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Omar Solomon has been the biggest surprise of my life. I didn’t know it was possible to love someone so much. To have complete faith in their word. To hate falling asleep without them beside me.

I have to trust that he loves me enough to forgive me. He may not forgive me, but at least he’ll know everything. I can stop pretending that what I’ve been doing is something more noble than lying. And if this spells the end for us, I’ll find a way to make peace with it. But my heart will be broken forever without him.

I shake off that voice in my head. I know beyond the shadow of all doubt that he cares about me. And what he cares about, he’ll never abandon.

Hehasto forgive me. I can’t even contemplate anything else.

I sit next to him silently while he reads my history and pray like hell I’m right.

CHAPTER 26

SHATTERED

Omar

I flipthrough the newspaper clippings slowly. I read every word, some of them more than once and inspect every photograph closely. As Jules sits quietly next to me in the warm kitchen, I’m colder than I’ve ever been. This is death by a dozen heartbreaks. Everything I know about her past is a lie.

The girl in the photos is her—a younger version but her. Her real name, Crown Jewel Hayford, is as absurd as the myth of lies she’s told me since the first day we met. The only thing that was true is that her father died when she was thirteen.

She left out the part where she was convicted of his murder after being seen on CCTV buying the gasoline that soaked her father’s workshop and the flat above it where they lived. There were witnesses who testified to hearing them argue, hearing her scream that she wished he was dead. And despite her insistence that there had been someone else in the shop that night, neither forensics nor witness statements confirmed it. She shocked everyone on her first day of trial by pleading guilty.

I can’t bring myself to look at her.

I’m afraid to. This can’t be real.

I want to be dreaming and wake up to find that I was hit by a truck on my way to her house that night. That Conrad never came here and she was just Jules Quist.

I dig my nails into my palms, and my chest tightens at the sting. I’mnotdreaming, and the woman I love is not at all who she said she was.

“Omar…” Her voice is the same, and my heart responds the way it has since the first time I heard it—it lifts a little. But now, there’s also quiver of unease in my stomach where the truth has settled. “So this is what you’ve been keeping from me?”

“Yes.”

“And this is what Conrad is holding over you?”

“Yes.”

“How does he know?”

She sighs and focuses her eyes again, and the bleakness in them twists my heart. “He worked for my father. When I was charged, everyone in town turned against me. Except him. He was my sole character witness. He told them I would never hurt my dad. I was so grateful even though I was still remanded.”

“So what happened to turn him into your enemy?”

“I don’t know. I literally bumped into him at King’s Cross Station one night a few years after I moved to London. He was busking for money and homeless. I brought him home with me, let him stay. Tried to encourage him to get a proper job. Made the mistake of telling him how much money I’d managed to save from mine.”

“He wanted it?”

She nods. “He started by asking me for help. Money for a debt. He needed a car. But one day he asked me to lend him more than half of what I had left to invest in some business deal.Of course, I said no. Told him I’d had enough and he needed to sort himself out. And that’s when my pet snake turned on me.”

“What did he do?” I demand, so angry I wish I’d kicked him out this morning.

“Threatened to write a letter to the college I attended to tell them what I’d failed to disclose if I didn’t. All I have is my future, Omar. I just want to build a life and make sure youth offenders have good representation in court. So I gave him what he asked for. Got on with my life. Last year, he found me again. I gave him half of my savings, and he fucked off to Ibiza.”

“The calls from Spain?”

“Yup. I blocked his number. I’m not listed. He doesn’t know where I live. I figured as long as he couldn’t reach me I’d be fine. And he wouldn’t ever give up the dirt he had on me because then he’d have to find someone else to sponge off.”

She presses her lips together and then releases them with a long exhalation. “But then there was the IG video and theArchitectural Digest’s cover. He found me in no time. Except now, I have a real golden goose.”