“I’m here to keep my brother from making the same mistake I did and ruining his fucking life.”

Bree looked like someone had just slapped her.

“Richard,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes. In the past, just the sight of those tears would have slayed me, but as I stood watching her just then I realized something. I didn’t care. Bree hurting, clearly in pain, had no effect on me whatsoever. It was as though I was standing in front of a stranger, disengaged as I watched the scene unfold. It was nothing like the gut-wrenching pain I felt when I’d seen Navie so heartbroken.

My gaze bounced back and forth between the two of them in confusion. “What the hell’s going on here?”

Richard’s glare was full of hate as he focused on the woman behind me. “Do you want to tell him, lovely wife, or should I?” he asked caustically.

“Tell me what?”

“Rich,” she choked on a sob, her voice desperate and pleading.

“Bree and I dated briefly while I was in law school. It wasn’t serious—hell, I never even brought her home to meet you guys. I was young and ambitious, and didn’t want to be tied down. It was just sex, at least for me.”

“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, squeezing my eyes closed and pinching the bridge of my nose. I had the distinct impression that shit was about to get a thousand times more complicated than it already was.

“I was focused on finishing law school and starting my career. I wasn’t even thinking about a wife and kids. I broke it off with her when I realized she wanted more but for the next couple of years, I was stupid enough to hook up with her occasionally.”

“Can someone please explain what the fuck that has to do with me?” I cursed, looking from Richard to Bree, who’d suddenly gone an unhealthy shade of white.

“Well, brother, as it turns out, Bree here deserves a gold medal in being a manipulative bitch. I had no fucking clue you two were together when we were hooking up. She never once told me she was seeing my twin brother,” he spit at her, his voice laced with disgust. “If I had known that, I wouldn’t have touched her.”

“You loved me!” Bree shouted through her tears. “I know you did!”

Richard pushed on like he hadn’t even heard her. “You can imagine my fucking shock when she came to me one day saying she was pregnant and the baby was mine.” All of a sudden, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. There wasn’t enough oxygen and I couldn’t take a proper breath as he continued his story. “It wasn’t what I wanted, but I couldn’t just ignore the fact that I was having a kid. That wasn’t me, I always—”

“Did the right thing,” I finished for him, unconsciously knowing exactly what he was planning on saying. “Fuck, Richard. You always had to be such a goddamned boy scout.”

His smile was small and pained as those identical eyes matched my own. “If I was going to be a father, I was going to do right by her and my baby.”

“So, you married her.”

“So, I married her,” he repeated. “It wasn’t an ideal situation, and I wasn’t happy, but I tried my best to make it work. I tried to be a good husband. For five years of my life, I did my best. I suffered the loss of my brother, not understanding why the one person I was closest to my entire life suddenly hated me so goddamned much he refused to even speak to me. Five miserable years, trapped in a hell where every word out of your mouth was a fucking lie! There was never any baby.”

Everything was moving too fast, my world was spinning out of control. I couldn’t keep up. In the span of a few short minutes, everything I’d believed to be the truth for the past five years was deteriorating around me. “What?”

“Yeah.” He laughed humorlessly. “I heard her on the phone one night with one of her bitch girlfriends. When I confronted her, I finally got the whole twisted, fucked up truth from her. She knew I had a brother. She knew I was always too careful to get her pregnant. She saw an opportunity to trap me and managed to destroy both of us in the process. If she got pregnant by my twin, no one would ever question whether or not the baby was mine.” He looked back at Bree, his eyes cold and callous. “Isn’t that right, Bree? At least that’s what I overheard you admitting to on the phone.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I spoke quietly before rage finally took over, then I boomed, “Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?”

“Believe me,” Richard continued, “I wish it was.”

“I only did it because I love you!” Bree shouted, her whole body shaking and unnaturally pale.

There was no sting, no ache in my chest at her declaration of love for my brother. And it was at that very moment that realization came crashing down on me. I never really loved this woman. I’d been young and stupid. I was in love with the idea of being in love. It was never about her. What I felt for Navie completely eclipsed the memory of what I once thought I felt for Bree. I was completely, madly in love with her. What I had with her was something I had never experienced before. And I currently had two people standing in my apartment blocking my path to the woman I needed to get to more than I needed my next breath.

I was officially done.

Turning back to face the woman I once thought was everything to me, I felt nothing but hatred. “You’re a twisted fucking bitch,” I spit. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life, but if you don’t get the fuck out of my apartment in two seconds, I’ll be tempted to reconsider my stance on that.” Fear blanketed her face as she took a step away from me. “And you better pray I never see your face again, or so help me God, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born.”

Richard didn’t so much as spare her a glance as she stormed by him and out the door, his eyes trained firmly on me the entire time. I didn’t know what to say. My brain was muddled and weighed down by everything I’d just heard. I couldn’t gain a firm grasp on anything. “There’s a lot we need to discuss, Row.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I know, I just… I don’t have a clue where to start.”

“Well, first, I’m thinking you need to go find your girl and work shit out, yeah? Everything we have to say to each other will keep until then.”

Guilt and regret seeped into my bones as I stared into my brother’s face. Awareness of just how much I missed him enveloped me, leaving me chilled to the very core. I’d lost five years with the person I’d always been the closest to, all because I had been too prideful and stubborn.

As if sensing where my head was, Richard stepped forward and put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re my brother, Row. Nothing ever has or ever will change that. Go make it right with Navie. Then we’ll work on our shit. Go.”

Pulling him in to me, I held on tightly, slapping his back in a firm hug before stepping back and rushing out the door. He was right; what we had to discuss would keep. I needed to deal with getting Navie back now. Then I could work on repairing my relationship with my brother.

I hadn’t slept for shit. The image of Navie crying was pinned to the backs of my eyelids every time I closed my eyes. I called her phone too many times to count. I showed up at her apartment and sat outside her door before being removed by security with the threat of the cops being called. Normally, that wouldn’t have scared me, but running the risk of being locked up would have put a major snag in my plan to get Navie to talk to me. So begrudgingly, I left. But not before yelling through the door that I wasn’t giving up.

I texted, I called, I left voicemail after voicemail. All of which had gone unanswered. Rolling over onto my back, I scrubbed my hands along my face, trying to wipe away the dregs of exhaustion, which were clinging to me. Sunlight poured through my bedroom windows, painting everything in a beautiful golden glow that was a complete contradiction to my dark, gray mood. The clock on my bedside table glowed red, the numbers telling me it was just after seven in the morning. Would she come in to work today? Would she call in and attempt to avoid me? The only relief I felt was knowing that she’d eventually have to turn up in order to do her job.