Then she reaches out with one finger and traces the E hidden in the design with her fingernail.
“E. For Elijah.”
Her voice is soft, but it carries a punch of disappointment that almost brings me to my knees.
Then she jerks back, putting several feet between us, her eyes horrified again.
“Why?”
I’m back in that bedroom again, kneeling by my brother’s lifeless body, consumed with the knowledge that I will live the rest of my days with my father’s disapproval. Every time he looks at me, he will wish my brother was still alive. He would rather have his infectious energy in his life than my unassuming presence. And so, before I dial 9-1-1, before I summon the police, before I break down in front of them, screaming, sobbing, pleading—I take my brother’s wallet from his pocket, and I replace it with my own.
“I couldn’t—I couldn’t face it,” I say, my voice strangled from the pain. “He was my father’s favorite. I couldn’t be the one to keep living with that. So when the cops came—my dad was out of the goddamn country, he didn’t even show up for another twenty-four hours—I said I was him. It was easy to switch our I.D.s. We’d never been fingerprinted. We were identical twins. No one could ever tell us apart. Nobody ever—nobody ever questioned me.”
“What the fuck,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “Who are you?”
The question hangs in the air between us, and I give her the only answer I can think to give.
“Elijah Pierce.”
She puts both of her hands up, palms toward me, and lets out a sharp breath. “I don’t even want to know why. I don’t even want to know.”
Then she reaches behind her, snatches her phone from the chair, and looks at me one last time.
“Just so we’re clear—we’re over…Elijah.”
Quinn shoves past me and hurries out into the dark hallway.
There is a faint rustling as she collects her clothes, and then I hear her running footsteps as she makes her way to the bedroom door and flees.
She’s gone from this part of my life.
Forever.
Chapter 37
Quinn
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh my God.
What the fuck just happened?
Mind reeling, I run back to Christian’s bedroom and scoop up my clothes and shoes into my arms. My heart is in my throat and my breath ragged, and not in a fun, sexy way, but in a terrified, get-me-away-from-this-psycho way.
Who the fuck have I been sleeping with?
Not Christian Pierce.
His reactions keep tumbling over and over in my mind, all of them suddenly clicking into place like a child’s puzzle, so fucking easy once you have all the pieces.
Holy shit.
I knew there were things he didn’t like to talk about, his brother being first on the list. I knew that certain things people said set him off, even if they seemed innocuous. I just never imagined that he was hiding something of this magnitude.
You did imagine it.
The elevator seems to be descending in slow motion to the lobby. I’m so panicked that I don’t care about my outfit—being dressed in Christian’s too-large lounge clothes is the least of my worries right now.
The voice in the back of my mind is right.
There was a moment, back in the car, when I thought there was something beneath the surface of Christian’s mood, his movements, his expressions, but it was so fleeting that I forgot about it until right now.
I cannot forget what I saw in the journal.
I will never be able to forgive what Christian told me he had done.
No—that’s not right. If he wants to do some fucked-up shit like pretend to be his dead twin brother for ten years, that’s his business. But keeping it from me? Keeping secrets from the woman you’re supposed to love? And not just any secret, but this secret?
How could he tell you?
There’s no time to think about this right now, no time to process it.
The elevator dings that it has arrived at the ground floor and the doors slide open. For an instant, I’m seized by a wild fear that Christian has somehow beaten me down here and is waiting for me in the lobby, and my legs freeze up.
Go!
Sucking in a deep breath, I force myself to move.
As soon as I’m outside the elevator, I lock my gaze on the front doors, too petrified to look left or right, too terrified to see if he’s following me.
Don’t be such a pansy, Quinn, I think to myself, and as I jog toward the entrance in my bare feet, I whip my head around.
The rest of the lobby is empty, silent, except for, “Ma’am?”
The doorman’s voice rings out and echoes against the wall, the sound bombarding my ears.
“What?” I shout, my voice too loud, my eyes wild, as I spin around to face him. I have to get out of here.
“Are you all right?”
“No. I need to go. I need to go.”
“Would you like for me to call you a cab?”