The moment Christian is out of my office, I grab for my phone, tugging open the bottom drawer of my desk with so much force that I nearly dump the entire contents of my purse onto the floor in my hurry.

Hands shaking, I type out a message to Carolyn.

She doesn’t know everything—she can’t know everything—but I can’t keep this all to myself.

Christian came in for a meeting

I’m fairly certain that she’s working at the boutique right now. She’s almost always at work. I lay my phone down on the desk and take a deep breath, preparing myself for the agonizing wait.

Her reply comes so quickly it’s like she had been holding her phone in her hand, so quickly that the vibration against the glass surface of my desk startles me.

Calm the hell down, Quinn. People are going to think you’re having a fit.

What people, I don’t know, since I’m alone in the office and Adam calls ahead when there are visitors, but I take another calming breath in through my nose and let it out slowly through my mouth.

OMG. How did it go?

It was weird. And then at the end he said

My thumb slips onto the send button before I can complete the sentence, and while I’m typing out the rest of what I wanted to tell her, Carolyn’s reply comes in.

DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THAT

Accidental send! He said “This? It isn’t over.”

What does that mean???

I have no idea.

Wait…was it mutual?

Not really.

What do you mean, not really?

I left him.

Have you talked about it?

No.

Carolyn sends an animated emoji of a yellow smiley face rolling its eyes.

I know…

Talk to him, Quinn.

I don’t know how to have this conversation.

Yes you do.

It won’t fix anything.

How do you know?

I know, okay?

Then why are you texting me about what he said?

I pause.

I have to know.

If I don’t find out why Christian did what he did, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering, and I can’t do that. Could it honestly be that he couldn’t bear to face his father, knowing that his favorite son was dead?

The blood drains from my face. Christian lied to me. There’s no way around that. But he could have been telling me the truth last Thursday, too.

I had every right to be upset about him lying to me. I still have every right to be upset.

But Christian is human, like the rest of us. And from what I can tell, he didn’t get anything extra out of pretending to be his brother, other than his father’s affection.

I never doubted that my father loved me. Not everyone in the world has it so easy.

Even billionaires have their problems.

Nope. No.

I need to shut this down. I can’t keep spending time justifying his actions. I’m not ready to forgive him and move on from this. I’m in New York City because another man lied to me so well and for so long that by the time I left, he had another life waiting for him in the wings. With my best friend.

It’s not my job to let Christian off the hook. My biggest responsibility is to live a life that I want to live, and right now—as gut-wrenching as it is to admit it—that life does not include a lying billionaire who is still, to this day, impersonating his dead twin brother.

And yet…

And yet…

I send another message to Carolyn.

I want some closure.

Are you sure that’s all you want?

Yes.

Then I’m with you 100%.

The bubble indicating that she’s typing again pops up right away.

I agree, though—what a bizarre thing to say!

I drop my phone back into my purse and flick on my computer screen, an odd wave of focus coming over me.

I can take charge of my own life.

It won’t be the first time I’ve done it, and it won’t be the last, but I need to do something right now to make a change. It will put my mind at ease. It will put a stop to this endless second-guessing about a relationship that probably wasn’t going to go anywhere. Sooner or later, the truth was going to come out. There isn’t a person on earth who could keep a secret like that for a lifetime. Jesus, what if we’d been married? What if I’d been pregnant?

I need to put myself back in the driver’s seat, and I know how I’m going to do it.

I stand up from my desk and glance at my reflection in the office window, tugging my blazer so that it lays smoothly over my curves. Then I’m in motion, out the door.

“Adam, call Walker and tell him I’m coming down for a meeting.”

“Of course, Ms. Campbell,” Adam calls out to my retreating back.

Walker’s office is on the opposite end of the floor, so it takes me a little longer than I’d like to get there. Quite a few people greet me as I go past, and I stop to chat with most of them. I’ve always made it a habit to be a charmer in the office. You never know when those connections might come in handy.

Finally, Walker’s secretary—who is constantly on the phone—waves me in with a smile.

“Thanks, Marjorie,” I mouth, and go in through Walker’s open door.

He turns away from his computer when he hears me enter. “Quinn,” he says with a broad grin. “Adam said you were on your way. What can I do for you?”

I sit down in one of the two chairs across from Walker’s desk and cross my legs, making sure my posture is straight and confident. “You know how much I love it here at HRM, don’t you?”

A flicker of confusion crosses his face, but his smile doesn’t waver. “You’re doing quite the job with the Pierce account,” Walker laughs. “If you hated it here, there’s no way you’d put in that kind of effort.”

“The thing is—working on the Pierce account has opened my eyes. I don’t want to leave HRM. I want to go…bigger.” I raise my hands in front of me, giving Walker an approximation of the size of my dreams. I let my smile extend all the way to my eyes.

He cocks his head and considers me. “What do you mean by bigger? Are you requesting a transfer? There’s only one office that…” His mouth drops open. “You’re an ambitious one. Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice strong and enthusiastic. “London.”