“Like a damn idiot.” I reach for my wine glass, forgetting it’s empty. “I fell so hard, Derek. He made me feel beautiful. Special. Like I mattered. He looked at me as if I were the only person in the world worth seeing. And the whole time, it was all built on lies.” I wave my glass around like a madwoman and violently hiccup.
“What kind of lies?”
The question should sound sympathetic. Instead, it sounds calculating. But I’m too drunk to notice, too desperate to get it all out and off my chest.
“Everything! His whole identity. He let me believe he was just this guy who drove Uber to clear his head…hiccup“…who played flute at retirement villages, who was trying to live a normal life. But he’s Damon Blackwell. He’s a billionaire playing dress-up as a regular person.”
“Why would he do that, Marley?”
“I don’t know!”The frustration bursts out of me. “He said something about wanting to be seen for who he is, not what he has. About his parents dying and leaving him this empire he never wanted. About the club being his real family.” I hiccup again, tears streaming down my face. “But none of that excuses the lying, Derek. None of it excuses letting me fall in love…”hiccup“… with someone who doesn’t even exist.”
“The club?” Derek’s voice sharpens. “What’s his association there?”
“Las Vegas Defiance MC.” I know I should stop talking. Some small, sober part of my brain is screaming at me to hang up, to stop giving Derek information. But the words keep coming, unstoppable. And what is with these hiccups! “He’s the VP. Has been for years. It’s his real life, his real family. The billion-dollar business is something he inherited.”
“So, he’s living a double life. Biker by night, billionaire by day?”
“Something like that.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, inelegantly and not caring. “He kept it all separate. Had different names for different worlds. And I was so stupid, I didn’t even question it. When he said his name was Nitro,”hiccup“… I just accepted it. When he showed up at company events in expensive suits, I thought he just cleaned up well. I never put it together.”
“How did you find out?”
“He tried to explain,” I say, my voice thick with tears. “Said he wanted to tell me, but didn’t know how. That he was scared I’d see him differently. That he needed someone to love him for who he is, not what he has.” I laugh bitterly and hiccup. “But how canI love who he is when I don’t even know who that is anymore? Is he Nitro the biker? Damon the billionaire? Some combination of both? He lied about his entire identity, Derek. His name, his life, his entire existence.”hiccup“How am I supposed to trust anything he said was real?”
“You can’t,” Derek says, and his voice is so gentle, so understanding. “He manipulated you, Marley. Made you think he was one thing when he was really another. That’s not love. That’s deception.”
“I know. I know that. But I s-still…” My voice breaks. “I still love him, Derek. Even knowing all of this, even understanding that our whole relationship was built on lies, I still love him. How pathetic is that?”
“You’re not pathetic.”
“Iampathetic! Just like you said. Too fat, too boring, too ordinary for someone extraordinary.” The words tumble out, wine-loosened and bitter. “At least you were honest about why you didn’t want me. Nitro, or Damon, or whatever the fuck his name is…”hiccup“… he just kept lying. Kept pretending.”
“You’re not pathetic,” Derek says again, and his voice is so gentle, so understanding, that I almost believe him. “You’re hurt. There’s a difference.”
“I still love him.” Repeating the confession breaks something open inside me. “That’s the worst part. I know he lied, I know I should hate him, but I still love him.”
“Of course you do. You can’t just turn off feelings like that. I’m glad you called me. And Marley? For what it’s worth? He doesn’t deserve you. Anyone who would lie to you like that doesn’t deserve you.”
His words should comfort me.
Instead, they make me feel hollow.
We talk for a few more minutes, Derek saying all the right things, being supportive in a way he never was when we weretogether. When we finally end the call, I feel simultaneously better and worse. Better because I got it all out, told someone everything I’ve been holding in. Worse, because talking about Nitro makes me miss him more.
I curl up on the couch, pulling Sage’s throw blanket around me, and let the wine drag me down into something that’s not quite sleep but isn’t quite consciousness either.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice whispers that I’ve made a terrible mistake.
That calling Derek was the worst possible thing I could have done.
But I’m too drunk, too tired, too heartbroken to listen.
I want to stop feeling.
I want to stop hurting.
I want to stop loving a man who isn’t who I thought he was.
And as I drift off, Nitro’s face swims behind my eyelids. The way he looked at me that first night in his car. The way he held me when we danced. The way he said my name, like it was something precious.
