Prologue
This is not how it’s supposed to go. My story. My future. This was not the plan. Not that I ever really had a solid one. But I know if I did, if I had a vision board pasted on my bedroom wall, this day wouldn’t be on it.
I look down at the outfit I’m wearing. A black suit with a white shirt and an orange tie to match the roses dotted around the room. My least favourite colour and my least favourite flower.
My suit fits like a glove but feels as if it wasn’t purposefully made for me. Like it belongs to a stranger, a version of me that has never existed. It’s too stuffy. Too starched. Too bland.
I hate it.
I hate the way I look and the way I feel. I hate that nothing here today is what I would have chosen. Especially not the man in front of me.
He grins at the people watching on, his dull grey eyes pinching at the edges. His tie sits askew, the same putrid orange as everylittle touch of elegance in this place. No expense spared. No corner left without a reminder of the reason we’re here.
Guests shuffle in their seats, waiting for the show to go on. They are unknowing pawns in our little game. They came to party, to drink and to dance, and to go home, believing that what they witnessed here today was beautiful and magical, and the greatest fucking moment of my life.
How epically wrong they are. The greatest moment of my life is one I tuck away where only I can find it. It’s not one for sharing with anyone besides…I shake my head, my hair barely moving under the weight of the gel holding it in place. My hands twitch at my sides, one rubbing against the fabric of my trousers.
I scan the rows of people looking on. I know very few of them, except for the four sets of eyes boring into me. Three sets I invited and who showed up despite their reservations. They know the truth, though they were never meant to, and now they share the weight of my lie.
The last set of eyes – the ones that would so easily have featured on that imaginary vision board – I refuse to meet for fear my already shattered heart will stumble right out of my chest, crashing to the ground for all to see. And if that happens?
If that happens, then I lose.Welose everything. And isn’t that the kicker? Because no matter which way I look at it, I don’t come out a winner. But maybe that is the price to pay for keeping someone else safe, the price of another’s crime. Maybe that’s the sacrifice you make for family.
I look at the older man in the front row. With eyes that don’t match mine, but a suit that does. He nods. A gesture that says, ‘this is for the best’ and ‘thank you for doing this for us.’
Closing my eyes, I turn my body away from those watching and towards my future. Blowing out a breath, I slowly lift my lids, my mouth settling into a smile that hurts me more than I care to think about.
“Ready to begin?”
No.
I force a nod and do what I promised I would. I give up the future I could have had for the one I was dealt.
Maybe in another lifetime.
Chapter 1
Oliver
Ilove this city. I have since the day I first arrived. Alone. Heartbroken. Destroyed.
You can get lost in a city this big. You can disappear and wipe yourself from existence. And it can break you if you let it. Chew you up and spit you out. Gum on the bottom of a shoe, discarded and forgotten. But London is also a city with heart. And hope. A city that offers second chances. An escape. A rebirth. And that’s why I’m here. Living a new chapter of my story.
My workday ends, and I spend thirty minutes on a packed tube, the stifling August heat making the commute feel like a trip down to hell. Commuters with their eyes on their phones, sweat trickling down overheated skin. Body odours meshing into a scent so unique to the London Underground, I cannot imagine you’d find it anywhere else.
Walking into my tiny bachelor flat on the third floor of a converted Victorian house in the heart of New Malden, I drop my bag and strip off my branded work polo, throwing it onto theback of the sofa. My naked torso is sweat slicked and opening the window in the hope of welcoming in a breeze does nothing to lessen the heat in my box sized flat.
My stomach aches, and I know I should eat something. I haven’t eaten anything today. Too hot. Too uncomfortable. Just not in the mood. Too many reasons not to let anything pass my lips.
I woke with the stale taste of alcohol on my tongue and lipstick on my neck, with only the faintest reminder of who left it there. She was brunette. That I remember. With eyes as blue as Caiden’s, and that right there is why I slammed back another drink despite my body already being more liquor than blood by that point.
My mouth is dry, a combination of heat, memories I don’t want, and the lasting effects of a night of excess. I’m holding a glass beneath the running kitchen tap when my phone rings. With my free hand, I dig the device out of the pocket of my utility trousers, frowning when I see the name on the screen.
Mum.
Ignoring the ringing, I gulp down the cold water before filling it again. It sloshes in my stomach, looking for something solid to cling to, but it has no luck. I should eat, if only to appease the churning in my gut.
My phone rings off and I move from the tiny kitchenette, cold water in one hand and my phone in the other, to the minute space I call a lounge, sinking into the dilapidated sofa that acts as the makeshift sitting area of the one room space. Its worn blue fabric is torn in places and it rests at an odd angle because it’s missing the feet on the left side. But it’s comfortable and had the added bonus of being free.
