“Do I look like a woman?” I grumble, reaching the kitchen downstairs.
Nova stops across the island from me. “It isn’t a crime for a man to share his feelings with his best friend. Men need a heart-to-heart too.”
Crossing my arms, I give him an ‘are you kidding me?’ look.
He drops the act, taking a seat on the barstool after putting Fire on the floor. “All right! All right! I read it in one of the books Rose wrote.”
The man is so whipped that he reads every single romance book she writes. He even has a shelf in his office to display all her books proudly. I can hardly believe there was a time when they wanted to kill each other.
“Let’s go to the court,” he suggests. “Been a while since I kicked your ass at ball.”
I know it’s a subterfuge tactic to get me to talk. “You’re not gonna take no for an answer, are you?”
He grins, knowing he won.
“Fine.” As long as it quiets the thoughts in my brain, I’m game.
***
“My wife’s put you on her red list.”
“Red list?” I ask over my shoulder.
“People she’d like to give a slow death.”
I halt, turning around. “Your wife’s a psycho.”
I dodge the basketball that comes flying for my head.
“Only I have the right to call her that,” Nova says possessively after I straighten. “Don’t worry about the list, she’ll take you off it eventually.”
Figured I’d be on Rosalie’s shit list, considering I hurt her best friend and my ex-fiancée, Iris. Then again, that’s prettymuch how my relationship with Rosalie has been. She also used to be on my shit list before she and Nova fell for each other.
“You’d know,” I retort, sitting down on the bench and grabbing a bottle of water. “You were at the top of that list for years. She almost succeeded too.”
“Those were just warnings. She didn’t actually want to kill me.”
I shake my head. Delusional bastard was smitten from the moment they got engaged.
“Are we ever gonna talk about how you lied to me for three years?”
I knew the interrogation was coming. Leaning back against the bench, I watch Nova dribble the basketball idly. “Does it matter? The truth’s out now.”
Everyone in our close group of friends knows that Iris and I were in a fake relationship for three years. That our engagement at the start of this year was a business arrangement. One that I orchestrated to get revenge on my older brother. While Iris did it to get closer to him.
What they don’t know is howrealit was for me.
I knew Iris wasn’t mine and would never be. I knew her heart belonged to my brother. None of it stopped me from giving mine to her.
Between the two of us, she won.
While leaving me nothing but destruction in her wake.
Turns out, my whole life was a lie. Half of which I spent hating the wrong person. Did reprehensible things that I can never take back. Hurt and betrayed them so deeply that no redemption is in the cards for me.
“One day you’re going to wake up and regret the choices you’re making. By then, you’ll have pushed away every person who ever loved you, including me.”
Iris’s words ring in my head like a haunting lullaby.
