ELIZA
Iwas sitting on the edge of the bed in the guest room at Nate and Kate’s condo, staring at my hands like they might suddenly help me make sense of things. Instead, they just sat there staring back at me, attached to my body but emotionally unhelpful.
Everything still felt surreal, like I’d stepped into someone else’s life by accident and nobody had noticed yet. Here I was, in a foreign city, in a strange condo, about to marry a man who apparently came intwo interchangeable versions.
I let out a soft, hysterical sound that might’ve been a laugh. After forcing myself to take a breath, a quiet knock sounded from the door and I froze for second, hoping no one had heard my unhinged sound.
Kate had already rescued me from the emotional equivalent of a public execution. I didn’t need her to think she’d adopted a crazy person.
“Come in,” I called, mentally scrambling for an explanation that wouldn’t make me sound like I was even more in dire need of psychiatric help than she probably already thought I was.
As I looked up, however, for one disorienting second, my brain just stopped. Jesse—Will—was standing in the doorway. Ididn’t even know what to call him anymore, but somehow, that felt like the least of my problems right now.
Our gazes met and he hesitated for another brief moment before he stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind him. The tension in the room, once we were sealed in together, was so thick that it was almost tangible.
“Hi,” he said softly, his hands in his pockets up to the first knuckle. He was wearing dark jeans and a fitted T-shirt, but even though I hadn’t seen him dressed so casually often, I still knew that it was him.
My Jesse—Will.
I nearly let out a soft whimper when I realized just how confusing this was going to be. Words suddenly felt ambitious, so I simply nodded my response, my throat tight and not particularly interested in cooperating.
He took a few steps further into the room, stopping a careful distance away from me. Not too close. Not too far. It gave me the impression that he’d thought through where he was going to stand.
That made sense, though. Whatever his name was, the man I’d come to know was nothing if not thoughtful—and a liar.
He swept his gaze across my well-appointed room, lingering on the window before looking at me again. “Thank you for not kicking me out the second you saw me. I know this has been a lot.”
I managed another nod, and for a few long moments, we were both quiet. Then he straightened a little like he’d made a decision. “I owe you an explanation.”
At this point, I doubted any explanation would be sufficient, but I supposed something was better than nothing at all, so I kept quiet, simply waiting for him to continue.
“When Alex and Dad first told Jesse that they intended to arrange a marriage for him, he was really distraught. He’d told them no, but they weren’t listening.”
My head tilted of its own accord. This didn’t seem like an explanation for whyhe’dlied to me, but I appreciated hearing it from the beginning, which was what I suspected this was.Willinhaled a breath deep enough to make his chest rise, slowly releasing it before he spoke again.
“Everything I told you about Jesse and me, about how our relationship has always worked was true, except that it was Jesse who was in the NICU for three months after our birth. Jesse who needed extra help growing up but breezed through it all like nothing could touch him. He’s the one who’s always been true to himself.” He paused for a beat. “It was also that I’ve always felt like I needed to protect him and I’ve always gone out of my way to do it.”
“So that’s why you did this?” I whispered the question, my eyes widening. “You wanted toprotectyour brother?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I did, but I also wanted to protect my family. My dad. Alex. Jesse said no from the outset. He didn’t want this and he told them as much. Repeatedly. My dad just—” He shook his head, sighed, and tried again. “My dad just has very set ideas about certain things, and arranged marriages are one of those things, so he instructed Alex to continue with the arrangements while we worked on getting Jesse onboard.”
So shellshocked that I could barely speak, I just kept looking at him, my gaze skipping across the tense lines of his shoulders and the rigidity in his posture.It’s so familiar that it hurts.
“Jesse saw it coming,” he said. “The very next day, he was on a plane back to Miami, which is where he still lives, but you and your family had already arrived. The wheels were already in motion.”
My jaw finally unlocked, but it went in the opposite direction now, slackening until I was practically gaping at him. I gestured vaguely between us, because I honestly didn’t have the vocabulary for this. “So you just agreed to step in and pretend to be your brother for however it would take to convince Jesse to marry me?”
Those eyes cut back to mine, and for a beat, he just stood there, right in the center of the room with his dark hair as disheveled as if he hadn’t bothered fixing it since he’d run after me. “Yes, I did.”
“How could you?” The words were out of my mouth before I’d even thought about it. “How could you do that to me?”
“I didn’t really know you at the time,” he explained quietly, the corners of his eyes tightening with hurt. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I just wanted to protect Jesse, like I always have, so I stepped in. It was supposed to be a temporary solution. I never thought it would last long.”
I felt like those words had taken my already broken heart and squeezed it a little, just to make sure to send yet another bolt of pain through me. “That’syour defense?”
“It’s not a defense, Eliza,” he said calmly. “It’s just the truth. What I did was wrong. I’m not trying to excuse it. I never would. I knew it was wrong and you have no idea how many times I almost told you, but protecting Jesse?—”
“What did you need to protect him from so desperately that you’d do this to me?” I asked, my voice breaking. “Do this tous?”
