“Oh, God,” I choked on the lump that had formed in my throat. The vision of the two of them standing locked in an embrace blurred from the tears forming in my eyes.

“Navie,” Rowan gasped, quickly untangling himself from the brunette standing before him. In a blink, he was moving. “Oh, shit, Navie. It’s not—”

“No!” I shouted, taking a huge step back. “Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me.”

“Rowan,” the woman, who looked like she’d just stepped off a runway, spoke from behind him. “Honey, who’s this?”

At the sound of her calling him ‘honey’, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he spit out, his hands raking over his face before he turned to look over his shoulder. “Not now, Bree. Just—”

I took another step back. “Bree?” I wheezed as my lungs deflated. “Oh, God. This is Bree?”

I watched as his icy blue eyes widened as what he just said registered. “No! No, no, no, no. Baby, don’t think that…”

And with that, I shattered completely. “You were just fucking kissing Bree!” I shouted so loud my throat hurt.

“Navie, just listen to me!”

“Fuck you!” I yelled. My world turned upside-down. I had given my heart to this man completely and he’d just ruined me. A devastation like no other wound its way through my chest, squeezing my heart and choking out every bit of free space. Those familiar memories from my childhood filled my head so completely, they were all I could think about.

No one would ever want me. I’d never have a family because I wasn’t worthy of anyone’s love. One person after another cast me out without a care in the world because I was just a sad, lonely little girl. I was so pathetic, my own mother didn’t even want to keep me.

I would never, ever be good enough.

Rowan’s arms pulling me against his body jerked me back into the present. “Navie, please.”

“Let go of me,” I spoke in a low, heartbroken voice.

“No,” he insisted stubbornly.

“Rowan.” The sound of Bree’s voice pulled me from my anguished haze. Yanking myself from his hold, I stumbled backwards, tripping over my own feet and nearly falling to the ground.

He came forward quickly, trying to steady me with his hands, but I slapped them away before he could touch me again. “I hate you,” I said through gritted teeth, speaking the three words I’d never said to anyone before.

The way his face crumbled in agony would have killed me, had I not already been bleeding out.

“Rowan!” Bree said again, her grating voice demanding attention.

“Fucking hell!” Rowan shouted. “Just get the fuck out, Bree! Get out!”

Her spine went stiff and her chin lifted into the air. “We have things to discuss.” She responded so calmly that I couldn’t help it. Something inside of me had snapped and I began laughing, the sound manic to my own ears.

“Oh, please, don’t let me keep you, then. I was just leaving.”

Spinning on my heels, I rushed for the front door as tears spilled down my cheeks.

“You’re not fucking leaving!” Rowan snapped. I could hear his steps coming up behind me, but then there was a slip and a loud crash, followed by a booming, “God damn it!”

Just as I cleared the threshold, I looked over my shoulder to see Rowan trying to climb off the floor, having slipped and fallen in the spilled coffee I’d dropped just minutes earlier. It granted me the short reprieve I needed to run to the elevator before he could catch up.

I’d just cleared the landing of the building when a voice called out from behind me. “Navie?” I spun around to see Richard exactly where I’d left him what felt like a lifetime ago. “Shit. Are you okay? What happened?”

That hysterical laughter started again of its own accord. “What is with you two, huh?”

Confusion etched into his features. “What are you talking about?”

I didn’t stop to answer him. I was on a roll. “I mean, seriously! Does she have a golden vagina or something? I’ve never heard of two grown men destroying their family over one woman the way the two of you have! The fact that y’all have such a disregard for your own blood disgusts me. Do you have any idea what some people would give to have a family? A brother? And you just ripped it apart. Over a fucking woman!”

“Are you talking about Bree?”

I felt an overwhelming sense of anger at the sound of her name. “Yes! She’s up there right now. Hurry along before she sinks her claws into your brother again. Wouldn’t want to be the loser this time around, would you?” I asked callously, not caring in the slightest that I sounded like a raging bitch.

He looked from me, to the building, and back again, the indecision written all over his face. But I was done. Without so much as a backwards glace, I walked away. Trying my best to hold on to what very little pride I had left.

I needed to get home. I needed to call Lauren and request a new job and an indefinite amount of time off. I prayed she understood because what I needed the most at that very moment was over a thousand miles away in Texas.

I needed my family.

Her face.

God. All I could see was her ravaged expression as tears ran down her cheeks. I’d never seen such heartbreak in another person’s eyes before. I couldn’t understand the severity of her reaction. If she would have just let me explain, if she would have just listened to me, I could have taken that look away. Why wouldn’t she just hear me out?

My knuckles stung from where I’d just put them through the sheetrock in the wall next to the elevator doors. She'd gotten away. I needed to go after her. But first, I needed to get that goddamned succubus out of my apartment and my life.

“Fuck!”

Storming back into my apartment, I found Bree standing in the entryway, arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked, a put-out expression on her painted-on face. Pointing at her as I rushed to my bedroom to find a t-shirt, I hissed through gritted teeth, “Get the fuck out.”

“Rowan, we need to talk,” she insisted, following after me.

That was exactly what she had said when she showed up at my front door. And because I was the world’s biggest goddamned idiot, I’d let her in, thinking I could finally get the closure I ignorantly believed I’d needed.

“There’s nothing to talk about! You’re the fucking devil, you know that?”

I lost sight of her when I pulled my shirt over my head. It was just long enough for her to move in closer. “Baby, please. I know you felt the same thing I did when you kissed me.”

She reached for me, placing her hands on my chest, and I cringed away from her touch. “I didn’t kiss you!” I shouted. “You kissed me and I can assure you, I didn’t feel a goddamned thing. You need to leave now, before I do something I regret. Do not make me repeat myself.” Shoving past her, I started for the front door, coming to a screeching halt when I caught sight of yet another nightmare. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted skyward, desperate to know what I’d done to God to piss him off so badly. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

Richard’s hands were held up, palms out. “Row, just give me two minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I don’t have two minutes! I need to get to Navie. Christ!”

“Richard?” I spun around to find Bree standing behind me, staring at my brother with a soft, dreamy expression on her face. “What are you doing here?”

Richard had always been the calmer, soft-spoken twin. When we were growing up, I was the one who acted before thinking. Richard was the one who always tried to do the right thing. And whenever I came up with some harebrained idea that would have either landed me in jail or the hospital, he was the one who had my back, either saving me beforehand or rescuing me after the fact. That was probably one of the reasons his betrayal crushed me as badly as it did. So seeing him standing there, looking like he was just seconds away from going Hulk in the middle of my apartment was unexpected, to say the least. And what he had to say was even more shocking.