Then I shake my head. No. I remember thinking the next morning that I didn’t even feel sore down there. I thought that meant I must have wanted it and that Z must have been telling the truth when he said I climbed on top of him.
Because I never considered the alternative.
It never even entered mymindthat Z could be lying about the entire fucking thing. That he might beusingthe fact that I trusted him so implicitly against me?—
I’m going to kill that fucking bastard!
“Harp? Your face keeps changing expressions every three seconds. Seriously, what is going on?”
“What?” I blink over at him.
And that’s when it hits me. If Z was lying to me theentire time?—
I never betrayed Caleb.
It was onlyafterZ tricked me into thinking the baby was his that I slept with him. Which is really fucked up, and I’m going to have toseriouslywork through that… another time. Because I’ve lost too much already.
Caleb got destiny-swapped by a truly sick motherfucker who stole what was supposed to beour future?—
“Harp,” Caleb asks, “What is it? You’re starting to scare me.”
I open my mouth. There’s so much to explain. My son isour son. Holy shit. Caleb has an entirechildhe doesn’t even know about.
There’s so much to take back.
Canwe?
I barely know anything about Caleb’s life now. I’ve gotten the smallest sliver of a picture today.
No wonder Z tried to keep me away from Dallas all this time. He knew all it would take was one single conversation, and his house of lies would come crumbling down. Oh God, it’s been so fragile this whole time, but still, enough to build my entirelifeon a lie.
Because even back then, Z saw that the love between Caleb and me was the lasting kind. So he took what he wanted the only way he could—by stealing it.
Caleb stomps toward me and snatches my hand the next time I spin to pace across the room, and his touch lights up every nerve ending I have.
For the first time in ten years, I feel fucking alive again.
And I know only one thing for certain.
I’mdonewasting time.
I’mdoneletting anyone or anything steal what should have rightfully been ours all along.
It’s as if my body has a mind of its own when my hands lift to grab Caleb’s chiseled face to force him to look into my eyes.
And then I whisper the only three words that have ever mattered between us.
“I love you, Caleb. I never stopped loving you.”
THIRTEEN
CALEB
She’s kissing me.
Harper Tucker is kissing me.
The second our lips connect, everything about my world that has been so upside down since she walked out of my life ten years ago turns right-side up again.