It’s easy to sound sick on the phone when I call the HRM offices and leave a message that I won’t be in. It’s like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck. My stomach hasn’t unknotted itself since I left Christian’s apartment, and my mind is scattered in pieces, not to mention my heart.

Carolyn knocks on my bedroom door Friday morning on her way out to the boutique. “Hey,” she calls out softly. “Can I come in?”

I grumble something unintelligible from beneath my cocoon of covers. The door swings open, and seconds later the bed dips as Carolyn’s weight presses down on the mattress.

“Are you the only one?”

I poke my head out from underneath the comforter. What the hell is she talking about?

“The only one what?”

My roommate gestures at my state of being. “This looks like a pretty nasty bug. Is it taking over the office, or are you the only one who got it? I think the subways are giant germ incubators.”

I roll away from her with a groan.

She was asleep when I came back last night, so I didn’t have to tell her what happened.

I could lie about it, but that would make me a massive hypocrite.

My stomach turns over. I can’t tell her the whole truth.

I don’t think I can say those words out loud.

Part of me wants to, but speaking them out loud to her might cause me to actually vomit all over the sheets…and Carolyn.

“It’s not a bug.”

I feel Carolyn’s movement rather than see it—the straightening of her back. “Q, did something happen at work?”

“Not at work, no.” In spite of myself, a painful lump rises in my throat, and tears prick at the corner of my eyes, threatening to spill out and down my cheeks. Without turning to face her, I choke out what little of the truth I can manage. “Christian and I—we’re over.”

“Oh, no,” she says, and I can hear the sympathy in her voice. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. I thought—” Her sentence trails off, and she reaches out to pat my shoulder. “I know how excited you were to be with him. That’s awful.”

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I swallow the tightness in my throat and roll over onto my back. “It’s probably for the best.”

Carolyn’s face is a mask of concern. “Do you want me to stay with you today? We could go shopping, have lunch—take your mind off things.”

I shake my head. “It’s pathetic, I know, but I think I need a day to…process everything.”

That couldn’t be more true.

“Okay,” she says, standing up. “If you get hungry, order from wherever you want. It’s on me. I’ve got running tabs everywhere in the city.” I give her a small smile. Carolyn is a good friend. If nothing else, I have that. “And there’s ice cream in the freezer. Help yourself.”

“I will.”

Carolyn wags a finger at me. “You’re not spending the entire weekend in bed, though. Not even over a guy like Christian Pierce. We’re going to have fun. At least, I’m going to have fun. All you have to do is come with me.”

It makes me laugh, and my heart lightens a little. “It’s a deal.

I spend the rest of the day parked on the couch. At first my heart is numb and then it’s throbbing, alternating every minute.

I don’t know what to think.

My initial terror has subsided, at least a little. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but if Christian was some kind of serial murderer and had it in for me, I’d be dead by now.

On top of that, a suspicious death like that would have been investigated. Especially for someone like him. If there had been any hint of foul play, Carolyn would have told me about it. There’s no way she would have let me get involved with a potentially dangerous person, even if they had been friends since they were in boarding school.

There’s no way she would remain friends with a murderer. I’m sure of that.

It still doesn’t explain why he stole his brother’s identity.

Even if he did it in a moment of grief—why keep up the facade for another ten years?

Something else is going on with him.

I don’t want anything to do with it.

That’s a lie.

My heart collapses again, and tears come to my eyes. The awful truth is that I miss Christian. I felt alive when I was with him, complete in a way that I hadn’t since I found out what Derek was doing.

That whole thing threw me for a loop.

I didn’t deserve to be cheated on. I was attentive and funny and supportive and all the things a fiancée is supposed to be.

“Ugh,” I groan to the empty room. That’s not the point. Derek should have been honest, even if he wasn’t happy with the way I was.

Christian should have been honest, too.

But it’s not only me he’s been lying to.

That’s the scariest part about this. He’s been fooling everyone—his father, his friends—for a decade, and for what?

I can’t figure it out.

I want to pick up my phone right now and call him, demanding to know why the hell he did what he did. He could have at least told me, a woman he claimed to love. A woman he claimed to love after ten years of refusing to date anyone seriously.

What would you have done then?

Exactly what you did.

Jesus, the truth hurts.

There’s no good way to admit to another person that you’ve been living a lie for ten years. When you lie about something that fundamental it colors everything else. What wouldn’t he lie about if he would lie about his own identity?

Did he love me?

A sob catches in my throat. I can’t be certain, but I felt it, and I thought it was real.

I know with certainty it was—it is—real for me.

Can I help it that part of me wants him back?