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“C’mon, Alex, a beautiful man sitting at a bar all alone drinking water for fuck’s sake, somehow ignoring everyone who comes up to him but throwing himself at me?” He lets out a dry laugh. “I mean, that actually makes sense, but I was trained to sniff out cops before I could walk. It only took me a few minutes to confirm my suspicions.”

His tone is light, but his eyes are blazing with a rage that lets me know I should keep my distance.

Inside me, an explosion has gone off and I can’t find the right words because he knew. Rowan knew who I was from the beginning and said nothing.

“I can admit you hid it really well, but I always knew,” he continues. “And yet I still fucked you that night. I still took stupid walks with you along the river. I still kept you around for eight months. I still made you mine. What do you think that says about me?”

“Rowan…” It’s all I can manage. Nothing else comes out. Tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away.

“Does that answer your question?” he asks, taking a sip of his whisky. “I didn’t say it back because you were lying and so was I.”

My heart has shattered a hundred times since that morning in Rowan’s apartment, but it shatters again now, and I don’t know how I’ll be able to glue the fragile pieces back together again.

“Then w-why?” I ask. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Why do you think, Alex?”

I don’t know. None of it makes any sense. My palms are clammy, and I think I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

“I—” I swallow. “I’m sorry, Rowan.”

This time he laughs outright, and it feels like nails on a chalkboard because there’s nothing friendly in that laugh or the vicious smile he gives me. “No, you aren’t. This is what you wanted, right? The perfect straight and narrow life.”

That’s not true. That’s not why I did it. “I wanted to be safe…”

“I’m sure you did,” he says quietly.

I’m shaking my head before I can stop myself because he doesn’t get to be the high and mighty one here. I want to argue, but before I can, he continues. “Not that it matters. I’m glad you did what you did because people like you are all the same,” he says. “Parasites desperate to take and take just so they can survive.”

It’s meant to cut, and it does. My eyes sting, but I don’t dare wipe away any of the tears that spill down my cheeks.

“You’re right.” My voice shakes and I hate that he gets to see me like this, always falling apart for him. “But what’s better? A parasite that takes to survive or a snake that takes because they can?”

Rowan’s eyes give nothing away, but it’s clear we’re both thinking the same thing, this is the only way we can ever end up—in flames. It’d be stupid to think otherwise.

I call in sick that morning and when I make it back to my apartment, I pull out my laptop and order a security system. I don’t let myself think of Rowan as I enter my details. I keep the almost kiss out of my mind as I clean my apartment from top to bottom, bleaching it for good measure. I don’t allow myself to cry as I stand under the scalding hot shower for an hour, scrubbing myself clean until I’m red all over.

I manage to keep my mind blank until I slip into my bed and curl up under the covers. Rowan’s face invades every corner inside me. I see the way he looked at me, the hate, the rage, the disgust.

He knew.

He always knew.

I didn’t say it back because you were lying and so was I.

But I wasn’t. That’s the one thing I never lied about, but Rowan never believed me because he always knew who I was.

How could I not see it? How did I not realise it?

A choaked sob escapes me. I feel pathetic and it hurts so badly I don’t think I want to wake up again. I close my eyes, covering my head with my cover, hoping that somehow, when I wake up, this will all have gone away. But no matter how tightly I shut my eyes; his words and his face won’t leave me.

You were lying, and so was I.

But I wasn’t. I never lied about loving him.

Chapter Thirteen: Rowan

Iwish I could turn back the clock and erase everything that happened with Alex this morning. I hated every second of that conversation. I hated every word that left my mouth, the way he looked at me, the way his eyes filled with tears I caused.