Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
But this was nothing like that.
“Well, since I’ve met you, nothing feels real,” he told me, his voice low.
“Tennessee wasn’t supposed to be my life. Being with my ex-girlfriend’s brother isn’t supposed to be my life.”
“Being with?” Max balked. “You’re not with me at all. You act above me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It’s the only thing that’s true,” he said, the hurt so evident in his eyes. “I don’t know how you even had the fucking balls to do that. Flirting with me, days after breaking up with my sister.”
“It wasn’t days,” I said.
The words hung in the air, suspended in time.
Max furrowed his brow, cocking his head to one side.
The moonlight from outside came in at an angle, painting his face in grey-blue.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
No.
Not this secret.
This was the one he was never supposed to know.
The one that isn’t mine to tell.
My heart felt like it had too much blood to pump.
“It wasn’t days after I broke up with Lily, when I flirted with you. You were never meant to know. Lily and I… we were never what you think we were.”
Max’s eyes scanned my face.
Trying to decipher the secret. The one I swore I’d never tell him—but here I was, doing so many things I swore I’d never do, just for Max.
“Why the fuck was she with you?” Max asked, his voice a broken whisper.
Something lodged in my throat. Pressure flared in my temples.
I watched myself let out the truth, like a door that would never be closed again.
“My father paid Lily to be with me,” I said.
I could feel tears stinging at the back of my eyes, but I knew they’d never fall. I’d never let them out.
I’d vowed, long ago, to never let my father get to me.
Not like this.
“No,” Max whispered.
“Is that enough of an explanation for you? I haven’t told another soul. Lily doesn’t even know that I know.”
He frowned. “How is that possible?”
“Lily won’t ever know that I know.”
I turned toward the tall windows at the edge of the bedroom, looking out over the mountains and the field below. Under the moonlight, everything was in shades of black, white, and cool blue. The petals on the rose bushes below looked black.
“Remember when I told you that I found my dad’s burner phone, that one night? Found out about all the women he’s been having affairs with?”
“Yes.”
“There was one other thing I discovered. It was messages with Lily.”
“Don’t tell me my sister was involved with your father—”
“Romantically, sexually? Fuck no. Lily would never. She is a sweet girl, even if…”
“Christ.”
I shook my head. “She only needed money. It’s as simple as that. I saw messages between them where my dad would let her know the payment went through. They had screenshots attached sometimes. And… my father was paying Lily half a million dollars a year to be with me.”
“No fucking way,” Max breathed.
“Five hundred thousand a year to keep me interested. To keep me in a committed, heterosexual relationship.”
I turned to see him shaking his head. “Lily wouldn’t do that. She would never get involved with someone just for money.”
“You’re right. Initially, it was real. For the first couple of months, it was a genuine interest. She met me, dated me, and quickly started to learn why I was… not boyfriend material. I scrolled all the way to the beginning of my father’s messages with her. He came to her when he got the sense she might be about to leave me.”
“Fuck.”
“She was ready to move on. He made a deal too sweet for her to do that. It wasn’t that Lily never liked me. She liked me, and she was interested in me. It was just that she realized she could never love me.”
“She wouldn’t—”
“She would,” I said firmly. “Just another person whose life rules get bent, get fucked up, by being anywhere close to my orbit.”
Max found the edge of my bed and sat down there. He looked at a faraway spot on the floor for a while, processing the information just like I’d needed to, long ago.
“But she’s just like me.”
“In a lot of ways, yes. Being with Lily always felt too good to be true. Hearing someone tell me they loved me, even after seeing the way I lived. I always knew I didn’t deserve love, but there was Lily, giving it freely. Accepting me, even after nights where I didn’t sleep, and I came upstairs with bloody knuckles. Only makes sense why she said she never cared if I slept with other people—in fact, she encouraged it—”
“Fuck this. No.”
My insides felt hollow.
“The moment we got to Tennessee, he cut her off, and she broke things off with me politely.”
“I can’t handle this. I need to call her.”
“Don’t. Lily deserves to let the dust settle on her own.”