“I think this all requires us to be face-to-face. Maybe I’ll come to see you.”
“You better,” she said.
I stood and turned the camera around so she could see the sprawling gardens and pool. “This is… insane, to say the least.”
As the sun rose, I walked around and talked to her in the garden. Six cars were coming up the drive this morning, and my stomach tightened with the anticipation of who it might be.
I showed her all the statues and flowers and told her some of the drama that had gone on the day before. I had just started up the steps to the back entrance of the mansion when I saw the newcomers.
Thank fuck, there was another staircase outside that I could use.
“Who all is there now?” Lana asked.
I squinted at the two women setting their things down in the foyer. “I genuinely have no idea,” I said. “I think I might head upstairs and wait for Gavin before any of these people see me. I—“
Words caught in my throat. The blonde woman who had just sat her luggage down had pushed her sunglasses atop her head. Her loosely curly hair was frizzy and untamed. She was wearing a leather coat over a band tee—aScorcherband tee. The band that…
Iknewher.
My stomach dropped. “Shit,” I muttered, nearly tripping down the steps.
“What’s up?”
“Brielle,” I said, though I barely heard myself. “That’s fucking Brielle.”
Blood evacuated from my insides. I was a walking corpse; what was once a thriving heart was now a hollow shell thudding violently in my ringing ears.
“Brielle… isn’t that—“
“Aidan’s twin sister,” I managed as my chest collapsed.
No.
No. No. No—
Tears swelled in my eyes. Fear jolted me to my bones. I couldn’t breathe.
"Babe, calm down," Lana said, trying to catch my attention. "Are you sure it's her?"
My eyes scanned the foyer, praying. Praying,prayingthat he wasn’t there. Praying that I was wrong, that I was still laying in the bed beside Gavin.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
But as I opened my eyes, my nightmare had come true.
Tears clouded my eyes and streamed down my face.
The man standing in the doorway was the one who had crawled under my skin and embedded himself in the darkest parts of my soul. Everything in me switched to flight mode.
Blonde curly hair. Dark eyes. Perfect facial structure that he fucking knew. Wearing a matching leather jacket to his sister’s, a white tee, and ripped black pants.
“Fuck.”
“Babe--"
