Naomi 

 

“I don’t want anything, Braydon,” I told him quietly as he looked at me with sad eyes. “Please, just sign the papers.”

He didn’t, he just kept his eyes on mine never looking at the folder on the counter. “Coffee?” he asked, pointing to the freshly brewed pot.

“No,” I sighed. “Please—”

“Please what, Naomi?” he shot back, going from sweet to salty in a matter of seconds.

“Sign the damn papers,” I said, slamming my hand on the counter.

“Why?” he raised his voice. Flinging a hand toward the door, he grated out, “So you can run back to your boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes and huffed, getting tired of the runaround. If I’d had the guts, I would’ve just forged the papers.

“Naomi… honey,” he crooned. “You have everything right here.” He swung his arms out. “Plus, I can give you more if you want.”

“Braydon.” I rubbed my hands over my face and said a small prayer that he’d get a pen and just sign the fucking papers. It was then that I heard the flush of a toilet from upstairs and I quickly removed my hands from my face. Braydon coughed and I swung my eyes to the stairs. “What was that?”

“What was what?” he asked and I turned my eyes back to him. His face had dropped some and the look in his eyes had changed.

I had a quick déjà vu moment from a movie I’d watched with the same scenario playing out. In essence, it was comical, predictable and utterly unbelievable it was happening to me.

Turning, I moved rapidly toward the stairs with Braydon quickly at my heels begging, “Naomi, no, wait—”

“This is outrageous!” I shouted, climbing the steps.

Braydon grabbed my arm, “Stop, please.”

I halted, rotated to face him and snarled, “Do not touch me.”

He let go and I continued my ascent, my breathing picking up with every climb on the hideous carpeted steps and once I reached the landing my eyes darted around.

“Naomi!” Braydon yelled loudly enough to warn the woman I would soon be coming face-to-face with. “Please… I need to talk to you, tell you.”

I turned and glared at him with narrowed eyes and bit out, “You disgust me.”

“No, Naomi,” he started and quickly added, “I need to explain.”

The door to the master bedroom was open and I leaned to the side peering in from where I stood seeing nothing but rumpled sheets and an empty bed.

“What’s her name…Rene?” I shouted and saw his surprised look as I moved to the only closed door, the guest bedroom. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Chase said. Am I right, Braydon?”

With my hand to the knob, I glared at him. His head was bent, one hand on his hip the other rubbing the back of his neck. I let out a sinister huff and turned the knob.

She stood near the bed, where the bedding that I had picked out was now a disheveled heap of hunter green. By her appearance, I never thought Braydon would go for a woman like her. Then again, I thought I knew Braydon but apparently, I didn’t. Her bleached blonde hair was a straggly mess and the tight, short t-shirt she wore stretched against her fake perky tits while it barely covered her black lace thong.

Bile rose to the back of my throat as I whispered, “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Naomi…” Braydon started but I swung my head and glared at him and he closed his mouth.

Just as I thought I’d uncovered all Braydon’s secrets, a male appeared from the bathroom inside the guest room which made my legs wobble as all the air was sucked from me.

I clutched the doorjamb so I wouldn’t go down, and said through the last of the oxygen in my lungs, “What…” Darkness began to creep into the sides of my eyes.

“Naomi! Baby!” Chase’s voice thundered from downstairs. The pounding of his feet taking the steps two at a time was the only sound heard. “Fuck,” he grumbled when he reached the landing and pushed Braydon into the wall to get to me.  

The next thing I knew, I was turned into his arms that were firmly wrapped around me and I curled into his chest. “Sick fucks, goddamn sick fucks, all of you!” Chase roared.

Burying my face in Chase’s thermal, I inhaled his scent and a rush of strength coursed through my veins. I sensed movement and lifted my head while the other man emerged from the room and stood next to Braydon. I stared at them standing side by side my mind struggling with the fact that they were identical, same eyes, height, body type, hair color, every fucking thing.

My husband had a twin!

A chill ran down my spine as a flood of recollections of the last seven months soared through my brain. I’d known something had been off. Known it. Had he and his twin brother both dated me? Had I slept with both of them? Oh my God. I shuddered at the thought and felt Chase’s arms tighten around me as I muttered, “I….” 

“Can we go downstairs and talk?” Braydon asked quietly and before anyone could answer, he moved to the stairs with his shadow following him.

Chase turned to the woman in the room and barked, “Put some fucking clothes on, Rene. Then get your ass downstairs.” She didn’t hesitate as she bent and picked up her clothes off the floor.

He leaned us, closed the bedroom door with a loud thud and once they disappeared, I looked warily up at Chase and he whispered, “You okay? We can leave, No, right now and I can deal with this later.”

I took in a shaky breath. “No,” I said firmly, sucking all the strength I needed from Chase’s body. “I need to know.”

He kissed my forehead and said, “Okay.” Then he turned us and we started down the stairs.

“Please get in touch with Russell and tell him you need some of those pills, please,” I uttered as my numb legs took me down the stairs slowly.

“On it,” Chase mumbled, pulling his phone from his pocket and tapping the screen with one hand while he held me tight to his side with the other.

As soon as we hit the bottom, I let go of Chase and went toward the kitchen, ignoring the twins at the dining table. I knew my body was moving because the fridge was growing closer but I didn’t know how I was managing it. Maybe it was shock, maybe I was in the midst of dying. No, because then I wouldn’t be hearing the pounding of my heart in my ears. It had to be that I was on autopilot and my body was just going through the motions. 

At the refrigerator, I reached in and grabbed a cold bottle of water. Chase took it from my hands and uncapped it, handing it back. I downed half of it, letting the cool water coat my dry throat then held it toward him. He took it and put a hand to my lower back as we moved to sit across from the Braydons just as Rene appeared and sat at the head of the table.

Calmly, I sat down and Chase placed the bottle in front of me. I brought my eyes to one then the other man sitting across from me. That was when I lost it and picked up the water bottle, heaving it at my Braydon. His hands came up as he shielded himself. “I can’t believe you!” I shrieked. I slammed my hands on the table. “Talk! Someone fucking talk!”

“I didn’t know any of this.” Rene said timidly.

I turned to her and screeched, “Not you, you fucking tramp!” She dropped her head and looked to the table.

Chase slid his chair up against mine and placed a hand on my back where he gently rubbed circles. “Breathe, baby,” he whispered.

I turned to him and yelled, “No! I’m not gonna fucking breathe!” My venomous eyes regarded Braydon’s and I shouted, “Fucking talk!”

Braydon number two peered over at number one as he folded his hands and muttered, “This is all you, bud.”

Braydon scowled at his twin before turning his eyes to me. “You would never give me the time of day. I went every fucking morning into that shitty little coffee shop to see you. But….”

I sucked in a breath when those memories came flooding back. I’d worked the early morning shift at the Cup in the Wall and… he had. Every morning, Braydon had come in smiling at me.

He continued, “After a week and a half of drinking mud every morning, I finally got up the guts to ask you out.”

I remembered that too. My eyes fixed to Braydon’s but my head was twirling with the past.

“You turned me down.” His eyes dropped to the table and he muttered, “Numerous times.”

My God, I did. He became relentless and I began to search for him every morning. Yet when I saw him out front coming, I’d hidden. Then I got yelled at by my not-so-nice boss for doing so.

“While all this was going on, I found out I was adopted,” he confessed and looked to his twin.

The twin spoke. “My name is Ross, Ross Smith. When Braydon found me, I didn’t want anything to do with him. As you already know,” Ross pointed to Chase, “I don’t live the luxurious lifestyle that my brother does. I never did, considering I was raised by what started out to be a good mom but when she realized she could make money sleeping around, she did, then my life turned to shit.”

For one brief second my heart sank for Ross, but it quickly pulled back up as I remembered why we sat here. Chase put pressure on my back and I looked to him.

“You good?” he asked softly. I gazed into his strong blue eyes and they hit me with another dose of strength. I nodded.

“He asked me for money,” Braydon started, and I looked to him. “And the few times we did meet, the ladies fell all over him. Not me, even though we look exactly alike.” Braydon huffed. “So I figured he could win you too, so I paid him to go into the coffee shop, talk to you since you wouldn’t give me the time of day….” He paused and that image flashed behind my eyes.

The morning I’d finally agreed to go out with him, Braydon had walked in wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, which I’d never seen him in, and the confidence had been pouring off him when he’d spoken to me. And that was when I agreed to go on a date with him. But it hadn’t been Braydon at all.

Before Braydon spoke, I did. “It was you I agreed to go out with?” I asked Ross.

He nodded and Braydon spoke. “I’m sorry, Naomi but… I….”

“Was fucking obsessed, you sick bastard,” Chase grated out.

Braydon looked at Chase, his shoulders slumped, and he brought his pained eyes to me and said, “I just wanted you to like me. God, I watched you for months. I’d stand on the corner across the street and watch you work, follow you home, show up at the places I’d seen you go with your friends, hoping to bump into you.”

“Damn, you are fucking fucked in the head,” Chase bit out.

“I love her!” Braydon yelled toward Chase.

“No!” Chase roared. “You’re fucking obsessed with her! That’s not love!”

My stomach began to turn and I swallowed hard, forcing the bile to go back down. I blinked a few times, took a deep breath and asked, “I dated both of you, didn’t I?”

In unison, they nodded.

“My God, it all makes sense now. The different attitudes, personalities.” I breathed, “My God.”

“But you’ve only been with me since we got married,” Braydon said confidently which made me huff out a humorless and incredulous laugh.

I brought my wide eyes to Ross. “But I fell in love with you?”

“Yes,” he said with a huff.

I turned to Rene, and grated out, “And you?”

“I’m Ross’s girlfriend…”

Chase cut her off, looking at Braydon and Ross, “It wasn’t the cheap fucking whiskey that had me seeing double that night was it? You both were there, fucking her when I left the party.”

Braydon’s eyes came to me and he nodded. A nasty chill ran down my spine before it was replaced by a heated flush and I thought I was going to pass out. But the burn suddenly made my blood boil with anger as all these revelations hit me at once. I lost it when my mind flipped to the fact that I was fucking them both and now I knew. That was when I stood, slammed my hands on the table and began to shout so loud my throat burned, “It all makes sense now! And don’t think I don’t know which fuck was who! Ross was wild compared to you, Braydon!” I saw him wince but I kept on wanting to hurt him like he’d hurt me. I nodded, my next statement was meant to hurt him even more. “God, you were so boring in comparison. All the times I had to finish myself off afterward, that was you!” I shook my head. “But neither of you is anywhere near a real fuck like Chase is.” I looked at them both and snapped, “And to think I’ve felt guilty for being with Chase, for cheating on you, when that’s all you did since the moment I met you. You pieces of shit!” 

With everything spiraling in my mind, I turned and ran to the bathroom that was off the laundry room. As I kneeled in front of the toilet and proceeded to vomit the entire contents of my stomach, Chase held my hair away from my face and rubbed my back, softly talking to me.

Thirty minutes later, we were all back at the table. The silence was deafening and I just wanted to get this over with, go back to Chase’s, crawl into his bed and cry. But I blinked back the burning behind my eyes because I would never give these two assholes the satisfaction of knowing they’d made me cry.

“How much?” I asked, bouncing my eyes from one to the other.

Braydon returned, “How much what?”

“Money!” I shouted. “How much money was exchanged during the time I dated both of you?” Just saying it out loud made my skin crawl and I looked to my hands in my lap that were clutching Chase’s. 

“Five thousand dollars to start and some of your grandmother’s inheritance after she passes,” Braydon said quietly.

The mention of my Gram had my head quickly rising. “What?” I asked on an exhale.

Chase squeezed my hand and I looked to him. “In her will, you’re to inherit a large sum of money,” he told me gently.

“What?” I breathed in shock.

“Your grandfather invested money in the company he worked for,” Chase informed me. “When he passed, your grandmother sold her share of the company for 1.2 million dollars.”

I blinked trying to absorb what I’d just learned. I knew the asphalt company that my grandfather worked for had started out small and turned into a huge business, but never did I think to that extent. I whispered for confirmation, “Are you sure?”

Chase nodded and said, “When I was confused and couldn’t understand why Braydon wasn’t letting you go, I looked into your grandmother and found all the documents on the transaction. The money was put into an account where it’s been sitting all these years.” Chase shot a threatening look Braydon’s way and finished. “I thought it was because of what you were to inherit because when I visited who I thought was Braydon in Dallas, he had made a comment that he was waiting for,” he paused, looked to Ross with pure hatred in his eyes, and said, “some woman to die so he could get his money.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” I questioned, suddenly feeling betrayed by Chase.

“Because, baby,” he started, twisting in his seat so he was facing me and putting his other hand on my thigh, “I didn’t have all the facts. I knew something was missing and I wasn’t going to have you worrying about what it could be. Then shortly after you left, I got a call from a guy that’d been looking into the break-in, and when he told me it was Ross Smith’s doing, I was even more puzzled. Then it hit me, and I looked into a few things and confirmed my suspicions.”

I swung my head to Ross. “You broke into this house?” I couldn’t even say my home because the thought made me ill. Because it was a lie, it was all a lie. The life I’d been living was a fucking lie.

“He came to me for more money,” Braydon started, and my eyes darted to him. “I didn’t have it, so… I gave him the key to the house, told him what was valuable and not to touch anything that was yours.” He turned to Ross and said, “I didn’t know he was going to trash the place.”

That answered my thoughts on why it’d seemed like there was no distress to the front door and only certain places in the house were torn up.

“Let me get this straight, you paid Ross to get me to go out with him and then you slowly moved into his spot?” I asked with irritated confusion.

“Yes,” Braydon confessed.

“You had me,” I stated while patting my chest. “Why were you still paying him? Or offering up some of my inheritance?”

“So he wouldn’t out the whole situation and…”

I cut him off. “You did all this,” I swung my arm out, “just because you wanted to go out with me?”

“Well…I, yeah, because I love you, Naomi.” Braydon stammered as if that was a logical answer to all the information I’d just gathered.

“I can’t….” I put my hands up. “I can’t hear anymore.” I pushed the seat back and lost Chase’s hands as they fell from my lap. I swiftly stood, my chair tilting back and landing on the wood floor with a loud bang, and stomped to the kitchen counter, rummaged through my purse, found a pen and snagged the papers on my way back. “Sign them!” I screamed in Braydon’s face as I shoved the divorce papers and pen at him. “Now!”

Chase stood, feet shoulder width apart, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at Braydon. Braydon’s eyes darted around the room before they landed on Ross.

“Just do it,” Ross muttered in defeat. “It’s over, bud.”

Braydon’s pained hazel eyes came to me and he whispered, “Naomi, please—”

“You can’t be fucking serious!” Chase roared, gently pushing me aside. It happened so fast, but Chase had Braydon by the neck up against the wall.

“Chase!” I bellowed and put a hand on his arm, he looked down at me and released Braydon.

Braydon crumpled to the ground, gasping for air and my eyes quickly scanned the room to find Ross, seeing the tough man I’d once thought he was now cowering in the kitchen. Chase grabbed the documents and pen from the table, and threw them down on the floor in front of Braydon then rumbled, “SIGN!”

Braydon did without hesitation or even a word.