“That’s the last of them,” Lizzie says and closes the door that looks out on the street. We don’t kick out our customers unless we have to, but if someone runs through my door five minutes before closing time I don’t refuse them. Which is why we’re open half an hour later today.

She locks the door and turns to me.

“So, now that you’re finally alone, you have to tell me about your weekend.”

I roll my eyes, but I can’t help smiling.

“There’s not really that much to tell,” I say. It’s a lie, of course, but I don’t want to turn my relationship with Parker into gossip. The weekend was perfect in every way, and I want to keep it that way, hold the memory tightly, roll it around in my mouth whenever I want to revisit it, taste it again and again.

“Come on,” Lizzie says. “You can’t hold out on me like this. You’re already not telling me everything.”

“What am I not telling you?” I ask, giving her big eyes.

She sighs. “Really? You’re going to be like this?”

I open my mouth to say something, but Parker appears in front of the glass door. Lizzie turns to see what I’m looking at. When she sees Parker, she hurries and unlocks for him.

“Speak of the devil,” she mutters before she pulls the door open and pastes her customer-smile onto her face.

“We’re closed, but the boss says to let you in.”

She grins at me. Parker smiles at her joke, but it’s an empty smile. Something’s wrong.

I haven’t spoken to Parker since this morning. I don’t know how his conversation with Paul went. I don’t know anything. My stomach twists.

“Well, I’m off,” Lizzie says and shoots me a look that tells me I owe her a story later. I greet her, and she leaves, closing the door behind her.

When we’re alone, Parker stands on the other side of the counter in silence. He looks around the bakery like he hasn’t seen it before.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Parker turns his eyes to me, and they’re icy cold. He looks upset.

My stomach twists again. He’s not speaking to me. That’s a bad sign.

“You’ve really made something of the place,” he says. “It was a good investment.”

I frown. Why is he referring to the money he gave me to start up the place?

“What’s wrong, Parker?” I ask. “Talk to me. You’re so closed off.”

“You want me to talk to you?” he asks as if I didn’t just say it.

I nod. “I want us to be open with each other.”

Parker blinks at me. He laughs, but it’s a bitter sound, and I cringe.

“You want us to be open with each other?” he asks.

Is he going to keep throwing my words back at me like this? It’s pissing me off. I want him to talk to me. I don’t need to hear my own words again. I’m asking him questions for a reason.

“Parker, please.”

I realize I’ve said those words so many times, begging him for release during sex. It’s ironic that I’m asking for a release of another kind the same way.

“All right, let’s talk about being open,” he says. His words are full of menace. He’s angry, I realize. I recognize it. I’ve seen it before. His anger crackles around him like an electric charge. His eyes are void of life, and he’s scary when he’s like this. “Let’s talk about how you sold yourself online and didn’t bother to tell me about it.”

He speaks the words carefully, and they hit me like physical punches. I can’t breathe. It feels like the walls are closing in around us, and my blood rushes in my ears so loudly the only thing I can hear is my racing heart.

“So, it’s true?” he asks, but I think he’s challenging me, rather than really asking for an answer.

What can I say to that? Paul betrayed me. He ratted me out when I didn’t even tell his secret. He went to the one person I really care about and ruined my image in his eyes.

Or maybe I did that the day I signed up to do sexcams. Maybe I threw my own life away, and it’s just taken this long to catch up with me.

“Parker.”

“Answer me!” he shouts so loudly that I jump. I can taste my heart in my throat.

“I don’t want to do this if you’re going to shout at me,” I say. “We’re both adults.”

Parker looks like he wants to say something, his rage surfacing for a moment so that I’m terrified of what he might do. But then he swallows it down and manages to gain control of himself.

“Just tell me if it’s true,” he says. His voice is calm, but the anger is palpable in the shop, and I know there’s no way I’m going to get out of this one.

Something inside me flips, and I can push away my emotions now. I do this when things are too difficult to handle. Like when Paul found out about the videos and threatened to out me unless I agreed to marry him so many years ago.

I nod, not caring about what Parker sees or thinks now. I’ll worry about it later. I know I will, but right now, I’m invincible.

“It’s true,” I say.

Parker’s emotions are raw on his face. For a moment, he looks like he’s about to lose it. Emotions cross his face at record speed, and I can’t read any of them except pain.

When he opens his mouth again, he says, “Why?”

The way he says it isn’t a question of why I did it. It’s deeper than that, a question of why me, why now, why not anyone else on the godforsaken earth? But I don’t know how to answer that for him. I don’t know how to explain to him that sometimes, good people make bad choices.

I don’t know how to tell him that I couldn’t let him know because he would look at me the way he looks at me now, with irreparable disappointment.

So, I answer the obvious question.

“Because I needed money to get through college. My parents didn’t have the money, and I wasn’t going to ask them to do something drastic. My waitressing job, and any other job that I searched for, didn’t pay enough. I had to get out of that life and make more of myself. I had a dream I wanted to chase.”

Parker shakes his head. “Don’t tell me it was about money. You can make money doing other things.”

“You’ll be surprised what students do to get by,” I say. My voice is level, calm. Somewhere deep down, my emotions are churning, but for now, it doesn’t matter. I will deal with that later.

“I don’t believe you,” Parker says.

I frown at him. “Why else would I do something like that?” I ask.

Parker looks at me without answering, and that is its own answer.

“Do you think that I’m one of those girls? That I’m a whore?”

I’m angry now. I can push away shock and horror and fear and sorrow and pain. I can’t push away anger.

“Are you implying that I fuck for fun?”

Parker shrugs. “Well, you do seem to be the kind that will fuck her husband’s brother.”

My ears start ringing, and I know if I don’t hold onto my control with both hands, I will lose my shit all over the place and do something I’ll regret later. I fold my arms over my chest and squeeze tightly, as if I can physically keep myself from falling apart. I don’t dare let go for fear of what I’ll do.

Parker has sunken into that quiet rage that’s so dangerous. When he speaks again, his voice barely sounds like his own.

“I want you to go back home and pack your shit. Get the fuck out of my life, and don’t come back.”

His words are like more blows raining down on me, but I can’t shield myself with my arms because it’s all emotional.

“You’re kicking me out?” I ask. I surprise myself by how calm I sound.

Parker nods. “I am. Looks like I have a lot more in common with my brother than I thought.”

That last comment is like he pushes a knife between my ribs and twists it for good measure. He turns and leaves.

“I’ll be home in an hour. I hope that by then, you’re gone.”

He closes the glass door behind him. I stay upright, watching him until he disappears behind the wall before I double over. I’m gasping for breath, and the tears that I’ve been biting back come like a dam wall has broken.

I fall to my knees and sob on the floor. His words bounce around in my head, and I can hear my heart shatter.

When I reach his apartment he’s not home, just like he said. I walk into the bedroom and find my suitcase. I start packing my clothes, throwing them into the bag without folding them. I can’t see through my tears. I would have liked to push the emotions away for longer, but there were too many of them. This is all too real.

I don’t think anyone has hurt me as much as Parker did with what he said to me.

I walk into the bathroom and collect my makeup. It’s hard to think that in such a short time of living with Parker, our worlds have merged so much. I have to concentrate on all the places I might have left more things, and thinking is hard when I’m crying this much. I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and try to get the suitcase shut. With everything spilling out, I can’t get it shut properly, and that makes me cry harder.

Finally, I manage to get my suitcase closed. I walk to the living room, dragging my bag along when the door opens, and Parker walks in.

I freeze. I’m caught in the middle of the living room with my suitcase packed, makeup streaks running down my face.

“You’re packed?” he asks in a cold voice.

I nod.

“Good,” he says.

I take a deep breath and steady myself. I can’t help that I look like an emotional mess, but I can make sure I don’t sound like one, too.

“Can we at least talk about this?” I ask.

Parker shakes his head. “What’s there to talk about? You lied to me, about my brother and about this. And I don’t want you.”

The last words hit me so hard I can barely breathe.

Parker doesn’t seem to care that I’m such a mess, that I’m leaving, that he’s hurting me this much. I don’t even know if it’s the same irrational anger as the night at the bar when he saw Paul. That kind of anger blows over, but this?

It’s more like quiet hatred, and it looks like it’s here to stay.

Parker steps to the side, showing me the door. I let out a shaky breath and walk toward the door, struggling with my heavy suitcase. He doesn’t help me. He doesn’t say goodbye. Hell, he doesn’t even look at me.

I’m barely outside when the door clicks firmly shut behind me. I start crying again, tears rolling over my cheeks. I fish for my phone and dial Lizzie’s number while I walk. When she answers and she hears me cry, she tells me she’s coming to get me right away. I give her the address and hang up.

At least I have somewhere to go. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

Yesterday, I was coming back from a honeymoon-like weekend with Parker, and everything was right with the world. Now, it feels like a century ago. How did my life fall apart in such a short span of time?