“Remy, I’m sorry, but I have to go deal with a situation.”
“A situation?” What does that even mean? “Is it… dangerous?” I whisper the last word.
He smiles and kisses my lips. “Nothing for you to worry about, I promise. I’ll be back before you even miss me.”
“Wrong.” I smile anyway.
“I’ll leave some chips on the roulette table for you. Go have some fun.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m left to watch his back as he heads downstairs and makes his way across the busy floor.
It feels wrong, sitting in his private booth without him. Imposter syndrome comes flooding back, and I rest my arms against the balustrade, allowing my vision to blur and praying that no one bothers to look up and pay me any attention.
Until a familiar voice says, “One soda, ma’am, courtesy of Mr. Murray.” The bartender sets a tall glass down on top of a papercoaster with a clink of ice cubes. He offers a polite smile and is about to walk away when his eyebrows lower. “Remy?” He blinks.
“Tom?”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.” His eyes rake my body, and he doesn’t even try to hide it.
The flush of warmth I’d felt when I recognized him immediately vanishes. “What are you doing here?”
Silly question, and I realize my mistake when he says, “Working? The Titan needed an extra member of staff behind the bar, and here I am.” He shrugs. “You look… amazing.”
I hide behind the soda he brought me and sip it slowly. It fizzes behind my teeth in a different way to the champagne, and I’m embarrassed at how quickly I’ve allowed myself to believe this new reality I’ve stumbled into.
“Thank you.” I can’t even look at him.
He knows the real Remy Jones, not this glamorous version created by Victoria and Sienna in the penthouse apartment of the Wraith. I swallow another mouthful and almost choke on it. Not here, I pray to the god of all things dignified. I have a mortifying vision of Tom rubbing my back while I cough and splutter soda all over Cash’s private booth, and everyone else on the mezzanine level rolls their eyes and wonders who the fuck let me in.
A small tickle rises in the back of my throat and tears fill my eyes.
“Well, good to see you.” Tom moves away to deliver the remaining drinks on his tray.
I slump back in my seat, grateful that he didn’t expect me to make small talk about my life since the Rinse.I fucked the owner and his brother, got pregnant, discovered that I’m having twins, and here I am, trying to fit in with a bunch of burlesque dancers and millionaire mafia dons. He would think I’m insane.
More soda. I need it to counteract the adrenaline crash currently buzzing in my ears and making me feel lightheaded.
Tom has barely made it to the next table when a woman slides into the booth opposite me. She is olive-skinned with a mane of dark curls like a modern-day Esmeralda. Her black pantsuit is classy, the silver choker around her neck understated.
I realize I’m gaping when she says, “I’m going to say this quickly to get it out of the way. Cash Murray isn’t yours. Whatever he promised you, it ends now, tonight, because Cash and I are engaged to be married, and I’m not allowing some little tramp to ruin it.”
Her words are venomous, but she delivers them with a perfect smile as she flashes a diamond ring the size of China at me.
“But… I don’t understand…” It makes no sense. She must have the wrong person, but my brain is flashing a neon warning at me:she said Cash Murray.
She’s beautiful even when she blinks and her mouth turns down at the corners. I have a niggling feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere before, but I don’t pursue it. She probably came to the Rinse one evening when I worked there.
“I don’t know how much clearer I can be.” She holds my gaze, and I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to. Even if my heart wasn’t plummeting into a bottomless abyss without a parachute. “Cash loves me. In six months, we’ll be married, and I’ll be Mrs.Cassius Murray. So, if I were you, I would pick up my purse and walk out of here while I still can. When he comes back, I’ll tell him that you got a migraine and had to leave. Then I’ll delete your number from his phone and make sure that you never hear from him again.” She sits back in her seat and watches me coolly. “Now do you understand?”
“You’re his fiancée?” I’m numb. I know I’m trembling because my body is sending tiny SOS signals to my brain, but I can’t feel it. “He didn’t tell me. Why didn’t he tell me? Neither of them mentioned you.”
Her smile widens. “They caught you with the identical twin game. I can’t believe that shit still works, but then you look the gullible type.”
“It was all a game?” I whisper.
I try to latch onto what Cash and Bash said when I met them both in Bash’s apartment, but the conversation eludes me. Perhaps I imagined it. Perhaps I only heard what I wanted to hear and ignored the part where they laughed at me for thinking that it was real.
“Aw.” She pouts like she’s blowing an Instagram-worthy kiss at a camera. “You thought that you were special.” She whines like she’s a character out ofMean Girls. “I mean, who wouldn’t when he looks at you with those green eyes.”
