The kind of friend I thought I had in Fallon.

  The kind of friend I know I have in Nathan.

  I swipe a hand through my hair to brush away thoughts of my so-called friend and that horrible article. They’ll be there, lurking, waiting to pounce when this tragedy is over.

  “Once, when we were kids,” Nathan says, “Nick and Angela disappeared for most of a day. They didn't go far. Just down the beach, but they didn’t tell anybody where they were going and we weren’t old enough to be gone that long. Turns out, Angela had a really bad day at school and Nick thought he would give her all the time she needed to get it off her chest. And when they finally came home, his arm wrapped around her shoulder and the two of them just beaming, I felt so left out. They were always close and I wanted that, you know? I was so furious they didn't include me that I wouldn’t speak to them for the rest of the day. This time, I won't be mad when he comes back. I'll wrap that bastard in a hug and thank God he’s okay.”

  I want to promise Nick will come home. That they’ll find him and whatever’s happened will be just as easy as the day he took care of Angela.

  But Nathan isn’t the kind of man who takes comfort in false hope.

  “He sounds like an amazing person,” I say instead.

  “If the situation were reversed, he’d be halfway to finding me by now,” Nathan says with a sad smile. He stands, pacing to the window and then back again. “I feel so powerless.”

  That makes two of us. I want so desperately to make it better but can’t think of anything to do other than be here, listen, and find a way to take his mind off things once he’s had a chance to process.

  “What would Nick tell you to do?” I ask and Nathan pauses, staring at me like he’s had an epiphany. Everything about him softens and for the first time since he knocked on my door, the clouds of sadness lingering over him lift. Just a little. But it’s a start.

  “He’d tell me to stop worrying about things I can’t control. Especially when there’s a beautiful woman looking at me the way you are right now.”

  The warmth in his voice brings a blush to my cheeks. “And how am I looking at you?”

  “Like you’d do anything to make me feel better. Like you understand everything I’m going through. Like you like me. And you’re not just with me for the fun times. You’re with me.”

  I sit there, on the couch, stunned into silence by his words.

  Everything he said is true.

  I don’t just like being with him.

  I’m with Nathan West.

  With my body.

  My mind.

  And in my heart.

  I’ve never felt anything more real in my life.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Nathan

  I left The Hut and drove straight to Mina’s apartment. I needed her. I couldn’t imagine going through this without her.

  She comforted me for who knows how long, running her hand through my hair while I rambled, lost in my pain. Lost in uncertainty. She listened to my past, my present, and my fear of the future all jumbled up and spilling past my lips in an incoherent stream of consciousness. And now here I am, smiling. Totally aware that she is the ‘something good’ Nick told me to look for when he was standing in my office at the foundation six months ago.

  That conversation feels like another life.

  One where I was hurting and receding, pulling inward and losing trust in the world.

  Mina resuscitated me. She helped me remember who I am. She reminded me the world has enough assholes who are only out for themselves, and I shouldn’t be so quick to add my name to that list.

  She’s a damn miracle. An answer to questions I didn’t know needed answered.

  I am better with her. I feel safe to be myself with her. Mina won’t take advantage of me. She isn’t with me for personal gain…

  I almost laugh out loud at the thought. The only reason we’re together at all is because I’m paying her to pretend to be my girlfriend.

  But a pretend girlfriend wouldn’t have invited me in tonight. She wouldn’t have listened to me talk and held me patiently when I couldn’t. Blossom would have told me I was making too big a deal. That I was wallowing. That she couldn’t be around me until I was in a better place.

  Mina opened her arms to it all.

  That damn article blazes through my mind, the headline lit up in flashing neon. It’s Fake, Folks!

  She would have invited me in if she were gathering more info for Fallon fucking Mae…

  I banish the thought and pull Mina into my embrace, my heart full for the first time in maybe my whole life. I’m wide open and vulnerable to her. It scares me to death but I’m safe. I know she sees me. I know she cares about me.

  I know that she’s with me for me.

  Not what she can get out of me.

  My jaw drops at the thought and Mina narrows her eyes. “You look like you just thought of something important.”

  “I think I did.” I smooth her hair back, cupping her face and getting lost in her eyes. Blue like the clearest parts of the ocean, streaked with the gray of a foggy morning with hints of green grass poking through. The same colors in my favorite of Mom’s paintings hanging in my living room, like she saw into my future and knew Mina would be here.

  Waiting.

  Mine.

  I angle my head, leaning closer, eager to kiss her, to taste her, to erase any distance between us so it’s just her and me and me and her, closer and closer until we’re one. Her presence erases my pain and I need her. In my heart. In my life. She’s already taken up a full time residence in my brain, she might as well claim everything else as well.

  “What?” Her lips whisper against mine. Gaze fluttering to my eyes and then back to my mouth. Her hands swooping up my arms, along my neck and into my hair, pulling me close like she’s read my thoughts and agrees.

  I brush her lips with a kiss. Her chest heaves. Her fingers clench. So ready for more, but I pull back, smiling down at this woman I wasn’t prepared for. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  The words are hoarse and rough, slow and faltering, refugees stepping into the light of day after being trapped underground.

  “I crave you, Mina,” I say, cupping her cheeks and gazing into her beautiful eyes. “I don’t know how to be without you. You’ve brought me back to life.”

  “Nathan…” she begins with a smile, but I haven’t gotten it quite right yet and I need her to know what’s in my heart.

  “It’s more than that, though.” I brush my thumb across her cheek. “You didn’t just bring me back to life. You’ve shown me what it means to truly live.”

  A soft smile plays across Mina’s face. “I’m falling in love with you too, Nathan. I think I have been for a long time.”

  My name, from those lips. It’s medicine for my heart. It’s a jolt of need straight to my dick.

  My mouth finds hers. My hands travel her body. There is solace here. With her. I stop thinking and start feeling. Pulling her to her feet. Tugging at clothes until she’s bare. Pressing her against a wall, pinning her wrists above her head and freeing my throbbing cock.

  I will give her all of me.

  The best of me.

  The worst of me.

  My hopes and dreams and fears and sadness.

  I am safe with her and will keep her safe from the world. She will have everything she ever wanted because that’s what I found in her.

  Mina’s breasts press against my chest, and I bend to take her into my mouth. Licking. Sucking. Teeth grazing her rose-colored peaks.

  She moans my name, her hands in my hair, head tossed back, chest heaving.

  “I love you, Mina,” I whisper at her throat, kissing the delicate skin below her ear.

  “I love you too,” she whispers back and then I’m past speaking, past thinking. I slide my aching dick into her sweet warmth and lose myself to her.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Nathan

  Someone’s in Mina’s apartment. My eyes blink open and I push up on my elbow, listening to the squeak and bump of the front door quietly being closed. Mina sleeps beside me, one arm thrown over her head, blissfully unaware as a stranger creeps down the hallway, ever closer to where we lay naked and vulnerable. Judging by the whisper of light slipping through the blinds, it’s barely morning, though the jolt of adrenaline sizzling in my veins has me wide awake.

  I yank back the covers and slip out of bed, swipe my underwear off the floor and nearly fall over yanking them up, struggling to get them over my thighs, but wrenching them in place anyway. I’m not confronting an intruder with my dick out.

  The bedroom door creaks open.

  “Mina?”

  It’s a soft voice. Not the roughened rasp of a burglar, but the gentle probe of a friend.

  “Meens?”

  A woman steps through the door. Judging by her silhouette, she’s small. And judging by her use of Mina’s name, she’s been here before.

  She flips on the light, sees me crouching in my underwear and unleashes a scream of pure terror.

  “Oh my fucking God and everything holy!” shrieks the intruder. “What the fuckity fuck is happening right now?”

  Mina bolts upright and looses a scream of her own, hands up and shaking with the force of it leaving her body. There’s a moment of silence as everyone processes. Then relief on Mina’s face followed by, “Jesus! Fallon! What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”

  I’m sorry…Fallon?

  Did she say Fallon?

  As in Fallon fucking Mae?

  That’s not possible. This has to be a different Fallon.

  But it’s an unusual name. How many of them can there be?

  “You wouldn’t answer my calls or texts,” the intruder says with a glance my way, “so I used the key you gave me for emergencies. I thought I’d catch you before you left for work⁠—”

  “Just hold on one fucking second.” I hold up both hands and pray to God that Mina has an explanation other than the most obvious one. “Fallon?”

  There’s so much hanging on that question, the air grows thick. This moment out of time. Before the hammer has dropped and the truth has slapped me in the face. There’s still a chance for the worst not to happen, though the look on Mina’s face doesn’t make me hopeful.

  “Fallon Mae. Pleased to finally meet the dreaded Prince of Darkness.” The intruder extends a hand, smirking as her gaze rakes over my body so harshly I want to cover myself. “Huge fan of the undies, by the way.”

  I glance down and discover why my underwear put up such a fight. They’re not mine. They’re Mina’s. And they don’t leave much to the imagination. I swoop my pants off the floor and step into them, still not quite processing what the fuck is going on. I look at Mina who’s clutching her blanket to her breasts, her eyes filled with absolute dread.

  And so, the hammer drops.

  “That’s Fallon Mae,” I bark at Mina, my lips pressed together, like there’s a chance I can hold in what wants out. “You’re friends with Fallon fucking Mae? Like ‘let me give you a key to my house’ friends?”

  Mina’s face is slack. Her hair mussed from sleep, her eyes wild. She opens her mouth to respond, closes it, then tries again, only nothing comes out. Her silence is the truth slapping me in the face.

  “I’m so sorry, Nathan,” she finally says, her voice cracking. “So unbelievably sorry.”

  Fallon backs toward the door. “I can see this isn’t a good time.”

  “Damn straight it’s not a good time.” I bite off the words with barely a glance toward the woman who’s made it her mission to ruin my life. My energy is focused on Mina and hers on me.

  “I was going to tell you.” Her voice is low. Her eyes filled with shame. If her words hadn’t confirmed she’s been lying to me, her face finishes the job.

  “It’s probably best if I leave.” Fallon reaches for the door, then pauses as if she expects some sort of award for recognizing she doesn’t fucking belong here.

  I level a finger at Mina. “You’re friends with Fallon fucking Mae and you didn’t think that was something I should have known from the very beginning?” My voice is low and level, while anger and betrayal riot in my veins like twin wildfires. My jaw clenches against the spite I want to hurl at the woman I let myself love.

  The woman I let myself trust.

  The woman I thought was different from the rest.

  “I know; I’m sorry. It was such a mistake not to say anything. I didn’t know she was a problem for you at first.” Mina’s face falls, like she can hear how shitty she sounds.

  And in case she doesn’t, I reiterate the most important point of her sentence. “At first.”

  “I’ll just show myself out then,” Fallon says, and I turn to glare, all the shit I’m not spewing at Mina aimed at my nemesis. She recoils, whispers a quick, “Sorry!” then slips out the door.

  “I kept promising myself I’d tell you, but there was never a good time.” Mina holds out a hand, then balls it into a fist, squeezing her eyes shut, grimacing like she’s so fucking annoyed with herself she doesn’t know what to do.

  Which makes two of us.

  “I’m damn sure there were better times than this!”

  The front door squeaks open then bangs shut, and it feels like the perfect metaphor for my time with Mina. What was open is now closed. Maybe permanently.

  “Nathan, please…”

  “Don’t ‘please’ me.”

  And suddenly I can’t ignore the truth that’s been flashing like a neon sign since last night.

  My jaw drops and I step back. “You’re the one who’s been telling her everything. Oh, fuck me. It’s been you this whole time!”

  Mina presses up onto her knees, the blanket still clutched to her chest. “Last night’s article she did on her own. Against my will.”

  I scrub a hand over my mouth as that one sinks in. “But the ones before that you were fine with.”

  “No! I asked her to stop so many times. Fallon thought she was doing you a favor and I told her it wasn’t working the way she thought it would. She said if you were angry, her plan must be working.”

  “A favor.” The words drop like an anchor, thudding to the floor at my feet. “How delusional do you have to be to think those articles were a positive experience for me on any level?”

  “She thought by showing you how much you’ve changed, it would help you remember who you used to be. And until recently, I didn’t have a lot of reason not to believe what Fallon said about you. But after I got to know you, I could see how terribly wrong she was. I told her who you really are, I swear. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her…” Mina’s voice trembles. Tears wobble in her eyes. Her little deception is crumbling around her and she’s clinging to hope that something is salvageable. Why? Because she cares about me?

  I highly doubt that.

  “And you didn’t think that by misrepresenting my every move, she made things worse for me? Not better! You know this! For fuck’s sake, Mina! I told you everything!”

  Jesus Christ. Dom was right. Mina didn’t see me. She saw an opportunity to help her friend. What a sick joke.

  “And I didn’t tell her all of it!” Mina stands, dragging the sheet off the bed with her. “Nathan, please…”

  I back away from her outstretched hand. “Has any of this been real? Any of it?”

  “All of it!” she cries, letting her arm drop to her side.

  “And how am I supposed to take your word on that? Just when I let my guard down and started to think maybe the world wasn’t a shitty place filled with shitty people, I find out you’ve been lying to me this whole time. I stopped faking, Mina. I fell in love with you!”

  “And I love you back!”

  My heart clenches, begging me to stop retreating, to pull her into my arms because that’s where she belongs. But my heart is kind and easy to manipulate. It shouldn’t have a say in this situation. It’s time to start listening to my mind.

  “Love doesn’t keep secrets.” My head bows from the weight of the truth. “Not like this.”

  “Nathan…”

  “I am so tired of being used so other people can get ahead. All I want is for someone to see me. Me! Not my money. Not my fame. Not what I can do for them.”

  “I do see you, Nathan.” Mina frowns, her voice quiet, the desperation leaving her eyes as my voice rises.

  “If you did, then you would have told me you were friends with Fallon fucking Mae. Even if it was hard. Even if the timing wasn’t perfect. You would have told me.”

  “You’re right. I should have told you. And I really am sorry this is how you found out.” Her jaw tightens. Her eyes flash. “But come on. At this point, you know me well enough to trust I haven’t been using you. I mean, what am I getting out of this relationship?”

  “Designer dresses? Invitations to galas you wouldn’t normally step foot into? Multiple fucking orgasms? Twenty percent over your design fee? Shit, Mina. When were you going to start working me so the foundation would take care of your mom’s medical bills?”

  “Nice, Nathan.” Mina sneers. “You offered to buy the dress. You required I go to the gala. You initiated the orgasms. And you haven’t fucking paid me yet.”

  “You asked for an advance.” I stab the air with my finger. “You cashed the check.”

  We stare at each other for several terrible seconds before Mina finally breaks the silence.

  “Do you know why I wouldn’t answer Fallon’s calls or texts?”

  I swipe my underwear off the floor, step out of my pants so I can remove Mina’s panties and pull mine into place. It’s time to get the fuck out of here. “Not sure I care, but I’m positive you’ll enlighten me anyway,” I say, hunting down my pants, only to find them clutched in my fist.

  “Fallon published that article yesterday because she knows I’m falling in love with you and had the balls to think telling the world how we started would help me see why that was a stupid idea. And after this—” she waves her hand in my direction “—I’m starting to see her point.”