CHAPTER 002
1545 Words
~Roseline's POV~
Jeremy shot upright in the bed behind me, the sheets pooling around his waist, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"Baby?" He stared straight at Evelyn, barely noticing me yet. His voice came out rough and confused. "You're dressed already? How did you…"
"Tyler told me!" She blurted out. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking directly at him with disgust and disdain. Her eyes moved from the bed to my face to his face again, trying to make the math work. "I called you several times this morning because honestly, I thought maybe we should talk and save the relationship. You didn't pick up. I was worried, so I called Tyler and he said—" She stopped and swallowed hard. "He said you'd spent the night with me."
Jeremy blinked. "What?"
"He saw you leave with me, Jeremy." She was still staring at him. "Except it wasn't me." Her eyes flashed. "Guess what? That's not all. You've gone viral on social media. You lied to me. You told me you wanted to keep the media guessing who your girlfriend was. Well, news flash! Pictures of you and her from last night are pasted all over by blogs. They're saying they've uncovered your girlfriend. Me!" She exhaled an exasperated sigh. "So much for the privacy you always said you wanted."
Evelyn turned to me, her face reddening. "And you, I haven't seen you in ten years and the first thing you do when you show up in my life is to f**k my man? Wow! Way to go, sister." She came forward until she was at eye level with me. "Are you dumb?" She held my shoulders and shook them. "Cat got your tongue? Say something! Anything! Deny it if you dare!"
I stubbornly remained silent. I had no words for her. None that justified what I'd done and none that didn't blow open doors I wasn't ready to walk through.
Was I selfish? Maybe. But honestly, I didn't give a single f**k about who was pissed.
The silence that followed was deafening.
It was at that moment that Jeremy finally processed the terrible, irreversible mistake he'd made.
He realized that I was still in the room and that Evelyn looked exactly like me. The realization made his face go white.
Meanwhile, Evelyn was looking at me like she wanted to burn me down to the ground. No hug. No "I missed you." No "Where the hell have you been?" Just cold, deep, unadulterated hatred.
"How are you here?" Jeremy whispered.
I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.
What was I supposed to say? Hi, I'm your childhood best friend? Surprise, I exist? Sorry I slept with you while pretending to be my twin who stole my entire life and apparently you too?
I didn't say any of it.
Jeremy was on his feet now, one hand running through his hair, eyes going back and forth between us like he was watching a match he didn't understand the rules of.
His eyes moved over me slowly, not the way they had last night, not with want, but with shock and disbelief like he'd just seen a ghost.
"Evelyn," he said quietly, turning to her. "You told me you were an only child."
Evelyn's jaw tightened. "Jeremy—"
"You told me—" He stopped and started again. "When I transferred to Lexington and I asked you about Emma, when I specifically asked you what happened to her, you told me she was dead."
The room went quiet.
My heart stopped beating for a full second.
He'd asked about me.
He'd asked about me and she'd told him I was dead. What the f**k?
Evelyn lifted her chin. "It was complicated."
"Complicated?" His voice cracked. "I grieved her, Evelyn. I actually grieved her. I thought my—" He cut himself off and pressed his lips together hard. "You looked me in the eye and told me she was dead and she's been alive this entire time?"
"She was as good as dead to this family," Evelyn said coldly. "She left and never came back. What did you want me to say?"
"The truth!" He was across the room in three steps. "That's what I wanted. The truth. That's it. That's all I asked for."
"Oh, spare me." Evelyn grabbed her bag off the floor and swung it over her shoulder. "You asked about her once. Once. And you've been fine ever since, so don't stand there and act like this is some great tragedy—"
"Don't." His voice dropped again. It was infinitely more frightening than the shouting. "Don't tell me what it was and wasn't. Don't you dare try to manipulate me.”
“You're missing the point here,” Evelyn spat. “You cheated me with her! I don't care what you think is right or wrong.” She blinked back tears. “All I know is that you are just a jerk who can't keep his p***s in his pants. And I will never forgive you for that.”
She looked at him for one long moment. Then she looked at me, hatred filling her eyes. Then she walked straight out the door. It swung shut behind her.
"Evelyn—" He was already moving. Already grabbing his shirt off the floor. And then, because some part of me was clearly determined to make everything worse, I moved too.
"Jerry—"
He stopped and turned around.
And the way he looked at me then was nothing like the way he'd looked at me last night.
Last night those eyes had been warm and desperate and searching. Now they were just distant and closed off. Like a door someone had shut very deliberately and locked from the inside.
"Don't," he said.
"I just—"
He glared at me.
"You lied to me. The Emma I knew in the past was not a liar. I don't know this person you've become,” He said quietly, like he'd already made his peace with it. “Whatever last night was, it was a mistake. Evelyn is the one I love." His jaw worked and his eyes filled with tears. "And you? You're a stranger to me now. Just because I f****d you doesn't mean I want you."
I stopped breathing.
My childhood best friend and the one man I'd had a secret crush on ever since I was thirteen had just looked at me and called me a stranger right before chasing after my evil twin sister.
I'd been called a lot of things in my life. I'd been sold and forgotten and left behind and hunted across six cities. I was used to being nothing to people.
But this? This broke my heart into a thousand tiny pieces.
I didn't let him see it. I was very good at not letting people see things.
He was gone before I could say anything else. The door swung shut and I stood there in a room with rumpled sheets and regret gnawing in my throat.
“I'm fine,” I told myself. “I won't see him again anyway.”
Then I picked up my purse, straightened my dress, and walked out.
***
Two days later, I was sitting behind a desk that didn't fully belong to me yet, in an office I'd secured with a forged recommendation letter and a borrowed name, wearing my best attempt at a professional smile.
Lexington College. Student Wellness Center.
I'd even bought a little nameplate: Roseline Campbell, Student Counsellor.
Eighteen months. That was all I needed. Eighteen quiet months to save enough money to disappear somewhere that Alpha Alex Blackwell's lawyers couldn't reach, and then I was gone. For real this time.
I straightened my blazer and took a breath.
Head down. Smile. Survive.
The knock came at exactly nine fifteen.
Right. My first client, the hockey captain who'd fought his teammates and was now forced to do mandatory therapy.
He was fifteen minutes late, but at least he'd shown up, right?
I put on the face. The calm, professional, my-life-is-absolutely-not-on-fire face that I'd been practicing in the bathroom mirror for a week.
"Come in."
The door swung open and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.
He stood in the doorway in a Lexington varsity jacket, taller than I remembered somehow, broader, filling the whole damn frame, with an expression that was already irritated before he even looked up.
Then he looked up. And everything on his face stopped. Those deep blue eyes went wide and glassy. He looked starstruck.
My pulse flatlined.
No.
Absolutely not!
Of all the offices. Of all the colleges. Of all the cities in this entire country—
"Evelyn, what are you…?" He stopped abruptly, looking visibly shaken as he looked closely at my eyes. “You again?” He shot at me, sounding completely wrecked. "I thought I told you we're now strangers. What the f**k do you want with me? Are you stalking me or something?"
I froze in my seat. I couldn't breathe. My childhood best friend, the man I'd deceived and f****d two nights ago was standing in my office. He was my client.
God help me.
- Writer
