“That isn’t your fiancé,” Brody says.

“Are you serious? Gabe is my fiancé. He told you so himself without any probing from me. We kissed. We share this condo together. What more proof do you need?” I say, my voice loud and angry.

I thought he would’ve stormed out the second he found out I had a fiancé, but apparently, he doesn’t believe anything I tell him is true, so I don’t even know why I bother trying to explain.

“I need a heck of a lot more proof than that. You didn’t even want to kiss him. How can you be engaged to a person and not even want to kiss him?”

“Just because you fucked me for a week in the Bahamas doesn’t mean you know me. You have no idea why I reacted the way that I did to Gabe kissing me.”

Brody starts walking around the condo, his eyes traveling over everything he can find. He opens doors, sticking his head inside, only to reemerge.

“What are you doing?” I ask, walking behind him.

“I’m looking for proof.”

I exhale deeply. “You promised you would leave after I told you the truth about why I wouldn’t agree to your arrangement.”

“I said I would leave after you told me the truth. I’m not sure you’ve told me the truth yet.”

He walks around our living room, staring at the white and light-gray massive walls that take up almost two stories with a few large pieces of artwork. He raises an eyebrow at me as he walks down the hallway to the bedroom that Gabe and I share, which is also decorated in gray and white.

“Nope, I don’t believe you.”

I frown. “And why don’t you believe me?”

I need him to believe me. I need him to leave. He knows enough. He can’t stay and have dinner with us tonight. He’ll find out far too much that I don’t want him to know.

“Because I haven’t found a single picture of you and your fiancé together in this entire condo. Not one single image.” He walks to the closet and throws the door open, peeking inside. “Because, despite the fact that you say you live here, there are less than a dozen pieces of clothing of yours in this closet. Because, despite having a fiancé who lives in LA, you still have a home in Albuquerque along with a whole slew of animals, not to mention your veterinarian clinic. You claim to have a fiancé, yet you fuck me on a vacation without him less than six months ago. You claim to have a fiancé, yet you have no ring.”

I look down at my bare hand as a tiny bit of hope creeps up inside me. I run into the bathroom and pull out the engagement box out of the top drawer. I open the box and pull out the large square diamond ring, which is easily four carats in size. I place it back on my hand after having not worn it for the past two weeks, and then I race back to the bedroom, holding out my hand to Brody.

“You’re wrong. I have a ring.”

Brody eyes the large diamond on my finger with suspicion. “How do I know that’s not a fake?”

I roll my eyes. “Does it look like a fake?”

He cocks his head from side to side as he stares at it. “How would I know? I’m not a diamond expert.”

“It’s not a fake. Does it look like Gabe can’t afford to buy me a nice diamond?” I hold my hands out to my sides, pointing at all the nice things in the condo that we share together.

“No, I’m sure Gabe could afford to buy you that ring. How do I know it’s an engagement ring and not just a ring he bought for a close friend?”

“Really?”

“Fine, it looks like an engagement ring. But, if you’re engaged, why weren’t you wearing it? Why was it in a box here instead of on your finger in Albuquerque?”

“Because we want to keep our engagement private. Gabe is pretty well known out here, and I want to keep it out of the tabloids as long as we can.”

He narrows his eyes. “So, you don’t ever wear your ring in public?”

“No.”

“When? When did he propose?”

I bite my lip and look away from him. I really don’t want to answer him.

He chuckles. “You can’t even come up with a quick story of how he proposed.”

“He proposed to me the night I got back from the Bahamas. We weren’t on the best of terms, which is why I went on vacation. I wanted to get some clarity on what I wanted when I returned. I came home when I found out he’d been in a motorcycle accident. I’d never been so scared in my life. I realized what a mistake I’d made. He got down on one knee and proposed in his hospital room despite being beaten up pretty badly. I said yes and haven’t hesitated since.”

He just stands there, staring at me, processing.

I sigh.

And then he suddenly starts moving. He walks out of the bedroom while I follow after him, curious if I finally said the thing that will make him leave. He doesn’t walk toward the front door though. Instead, he walks into the kitchen, finds the bar, and starts digging through the alcohol. He shakes his head.

“What?” I snap.

He pulls out a decanter of whiskey and two glasses pouring us both a glass of alcohol from the decanter. He hands one of the glasses to me, and I take it, happy to have alcohol to finish this conversation. I need the strength to say anything to get him to leave.

“The bastard doesn’t even have any tequila. So, you want to explain to me again how this is true love.”

I don’t answer him. It doesn’t matter, and whatever excuse I make for him, it’s clear that Brody won’t believe me anyway.

Brody opens the door to the balcony and steps outside. I step out as well, happy to get some fresh air.

“Why?”

“Why else do you get married? Love.”

“Why did you cheat on him? If you are so in love with him that you said yes the second you came back, why did you sleep with me?” He stares at me as he asks the question, like it’s the most important question that he needs to know the answer to. His eyes seem sincere for the first time in a long time.

“Because it wasn’t cheating.”

I watch Brody’s hands drum against the railing, and I want nothing more than for him to take me in his arms and kiss me. I want him to stroke my face. Or even just hold my hand. But it seems that he won’t. But he has more self-control than I could’ve ever imagined while I’m on the edge of doing something very, very stupid.

“Were you on a break? Broken up? Is that why it wasn’t technically cheating?”

“It wasn’t cheating because we were never together.”

Brody reaches out and grabs my hand, jerking me to him. My breathing is fast and heavy, as I’m filled with the weight of what I want him to do but can’t let him.

“You’re telling me that, after spending a week with me giving you the best sex of your life, you cut that short so that you could go back to marry a man you hadn’t even kissed before?”

Pain—that’s what I see when I look into Brody’s eyes. It can’t be pain though because I was nothing but a sex toy to him for the week. So, it must be something else. It must be that I heard him wrong, or it’s jealousy at letting another man take the woman he was just with.

“We had kissed once, but that was it. I didn’t think it was going anywhere.”

He lets me go and takes a step back. “It must be love then.”

My heart aches as he says the words, dripping with the same pain that I myself feel. It doesn’t make sense for either of us to be feeling such pain, but it’s how I feel.

“So, you’ll leave then? I told you the truth. I told you that I wouldn’t sleep with you again. And, just as I promised you, you can’t stay.”

He grins just enough for me to be concerned. “I think I’d like to have that dinner first. It’s clear that he’s rich, so I’m sure he knows where to get a good meal in town. And I’d like to hear from him a little more about how he got a woman like you to fall so quickly in love. I might need to use the skills myself someday. I’ll leave after dinner if that’s what you still want.”

He says he will leave, but it seems more like a threat. I failed at getting him to leave once. I won’t fail again.