“Are these my only options?”

“This is your only ultimatum.” My gaze flicked to the closed door of the bathroom. The stream of water stopped, and the glass door squeaked open. For a reason I didn’t care to explore, I didn’t want Madison listening to this clusterfuck of a conversation.

“You think I’d lie?” Amber’s emerald eyes flared. She had the audacity to put her hand to her neck and fake a dainty gasp.

“I think you’d do anything bar selling Booger Face to the circus to get what you want,” I confirmed nonchalantly.

She stood up, fists balled at her sides, no doubt about to spew something out. Another lie, probably. The bathroom door whined. We both glanced at it, Amber’s mouth still agape.

“Out,” I growled.

“But—”

“Now.”

Amber stepped toward me. Her face so close to mine I could catch the individual freckles under her three pounds of foundation. Her tits brushed my chest. They were hard and big, unnaturally enhanced. Nothing like the soft, small ones Mad had.

Don’t think about her tits Friday night when you put your sweatshirt over her body.

Oops. Too late for that.

“This isn’t over, Chase. It’ll never be over.”

My father once told me, “If you truly want to know someone, make them mad. The way they react is a telltale sign of who they are.” Amber was working extra hard on riling me up. Little did she know, my number of fucks to give was constantly on the decline and reserved for immediate family and true friends only.

“It was over before it started,” I hissed into her face, smirking tauntingly. “Before I even laid a finger on you, Amb.”

She galloped to the bedroom door and slammed it in my face, making a scene. She wanted Madison to know, to ask what had happened, to plant the seed of insecurity in her. My fake fiancée opened the bathroom door a second later in a bathrobe, rubbing a towel into her short locks. Odd timing. I eyed her suspiciously.

“Was that the door?” She tilted her head sideways, letting the towel fall to the floor. She strode to the bed, flicked open her suitcase, and—check this—began to unpack everything I’d packed for her as she sifted through her clothes. She lifted one frock at a time, examined it, then threw it over her shoulder, in search of something else to wear.

“What the hell are you doing?” The question came out in wonder more than anger. Her eccentric behavior always took me by surprise.

“Choosing an outfit,” she chirped. “What else would I be doing wrapped in a bathrobe, fresh out of the shower?”

Sucking me off.

“So?” she asked again. “Who was it? I heard you talking to someone.”

“Amber,” I grunted, my eyes tracing the outline of her body under the bathrobe hungrily. I hated that I wanted to pound her like a piece of schnitzel. (Madison, not Amber. I wouldn’t touch Amber if it brought world peace.)

“I’m guessing you two are close,” she said as she continued to look through her clothes. Her tone was neutral, matter of fact.

“You’re guessing wrong,” I bit out.

“But you have so much in common.”

“We both breathe. That’s the only thing we have in common.”

“You’re both also insufferably bitter.”

There was a beat of silence, in which I quickly reminded myself explaining to Madison how unlike Amber and I were wouldn’t matter.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” I groaned.

“For having my things sifted through by you without permission?” She turned to look at me, still all sugar and smiles. “That was extremely generous of you.”

“You know, I don’t remember you being so argumentative when you had a regular supply of vitamin D.” I tapered my eyes, hoping my semi wouldn’t blossom into a full-blown erection as we butted heads again. That part was true. Madison had done a complete one-eighty on me since I’d landed at her doorstep asking her to accompany me to the Hamptons. This new version of her was also the real person she was, and it pissed me off I’d never gotten to truly know her.

It pissed me off that she was actually funny.

And sarcastic.

And a handful, in a bizarrely attractive way.

But most of all, it pissed me off that she’d lied to me about who she was.

“I wanted to make an impression on you back then. That ship has sailed.”

“More like sank in the middle of the fucking ocean.”

“Well.” She shrugged, clutching a red-and-purple dress to her chest, choosing her outfit for the day. “You were the one to direct it into a six-ton iceberg in the middle of the ocean. Don’t you ever forget that, Chase.”

I smiled tightly and went downstairs to break something valuable in the kitchen. Breaking her, I realized, was not on the menu anymore. She was different. Stronger.

A few more hours, and I wouldn’t have to see her again.

We were in the foyer, the staff ushering our suitcases to my Tesla, when Julian made his first chess move. I’d been anticipating it all weekend, trying to figure out his game, why he was here. Not that I was complaining: Julian and Amber were train wrecks, but I was always game for spending more time with Booger Face.

I called bullshit about Julian’s six remark. Madison was a solid twelve, on her worst days. She wasn’t just wholesomely beautiful but also sexy in a way women who weren’t worried about being sexy were. What nagged him about her was that she was indifferent to the numbers in his bank account and his Armani suits. She was what he called a postfeminist. A girl with a we-can-do-it mentality who made her own path in the world. He, in contrast, had a let-the-butler-do-it mentality. Of course they were like oil and water. But if he thought I was going to flip my shit when he called her a six, he was in for a surprise. Letting him rattle me was not an option.

When I was a kid and Julian had come back from boarding school or college, we’d always played chess. Neither of us were big fans of the game, but we had this underlying competition between us. We competed over everything. From our sports accomplishments—we were both rowers for our high school and college teams—to who could stuff himself with more turkey at Thanksgiving. Despite that, Julian and I were close. Close enough that we talked on the phone regularly when he was away and hung out more than two brothers with a decade between them should when he was home. We’d play chess in the weirdest way. We’d leave the board in the drawing room and move our pieces throughout the day. It had the shine of an extra challenge, because we always had to remember what the board had looked like before we’d left it. No king, queen, bishop, or pawn went astray. We both watched our game with hawklike eyes.