I hadn’t planned on falling asleep in his arms. Honestly, I figured that once we finished, he would get dressed and leave. The thought left a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, but I was determined to push it down. I didn’t want to come off as needy and pathetic. After all, he’d already given me more than he should. Expecting anything else would just be greedy. We were a fake couple—as hard as it was to remember that whenever we were together. It was perfectly in his right to leave once we were done.

But he didn’t.

He went to the bathroom to deal with the condom. Meanwhile, I’d braced for the impending goodbye. Then he came back out, flipped the lights off, and climbed back into bed, spooning me against his strong body.

I was quickly getting used to sleeping in his arms. It had only been three times, and I already dreaded the idea of having to go to bed alone. Without him.

I slept like a log with him there—so hard, in fact, that I’d snoozed five times too many and finally woke up in a tizzy when I saw the numbers on the alarm clock.

“Shit!” Jumping from the bed, I rushed around the room dressed in absolutely nothing as I gathered my clothes for the day. “I’m late, I’m late! Tate’s gonna be pissed.”

Camden’s contented groan filled the air as he stretched his long limbs, but I was running too late to stop and enjoy the show. “What time is it?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep.

“Eight thirty,” I snapped out, yanking clothes from the hangers in my closet. “I should’ve been at work thirty minutes ago.”

His chuckle resonated through the air as I dug around on my closet floor looking for the black pumps with a pencil-thin heel to match my outfit.

They were just here. I could’ve sworn it. Where the hell did they go?

Clothes, shoes, and other items I didn’t have time to identify went flying as I threw everything out in search of the shoes in question.

“Baby,” Camden cooed from his place in my bed. “Calm down. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

A draft from the air conditioning drifted over my skin, creating goose bumps and alerting me to the fact that I was very, very naked.

Grabbing the first thing my fingers landed on, I snatched it up and used it to cover myself. I hadn’t realized exactly what I was using to shield my nudity until I heard Camden exclaim, “Dear god. What the hell is that?”

Looking down at myself, I saw the eyes of all the members of the Backstreet Boys staring back at me. The ratty concert tee was one of my most prized possessions from my childhood, and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to part with it.

“Shut up,” I harrumphed, shooting Camden an evil glare as I whipped the oversized T-shirt over my head. “I went through a phase. And they had some awesome songs!”

I got a little sidetracked in our current argument when he sat up, his bare chest on full display as he cocked his knees beneath the sheet and rested his arms on top of them. Damn, he looked yummy like that.

“You know, as an actual musician, I find the fact that you went through a boy band phase highly offensive,” he said with a playful sneer.

I flopped the hair that had fallen in my face during my struggle back with a huff and narrowed my eyes. “Hey, I’ll have you know it’s bands like that who paved the way for guys like you.”

He returned my glare, which made his sleep-rumpled cuteness even hotter. “First of all, callin’ them a band is a joke. And secondly, bands like the Stones and Zeppelin paved the way for guys like me, and to say otherwise would be blasphemous. I won’t hear of it.”

I had to curl my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing. I just didn’t have time! “Whatever. I need to get in the shower.”

“I could always join you!” he called as I ran into the bathroom.

“No time!” I slammed the door behind me and fell against it. My chest heaved with a heavy exhale as my heart began to beat against my ribs. I knew he was only joking, that we’d agreed to just the once. But I really liked the idea of him joining me in the shower.

I hadn’t thought of that when I made my proposition. I should have known better than to think once would be enough.

“Stupid, stupid Sutton,” I groaned, banging my head against the wooden door.

“Everything okay in there?”

“Yes!” I shouted, a smidge too manically. “Just tripped. It’s all good!”

Pulling the BSB tee off, I turned on the water as hot as my body could stand it and climbed in, sad that I was about to wash my night with Camden off my body. But it was all for the best. I had to brace for what was to come, because this hoax was going to end soon enough, especially since the press was eating up the lie we were feeding them.

The truth of it was we had an expiration date, and I needed to make sure I looked out for myself if I had any hopes of coming out of this on the other side.

* * *

“Oh come on!” I shouted at the stopped cars in front of me. Of course it was my luck that the one time I was late for work, the roads were completely gridlocked.

I was in the midst of a pretty creative diatribe, where I created cuss words that had never been thought up by the human mind before, when my cell phone rang through the speakers of the car.

I hit the button on my steering wheel to answer the call at the same time I snapped, “Move your geriatric ass, Grandma! Some of us have places to be!”

“Excuse me?”

My spine went rigid, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Mom?”

I hadn’t heard from her in weeks, and alarm bells started blaring in the back of my head. We didn’t talk often for a very good reason. My mother had a tendency for making Sabrina and I feel about an inch tall, taking great pleasure in pointing out everything we were doing wrong in our lives. It was like a superpower or something. The only reason she ever called was to berate us about something she thought Sabrina and I could be doing better. From parenting to career choices, everything we did was wrong, wrong, wrong.

“I know you weren’t talkin’ to me like that, little miss.”

“N-no… I-I wasn’t….” It was ridiculous how my mother could still reduce me to a stuttering mess. “I’m sorry. I’m stuck in traffic and got a little carried away. How are you, Mom?”

“Well, I was doin’ just fine until I opened the computer this morning and saw my daughter making out with a famous freakin’ singer! What were you thinkin’ Sutton?”

And there it was. “Mom—”

“Have I taught you nothing? What the hell was goin’ through your head, hooking up with a man like that?”

I squeezed my eyes closed and worked on my deep breathing. Unfortunately that was the exact moment traffic decided to move, and the cars behind me began honking in earnest.

“Sutton Marie Briar. Are you listening to me?”

My stomach twisted painfully as anxiety gripped at my chest. Twenty-six years old and I still let my mom’s disapproval cast a cloud over everything.

“Mom, really. Camden’s a great guy.”

“He’s gonna break your heart,” she snapped. “A normal man is bad enough, but a celebrity?”

“Mom, please—”

“Men like that have their choice of women lining up around the block. He’ll get bored and scrape you off just like your joke of a father did with me.”

My jaw clenched and my eyes welled as I gritted out, “Camden’s a good guy.”

“Good guy or not, they always stray. Do you honestly think you can keep his attention? Trust me, Sutton, in his eyes, you’re nothin’ special. Just a way to pass the time until something better comes along.”

“Wow.” I let out a sardonic laugh while my heart splintered and cracked. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom. Glad to know you think so highly of me.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” she chided, like I was being ridiculous. “There’s no need to be so sensitive. I wasn’t sayin’ I think you aren’t special, just that he does.”

“And that’s supposed to be better?” I cried, the road in front of me blurring through the tears welling in my eyes. “Did you ever stop to think that this man actually likes me for me? That he thinks I’m great? I have a lot to offer, Mom. Just because you got hurt doesn’t mean you can pour all your insecurities and bitterness on Sabrina and me. You had one heartbreak. One. And you let it taint the rest of your life! You could’ve moved on, but you chose to let it fester until you became so hard you couldn’t even show your own daughters a hint of tenderness! Why do you think it’s been so hard for Brina and me to open up to anyone?”

“I’m not bitter,” she replied bitingly. “I just don’t want you and your sister to go through the same things I did. I was that man’s rock, standing by him and supporting everything he did, and when he finally made it, he cast me aside like I didn’t mean anything! You have no idea how hard it is to try and raise children all on your own.”

A caustic laugh burst past my lips. “Oh, don’t be so sure about that. You threw that in our faces so often growing up that I know exactly how hard you had it. And you weren’t the only one he scraped off, Mom. Or have you forgotten all the times Sabrina and I spent our birthdays sitting on the front porch, hoping and praying our father would show up? Or how I came home crying in the fourth grade because I was the only one who didn’t have a dad to attend the father/daughter pancake breakfast with? We spent our lives with that hole he left behind being the center of our universe because you wouldn’t let it go!”

My mother sniffled through the line, and I knew exactly what she was gearing up for. She was never wrong. Ever. And if her superpower was making my sister and me feel small, then her secondary gift was the guilt trip.

“Well thank you, Sutton. Glad to know I’ve been such a terrible mother all your life,” she sniped sarcastically. “It’s such a shame to know my own flesh and blood never appreciated everything I did for her, working two and three jobs just to keep a roof over her head while she pined away for a parent who never gave a shit! I’ll tell you the same thing I told Sabrina when she chose that good-for-nothin’ man to tie herself to. Don’t come crawlin’ to me when everything blows up in your face.”

And with that, she hung up, accomplishing what she always did almost every time we talked—making me feel absolutely miserable and questioning every decision I’d ever made.