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Chalis.

My ex.

God, I hated that man.

Just hearing his name made the muscles in my shoulders lock up.

I had spent nearly four miserable years in my late teens and very early twenties tangled up with Chalis, convincing myself that his jealousy was passion and his apologies were progress.

He was a textbook serial cheater. That nigga had an excuse lined up for every single lie, every deleted text, every scent of perfume that didn't belong to me:

You were working too many night shifts.

She threw herself at me, Lakelyn, you know how these women are.

We were on a break that weekend.

I was drunk and wasn’t thinking straight.

It only happened the one time.

The problem was that his “one times” had a revolving door.

By the time I finally gathered enough self-respect to pack my things and walk out of his apartment, I wasn't even heartbroken anymore; I was just humiliated… humiliated that I had let a man make a complete fool out of me while everyone in this small, gossiping town watched. And Chalis had never gotten over it.

Not because he loved me—men like Chalis didn't love women, they collected them—but because I had the audacity to leave first.

When Caspian came into my life two years later after our breakup, Chalis had completely lost his mind.

Caspian hadn’t chased me with cheap apologies or rented luxury cars. He had simply existed with the kind of absolute, quiet authority that made men like Chalis look like children playing dress-up. When Caspian looked at me, he made it abundantly clear that nobody else mattered.

Chalis despised Caspian with a venom that made him reckless. He hated that Caspian had more money than him, more respect, and the kind of reputation that made people move differently the second he walked into a room. But more than anything, he hated that I had given Caspian the kind of love and loyalty he had spent years trying to force out of me.

I still remembered the night Chalis had tried to approach our table at an upscale steakhouse downtown, puffed up and loud, trying to make a scene about “history.”

Caspian hadn't even raised his voice. He had simply set his linen napkin down, pushed his chair back, and stood up to his full six-foot-four height, cold eyes staring straight through Chalis like he was nothing more than a stain on the carpet.

Chalis had turned white as a sheet, mumbled an excuse about mistaken identity, and practically tripped over his own loafers rushing out the front doors.

Even after Caspian disappeared, Chalis had tried to circle back around like a vulture. He had shown up at my door with flowers, acting like Caspian’s disappearance was an opening for him to resume where he left off. That entitlement—the sheer audacity of thinking he could replace the man I was grieving—was one of the main reasons I stayed no longer than a week when I did come back for visits.

“Is that so?” I finally responded, forcing my voice to stay flat.

“Mm-hmm.” Granny settled back in her chair, clearly aware she had both of our attention now. “Bernice took me to pick up a few things, and I saw him over by the pharmacy. He spotted me before I could pretend I didn’t see him and came walking over there smiling like we were old friends.”

Willow made a face. “Of course he did.”

Granny’s mouth tightened slightly. “Don’t get excited. I still don’t care for that boy.”

That made me finally turn toward her.

“He asked how I was doing, then tried to take my bags out of the cart for me,” she continued. “I told him I was perfectly capable of holding a bag of vitamins and some paper towels.”

Willow snorted.

Granny gave her a warning glance before going on. “He was polite, so I was polite back. That does not mean I forgot how he treated my granddaughter.”

That was Granny all over. She had despised Chalis ever since she caught him lying about where he’d been on my twenty-first birthday, but she would still accept a held door with Southern grace before she let him see her sweat.