUR
I’m trying not to moan, but this feels so good. My eyes close, and this woman rubbing my feet is giving me the best pedicure of my life. And I need it. I need every ounce because every part of me hurts. Nothing else feels good. And I mean… not a damn thing.
The man I love hates me.
The job I love; I’m a fraud now.
My parents? I looped them into my crime.
My friends can’t know, so I have no one to talk to.
I could turn to Silas, but I’ll never hurt him.
I made a deal with God to end three wicked men. I got one, but two remain, and my soul burns because I can’t catch them. Yet.
And all of it is my fault.
If I let it, this pain would destroy me. It’s the torture of missing Redix so much mixed with the ache of guilt and the irony that I did it all for him…
And I lost him.
And it feels so cruel. Like how much is a heart supposed to endure? How much can you love someone and have it bring you more tears than smiles?
The framed pictures I have of us? I put them in a drawer. I can’t look at how he once loved me. Of us at eleven when my mama bought us matching red bikes. Of us at seventeen, the day after we first kissed, and didn’t want to stop. Of us a few months ago in his kitchen when he was teaching me how to chop onions, and all I did was cry from the damn things and laugh.
We’ve fought before. We’ve fucked and made up. We had more combustible passion between us than an oil tanker. But it’s gone. Not in a huge explosion. No, in one crude wreck, we were over.
And I’m fighting like hell not to let it end me, too.
And I’m losing.
I sense it with an exhale: someone sitting in the pedicure chair beside me. It’s what I bribed the shop manager to do. Slowly coming back to my plan, I open my eyes.
I first notice the short hem of her pink and palm tree Lilly Pulitzer dress. Then, her French-manicured tips. Then, her three-carat diamond wedding ring. And then the curled ends of her long blonde hair.
But I don’t speak. I let it fester. She recognizes me. I’m too tall with too many Redix Dean paparazzi pictures taken of me.
