meeting gone sideways.
I really needed to work on my trust issues.
“Did you know she listed you as her celebrity yes?” I said with a chuckle, rolling my eyes at what a fool I’d been to worry so much. “The one person she’d quit her job for a chance to…uhh…date? I gave her even more credit for not freaking the fuck out when she met you after I learned that.”
“No, shit? That’s hilarious. I wish I’d known. I’d have teased her mercilessly when we met up the other day.”
Hold up.
Excuse me.
The other day?
The other fucking day?
As far as I knew, Kennedy hadn’t seen Collin since the night I introduced them. I said nothing, waiting for Collin to correct himself. Or at least clarify.
My silence was an iceberg Collin didn’t see until he ran right into it, clarifying the fuck out of everything.
“She’s so funny,” he gushed. “She had me in stitches the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, I can see how you two clashed at first, but she’s something special, that girl.”
“I wasn’t aware you two were that well acquainted.”
Even to me, my voice was hard to recognize. It grated past a tight throat and a clenched jaw.
“Oh, we’re not. Not at all. You know…” Collin hurried on with some bullshit excuses that reminded me he was a shitty liar, too.
And apparently a shitty brother, hanging out with my special girl behind my back. I didn’t know what to say, but the more he tried to backtrack, then just sidestep away from the conversation, the more I knew he was covering something up.
Just like I knew Kennedy was covering something up last night.
Apparently my trust issues were well-founded.
Somehow, I ended the call without going ballistic, then paced the room as if I could outrun the truth. Common sense tried to take a stand and I did my best to listen. I wanted it to prevail. No…I needed it to prevail.
Collin would never do something like this to me…or Harlow. I’d put my life on hold for his. I’d spent decades protecting him. He’d told me time and again that I was the only reason he was alive. Surely, surely he wouldn’t return those favors by messing around with the first woman to catch my attention.
There had to be something else going on here.
For every good point I made for reason, I found one hell of a counterpoint for chaos.
Collin was the only person in my life who hadn’t betrayed me. Generally, I counted that as a good thing, though perhaps I’d been a bigger asshole than I thought to believe he was above it. Maybe it just hadn’t been his turn yet.
And while I was really digging in and being honest, this was just the peachiest time to remember Kennedy had done a lot more than catch my attention.
She dominated it.
All I thought about was her. How to make her happy. How to meet her needs. How to keep her safe. How she fucking looked in bed, with her hair spread out over my pillows.
She’d become my focus, the same way Collin used to be. How stupid was I to let that happen? I was supposed to start living my life for me. I’d been living it for her…while she pretended to like me to get to my brother.
That’s not true, whispered a voice deep in my heart. She agreed to date you before she knew he was your brother.
“But just barely,” I said to the walls. “Just fucking barely.”
We weren’t even sure we liked each other the night I took her to meet him. What if…what if…she’d only pretended to care about me because I paraded her in front of her favorite musician?
My phone buzzed from the night table. Except that wasn’t right because I’d just shoved it in my pocket after talking to Collin. Confused, I stalked toward the sound and found Kennedy’s phone. My first thought was that I should rush it up to her because she was sure to be having a bad day without it.
But that thought disintegrated when I picked up the device and saw the text she just received.
CollinFreakingWest: Close call with Joe. I might have blown our cover. Probably nothing to worry about, but thought you should know, just in case. See ya soon!
It felt like my insides detonated. My stomach imploded and my heart was a black hole. My mind caught fire, sending smoke and ash whooshing through my system. Electricity vibrated just under my skin as adrenaline hummed through my