“Morning, kid.”

Opening my eyes took more effort than I was ready for. As soon as I was back into consciousness, the first thing I became aware of was a headache so intense it felt like my skull was about to split open like a grape smashed under a boot.

When I opened my eyes I noticed right away that I wasn’t in my bed. A glance over at both sides of the bed revealed that I was alone—no trace of Chelsea.

Instead, standing at the foot of the bed was Damien. It was surreal at first—he was dressed in gray slacks and a white polo, clothes more casual than I’d ever seen him in. On his face was an expression of frustration and disappointment.

I groaned as I rolled over, my head pounding.

“Figured you could use these,” he said, stepping over to the side of the bed and placing a glass of water and a pair of pills on the nightstand.

My mouth felt like old leather, so I downed the water along with the pills as quickly as I could.

“Where’s Chelsea?”

“Back at your apartment,” said Damien. “We started looking for you a half hour or so after you wandered off. At first, we couldn’t find you. She told me you’d been drinking, and I worried that you’d wandered off into the city. Just so happened that we heard you snoring through the door. We tried to get you up, but when we realized you were out like a damn light, we figured we’d let you sleep it off.”

“Shit,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my head. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, you’ve got a lot more than that to be sorry about,” he said.

Then I noticed he had something else in his hand—a tablet. He turned it on, swiped a few times, and handed it over.

When I rubbed my eyes and took a glance on the screen, my stomach sank like a hunk of cinderblocks into a lake.

It was one of the tabloid sites that liked to keep tabs on me.

And on the front page was a picture of me and Felicity in the middle of a kiss.

“What the fuck!” I shouted out, tossing the tablet onto the bed and backing off, as though the image were cursed.

“Got a little too drunk for your own good, huh?” he asked.

I closed my eyes and tried to play back the events of last night. I remembered stumbling up to the balcony, then Felicity…then the kiss.

For a moment I worried that I’d actually done it, that I’d cheated on Chelsea. But then I remembered the revulsion that I’d felt when Felicity’s lips touched mine, and how I’d only let her kiss stay on my mouth for the briefest of moments before I pushed her away.

“I’m disappointed in you, Bryce,” said Damien, taking a seat at the foot of the bed. “I understand that you’re going through a lot, especially with your father’s passing. But this sort of behavior is exactly what I thought you’d left behind when you got engaged. I guess I was wrong. And so were you.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” I said.

I went right into it, explaining that I’d gotten drunk, that Felicity had taken advantage of how drunk and out of it I was.

“I see,” said Damien. “And did you happen to see what else was in the story?”

I was confused. I snatched up the pad and opened it back up, now scrolling down.

“Holy fuck,” I said.

The headline read “Phone Hacking Scandal! Bryce Carver’s Illicit Affair Made Public!” and was followed by a half-dozen images of Felicity in various states of undress. At first I had no idea where they’d come from, but then I realized that they were the exact shots that she’d been sending me over the last week.

“Goddammit,” I said, shaking my head.

“And I suppose you have an explanation for those, too?” asked Damien.

“I do,” I said. “She sent those pictures to me, and that’s all there is to it. Damien, nothing has been going on between Felicity and me. I don’t know if she’s just furious that I’m getting married or what, but this is all some kind of plot or trick or something.”

Damien slipped a hand into his pocket and looked away for a long moment, deep in thought. Then he sighed and spoke.

“Bryce, can you tell me with total honesty that what you’re saying is the truth? That this affair isn’t real?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Then that’s all I need to hear,” he said. “But you have other problems.”

He fished his phone out of his pocket.

“Chelsea gave me her number last night so I could make sure she got home OK. And about ten minutes ago she sent me this.”

He held the phone in front of my face, which displayed a text from Chelsea.

It read, “Tell him I’m gone.”

I felt like the life had been drained out of me. Defeated, unable to believe what was happening, I fell back against the headboard, my head thwacking into it and sending a fresh wave of pain through my already-throbbing head.

“You can’t really blame her, can you?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I can’t.”

“You probably feel like hell right now,” said Damien. “From the booze and everything else. And I could make it worse for you and tell you that I don’t want to go into business with a man who can’t keep his house in order.”

I turned my eyes to Damien, my heart now thudding in my chest.

“And maybe I will. But first, I want to ask you something. And I want to you be straight with me.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked hard at me. “I want to know if you love this girl. Really and truly. Because if that’s true, then nothing else matters.”

I opened my mouth to quickly shoot out a yes, but then the question gave me pause. I’d gotten so wrapped up in the lie of the engagement that I hadn’t even taken stock of my own feelings.

But the truth of the matter was that I’d fallen hard for Chelsea, harder than I’d ever fallen for a woman before in my life. I loved her smile, I loved her laugh, I loved how stubborn she could be. I loved her passion and her ambition and her everything else.

I loved her.

“Yes,” I said. “I love Chelsea.”

Damien nodded.

“Then you’d better go get her back.”