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“Alex!”

“Anyone?”

“Why isn’t anyone answering the door?”

The doorbell rings again.

Frustrated, I wipe my tears and decide to answer it. I storm over to the door and yank it open. Ryan is standing on the other side.

“What is this place?” he asks.

My stomach drops, and I can’t breathe. How can things get even worse?

“Why are you here?” I ask, unable to answer.

“I got a text saying to come to this address. That you would be here. Who lives here?”

“I do,” Alex says as he steps into the foyer.

Ryan looks at Alex and then back at me. His face contorts as he becomes enraged.

“No! It’s not what you think,” I say.

“Of all people!” Ryan says as he points at Alex. Then he turns to me. “How do you know my brother?”

“Your brother?!” I say, turning to look at Alex. “But how?”

Ryan storms out the door and towards his car. In the distance my mother sits with her feet dangling on a limestone gate. A satisfied smile spreads across her face.

Ryan takes one look at her, then at Alex, then turns to me.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but I know how I feel about you. I know who you are, and you should know who I am. I haven’t been honest with you, and I intend to make up for that,” he says. “But everything I’ve ever said about you and how I feel for you is true. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I say.

He holds his hand out to me.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says.

I take his hand, and as I get into the car, I notice Alex standing in the doorway. His feet are cemented in place, and his hands are deep in his pockets.

Guilt consumes me for how I’ve hurt not just Ryan but Alex, too. I can feel it eating away at me, devouring me as thoughts swirl in my head. Maybe my mother was right. Maybe I don’t have a choice but to be exactly like her.

My mother knocks on the car window, talking, but I can’t focus on her. I won’t. My eyes are glued to Alex’s. Not only can I feel his pain, but I’m still aching from my own.

As Ryan begins to drive, Alex mouths the three words he’s said to me before, the ones Ryan had such a hard time saying, and I gasp as the weight of reality shoots through my chest.

I broke the wrong man’s heart.

CHAPTER 23

Carina

ONE MONTH UNTIL RYAN’S BIRTHDAY

As Ryan drives away from Alex’s home, I wrap my arms around myself and sink down into the plush seat of his car. I shift in my seat to face Ryan, pressing my cheek against the soft, buttery leather when it hits me—this isn’t the car of a plumber.

He’s been lying to me.

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