Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh my God.

What 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 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 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 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 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. Where can I go? I can’t stay here.

“Are you all right?”

“No. I need to go. I need to go.”

“Would you like for me to call you a cab?”

I scan the lobby one more time, then glance out the glass doors at the front of the building. No cabs are waiting—not a surprise this late at night. I make a split-second decision. The doorman at a building like this will be able to get someone here faster than I can on my own.

“Call a cab and tell them to get here as soon as they can. I’ll be waiting outside.”

“You’re more than welcome to wait in here.”

I clench my teeth. “Please call. I’ll be outside.”

He nods calmly in the face of my desperation, then picks up the phone. I don’t wait to hear what he says. I move, press my hands against the smooth metal strip in the center of the door to push it open, and walk out into the summer heat.

My first instinct is to run, but now that I’m outside, cars trundling slowly by on the streets, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Instead, I walk calmly away from the doors and press my back up against the warm stone wall of the building.

My hands are shaking, and my grip on the disorganized collection of clothes and purse in my hands is so tight my knuckles are white. It takes a conscious effort to relax, but as soon as I do, my teeth start chattering, even though the air is thick with humid heat rising from the pavement.

I want to call Carolyn, anyone, but my phone is buried somewhere in my clothes, and I know digging for it now will cause the whole thing to fall all over the sidewalk. Not worth the risk, especially if Christian comes out after me.

The thought sends a new spike of adrenaline streaking through my veins.

Am I making myself a sitting duck, standing out here alone like this?

Is it any worse than walking through the streets of New York in the middle of the night, looking bedraggled and paranoid?

If Christian—Elijah?—would lie about who he is, what else would he lie about?

I don’t know anything about what happened ten years ago.

A fresh horror dawns. What if he didn’t steal his brother’s identity when his twin died of an overdose? What if he murdered him?

The bile rises in my throat, and I swallow hard, willing myself not to throw up.

There are too many questions, not enough answers, and a raw, searing pain. I was taken for a fool.

Again.

Somehow, this is far worse than what Derek did to me. How much worse, I’m still not sure.

Have I been secretly dating a murderer?

What do I do now?

Not only dating and having the best sex of my life with him, I remind myself with a churning gut. Working for him. Working with him. Making him seem so trustworthy, so responsible…

It’s the early hours of Friday morning right now. I have about five hours before I need to be back in the HRM offices. I’m drawing a complete blank on whether I have any meetings scheduled with Christian today—I can’t think of him by any other name, I can’t right now. How can I sit across from him in a meeting? A cold sweat trickles down the back of my neck even though it’s hotter than sin out here.

I’ll call in sick. That’s what I’ll do.

A yellow cab turns the corner. I peer through the windshield, another sickening anxiety gripping me—what if it’s the same driver from the airport? I don’t think I’ll be able to take it.

But it’s not him.

It’s a young man with dark hair and he appears reserved and quiet, and relief sweeps over me as I slide across the cracked leather seat and pull the door closed behind me.

Clearing my throat, I rattle off my address.

As he pulls the car away from the curb, I crane my neck to look behind us, half expecting to see Christian run out onto the sidewalk.

For a moment, I’m disappointed.

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper to myself, sinking back into the seat as the cab carries me forward into the first part of my escape from the man I thought I loved.