Chapter 36
ELIZA
Ididn’t remember leaving the building. One second, I was standing in the doorway, my entire world rearranging itself in the span of a single breath, and the next, I was outside.
You’re pretending to be me and sleeping with my fiancée.
My head was spinning so violently, I couldn’t land on a single thought long enough to make sense of it. Will. Jesse. Will is Jesse. No, Jesse is Will.
I stopped abruptly on the pavement, pressing a hand to my forehead like I might physically be able to hold my thoughts still enough to grab hold of one, but it didn’t work. Footsteps sounded behind me long before I’d even begun to process what I’d just heard.
“Eliza!”
Spinning on my heels, I found myself looking into Jesse—no, Will’s—blue eyes, and suddenly, all the pieces of the puzzle snapped together in my head. How Jesse had seemed so much more like the Will I’d met back then that it was almost like they’d had their personalities transplanted.
“Don’t,” I said, holding his gaze. My voice was wobbly but sharper than ever. “Don’t come any closer.”
He slammed to a stop abruptly, like he actually cared about the line I’d drawn, just looking back at me with a tormented twist on his lips. “Just wait, Eliza. Please. Let me explain.”
“Explain?” I let out a disbelieving laugh. “Explain what, exactly? That you’ve been lying to me? That you’ve been playing me for a fool all this time? Because there’s no need to explain any of that. I already know.”
“Eliza—”
“Which one are you?” I demanded suddenly, my voice rising now as my self-control slipped a few notches. “Well, which one?”
Apparently, that was a question I should’ve been asking during every interaction we’d had since the beginning.
That sharp jawline I’d run my fingers across just last night tightened into a firm line. His eyes never left mine. “I’m Will.”
“What about Jesse?” I asked. “You’re sure you’re not him?”
“I’m sure. Jesse is upstairs. I can get him if you’d like. You’ll be able to tell the difference when we’re together.”
“Oh, I think I can tell it now. Jesse, the one I’m meant to be marrying, is the one you said was just a strange guy after I mentioned how uncomfortable he seemed at the engagement party.”
I let out a small, broken laugh. Of course that was exactly how this would go, wasn’t it? The man I thought I’d been falling for wasn’t even the man I was marrying and the one I’d dismissed without a second thought was going to be become my husband.
My stomach twisted. “This has been going on since the beginning, hasn’t it? You’ve been pretending to be him ever since we got here.”
Looking at me like he was quietly begging me to understand, he nodded. “Yes, it has. I have.”
My heart shattered in response. I took a step back without meaning to, then another. It felt like my insides were being torn apart and like my whole world had just been flipped upside down.
“Eliza, just listen to me,” he said, taking a careful step forward. “I didn’t plan for it to—”
“No,” I snapped. “You don’t get to explain this away like it just happened.”
“It didn’t, but it’s not what you think either,” he said, frustration creeping into his voice.
“What I think is that I’ve been in a relationship with someone who doesn’t exist.” My voice was shaking now. “I think that I was taken for a fool, strung along in some rich man’s game like I was nothing more than a pawn.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I shot back. “The man I thought I knew isn’t real, and right now, I certainly feel like a fool for believing he was. You didn’t tell me the truth and you have been stringing me along.”
“I am real,” he said, a little more forceful now. “You’re not a fool. You and me, what we have, is real.”
“It was all a lie.”
He shook his head over and over again. “None of it was a lie, Eliza. Only the name. That’s it. The rest of it was all me.”
“I don’t even know you,” I whispered. “How do you expect me to believe a single word out of your mouth right now?”
Hurt flickered across his features, and unless I was very much mistaken, at least that was real. But I’d learned now that the man was a damn good actor, which meant I couldn’t trust a thing about him.
“You do know me, Eliza. You know me better than anyone.”
“No,” I said immediately. “I don’t. I know who you pretended to be, but the version of Jesse I’ve been getting to know doesn’t exist and he was never Will, so…”
“Eliza—”
“Stop saying my name like that’s going to change anything,” I snapped, my voice breaking. “You don’t get to pretend like I’m overreacting or being dramatic. Do you have any idea how much you’ve hurt me?”
As I turned to leave, desperately needing to get away from him, I suddenly realized I had nowhere to go.
I didn’t know this city from a bar of soap.
I didn’t know anyone here who didn’t share his last name.
I’d taken this gigantic leap of faith, putting my trust in a man and flying across an ocean with him and now…
“I don’t know where to go,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them. “I don’t know anyone here. I’m all alone and it’s because of you.”
“You’re not alone,” he said immediately, taking another cautious step forward. “You’ve got me.”
“I don’t know who you are!” I yelled, my arms flying out to my sides. I stared at the face of the man I’d fallen in love with, knowing it wasn’t him, and it was the most disorienting thing I’d ever experienced.
Because while I knew that face so well, knew when it was happy, sad, distracted, or—God help me—turned on, I didn’t know the man underneath at all.
A car pulled up at the curb beside us, but I barely registered it until the door opened and a familiar woman climbed out. Kate frowned when she saw me. “Eliza, are you okay? What’s going on?”
Relief hit so hard and so unexpectedly that it almost knocked the breath out of me. She might be a Westwood now, but she hadn’t been one for long. Surely, she could at least help me find a hotel and get a flight out of here.
Nate appeared out of the car and went to stand beside her, his gaze moving quickly between us, sharp and assessing. It didn’t take him long to piece it together.
“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath. “This is bad.”
Will stepped forward. “I can explain.”
“Not to me,” Nate cut in, already moving toward him. “You need to take a step back.”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” Nate said, his tone leaving very little room, if any, for argument. “Now.”
Kate stepped up to my side, her hand warm on my arm and concern that seemed genuine enough shimmering in her hazel eyes. “Hey, come on. Come with me.”
I didn’t argue when she opened the back door of the town car and guided me inside. She helped me into the soft back seat before she shut the door behind me, effectively shielding me from him. I didn’t even realize I’d been shaking until I tried to unclench my hands and couldn’t.
They stayed curled in my lap, my fingers so tightly held together that it felt like if I opened them, I might come apart completely.
Through the window, I could see Kate, Nate, and Jesse—Will—on the sidewalk, but it was like I was watching someone else’s life unfold for how distant they suddenly felt.
All three of them were talking, perhaps bickering back and forth, while I sat here, suspended in something that didn’t quite feel like real life. Will’s hands were moving, his shoulders were set like he, too, was holding himself together through sheer force.
“Where do you think you’re taking her?” he demanded then, so loud and firm that I could hear him through the window.
Kate didn’t flinch, her arms crossed as she planted herself firmly between him and car. “That’s none of your business.”
“It is my business,” he retorted, taking another step forward. “She is my business, Kate. Stay out of it.”
“No,” she said, just as quickly and just as firmly. “You’ve lost that right. In fact, I’m not convinced you ever even had it.”
Will’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His head started shaking just as Nate stepped in with his hands up, turning toward each of them. “Okay, everyone just relax. We need to take this inside. You’re causing a scene on the sidewalk outside of HQ. If anyone snaps a—”
“I don’t care,” Will said, his voice laced with aggravation.
“Yeah, well, the rest of us do,” Nate replied dryly. “Let’s maybe not make this worse than it already is.”
Worse. I let out a quiet, hollow breath. I wasn’t sure that was possible.
The driver shifted in the front seat, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Ma’am, would you like a bottle of water?”
I blinked hard, the question taking a second too long to register. Water. Right. Normal things.
“No.” I shook my head. “Thank you.”
My voice sounded distant all of a sudden, like it belonged to someone else entirely. Meanwhile, the argument continued outside, filtering in as faintly as if it was happening in some other realm.
“I just want to talk to her,” Will was saying, his voice lower but no less intense. “That’s all. I just need to explain.”
“And I’m telling you that’s not happening right now,” Kate replied. “Look at her, Will. She needs time and space to process all this.”
“Eliza,” he tried again, his gaze flicking to the car.
I froze. Even though he couldn’t see me properly through the tinted glass, it felt like he could. Like he knew exactly where I was. But the first thing I felt wasn’t anger or indignation.
It was recognition. A draw I’d never felt to anyone else and that I hadn’t thought I would ever feel again. I swallowed hard, forcing my gaze to my lap.
I can’t think about him like that. Not anymore.
Nate sighed and dragged a hand along his jaw. “Will, man, give her a second to breathe.”
“I will. I’m just not letting her disappear.”
“She’s not disappearing,” Kate cut in. “She’s leaving. It’s what she needs right now, Will.”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked after a brief pause, his voice rougher and less controlled now. “Just let her walk away?”
Kate didn’t soften, nodding firmly as she held his gaze. “Yes. That’s exactly what I want you to do.”
The confirmation seemed to hit him where it hurt. I saw it in the way he reacted, his shoulders dropping and the expression on his face suddenly falling, like he’d been defeated.
My chest ached at seeing him like that, everything in me longing to climb out of the car and pull him into my arms. Assure him that somehow, we’d work all this out. But I didn’t move a muscle.
Kate slid into the seat beside me a few seconds later, pulling the door shut behind her with a quiet finality. She glanced at the driver. “Go.”
“Where to, ma’am?”
“My condo.”
The car started moving and I lifted my gaze to the window before I could stop myself, catching one last glimpse of him standing on the pavement, watching the car like he could stop it if he just tried hard enough.
Bloody hell, he looks as broken as a I feel, but that can’t be right. He’d lied to me. He’d lured me to a different continent under false pretenses. He’d taken me to his bed—
I tore my gaze away, pressing my lips together as the city blurred past outside. How could he do this to me?
The question looped over and over in my mind, with no answer that made sense. Somehow, the worst part wasn’t even that he’d lied. It was that somewhere inside that lie, there had been feelings that were real and I had absolutely no idea what to do with that.