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The next lie slides out easily. “It’s Allison, but Darla is an old nickname.” I wander over to one of the plush armchairs facing Savannah’s desk and sit down. “She likes to be called Quinn, her middle name.”

“Why Darla?” Savannah inquires. Innocently, I think.

I anticipated this question. “I don’t know. She told me once. Something about… darling? It sounds like Darla, maybe? I wasn’t paying attention.”

Savannah laughs under her breath. “Sounds like you.”

I am a proficient liar. It’s not something I’m proud of, it’s just a fact.

And my family is proficient at butting into my personal life, wherever they can. It doesn’t surprise me that they’ve already done their research on “Darla.” After hearing that she works at Velvet, Savannah probably had her head of security, Peter, lookinto her immediately, pull her employee file and her background check.

It’s what we do. None of us trust outsiders easily. Which is why I no longer introduce my siblings to any women I might get involved with.

Just look at the disaster when they found out—before I did—that Chelsea was cheating on me. My family didn’t stop gossiping about it until long after the relationship ended.

It’s like they truly believe my love life is somehow their business.

“What’s going on with you?” Savi scrutinizes me. “You’re especially twitchy today. As you were at dinner.”

I stop picking at the bracelet in my pocket. “So?” I say flatly.

She frowns.

Twitchy is one way to put it.

It started creeping in after the dinner, when I stayed up way too late going over and over the events of the evening. What Quinn did, said, wore, how she ate, the way she laughed. Was she a convincing Darla?

It only really hit me Monday morning when I found myself unable to concentrate on work that it was starting.

Or maybe it started when she walked into my office with a cake.

Or when she served me drinks at Velvet.

Or when I saw those photos of her sucking face with her boss outside his apartment.

Or when Manus first gave me her name, and I pulled her employee file.

I don’t even know.

But I’ve been down this road before. Never over a woman, exactly. It’s not about her anyway. It’s about the lie she told for me, and my fear that the truth will be discovered. I think.

All I know for sure is that poring over information about her, looking at pictures of her, and even thinking about her is triggering the “reward pathways” in my brain, and—if I keep doing it—will become habit forming. Therefore, thinking about her will lead to obsessing about her, and obsessing about her equals literally overthinking about her.

It’s a cycle for whichviciousis not an adequate descriptor.

I’ve always thought of my obsessive disorder like a flesh-eating disease for the mind. If I’m not careful, I’ll be losing more sleep to it, losing my appetite, losing countless hours of my life as it spreads, killing my ability to focus on anything else.

“So, Darla… Quinn… was rather impressive at dinner,” my sister prompts, still studying me. Like she’s waiting for me to go on. But what more is there to say? I’ve never felt the need to fill the silence in a room. And she was the one who wanted to talk to me, right?

“That cake she made was divine,” she goes on. “I’d order some for the gala if the whole situation weren’t so… problematic…”

Again, she seems to be waiting for me to pick that up where she left off.

I don’t.

“She’s very pretty. Well-spoken. Vivacious. And she handled our questions without breaking much of a sweat. She was… effervescent.”

Agreed. She was far too bubbly for my liking.