Nick glanced at the report Matt handed him.

“What is this about, Nick? Why did you need a full background on Addilyn Walton?” Matt asked, picking up a beer at the local bar where Nick met him to get the report.

“She paid one hundred thousand dollars to spend time with me.”

Matt grinned and raised his beer in toast. “You’re not cheap, man.”

Nick frowned. “I dated her twin sister, Gracen. It makes no sense to me why she’d do this. Why me?”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know. She likes you?”

“I’ve never met her before.”

Matt scowled as if puzzled. “You got me there, then. I’ve no idea why she’d spend that kind of money wanting to waste time with your boring ass,” he joked. “But seriously, Nick. Maybe she was doing it for charity.”

Nick shook his head. “No. There’s more there. I just don’t know what. She seemed so…nice. It was weird.”

Matt nodded. “Because her bitch of a twin hurt you, now you expect the same from her?”

“I’m sure they can’t be that different.”

Matt put down his empty beer mug. “Well,” he sighed, “according to that report, she is. Where Gracen is partying and having fun all day every day, Addilyn is busy running a Fortune 500 company. She’s a CFO and handles multiple charities for her Scars Foundation, which is her baby. She put that together.”

Nick’s gut told him he was missing something. How could Addilyn and Gracen be so different but look like two drops of water? It was strange. “They’re identical twins.”

“Yeah. According to the medical records, Addilyn is actually older by, like, two minutes. But from the looks of things, it’s almost like those two minutes meant a big deal to the family.” Matt picked up a barbecued chicken wing and took a bite. “She’s been working at the company since she was a teenager. She’s gotten to know it so well, everyone loves her.”

“And what about the family life. What there?” He leafed through her history, looking for anything to prove to himself she was just like her twin.

“She’s got a huge trust fund. Much like her sister. Except Addilyn works, so she’s made another fortune on top of it. She invests and does well.”

Nick gave Matt a look. “I don’t care about her money. I want to know about the family relationships.”

“I didn’t get a sense she’s close to Gracen. From what I found, Gracen is always in the spotlight with celebrity friends and at parties or traveling. Addilyn works a lot. She’s always seen out and about for her charities. Her parents are a bit weird. They seem to dote on Gracen as if she were a child, but her, they treat like an adult. Strange since they’re the same age.”

Nick recalled meeting Gracen. He’d been invited to a party by an old college friend. He was a movie producer, so there were lots of celebrities at the event. Nick felt completely out of place and readied to leave when he saw her. She was laughing and had a group of people enraptured by whatever she was saying. Then she stopped, glanced at him and left the group, no excuses or anything, and came straight to him.

They’d been inseparable after that. He’d gone to floor seat games and parties he didn’t want to attend but did for her. She’d been so sweet and almost innocent in asking to get her way.

She’d begged him to go to Paris for a short break before he was deployed again. He’d proposed in front of the Eiffel Tower. She’d said yes and he really thought this was his dream come true.

What a fucking moron he’d been. The call of her breaking up with him was one he didn’t forget. Mainly, because he had the voicemail of her doing it. She didn’t want to wait to know if he’d live or die. Instead, she made sure to let him know she wasn’t able to deal with a man who might not be whole, so best to break it off. She’d mailed him the ring.

“So, what are you going to do?” Matt asked, wiping sauce off his face. “You look like there’s something about her that caught your attention. Why not get to know her? You might be surprised. Maybe she’s really nice.”

Highly doubtful. Still, she’d paid all that money for his time, and he was a man who honored his promises. He flipped through the report. “Her foundation is having an event to honor breast cancer survivors.”

Matt grinned and grabbed another wing. “Yeah. It’s called Beauty Scars for women who survived a mastectomy. It’s by invitation only.” He picked up his beer and drank. “But I know Kayla got invited.”