Chapter 2

Before I kept Julian, he turned me down.

I wanted him the first time I saw him.

On his third day, I asked him to dinner. He stood in front of my desk in a suit that didn't have a wrinkle in it and said, "Ms. Hale. Have some self-respect."

I sent him a watch. The next day it came back unopened, with a note. Too expensive. I can't take it.

I texted him. He answered only what was about work.

There wasn't a person I, Sabrina Hale, couldn't have. He brushed me off more than once, and I let it go.

Later, at a party, I said it out loud. My interest in a man never lasted more than three months.

So the night he knelt in front of me with those medical files, I was sure of one thing. He wasn't moved by me. Two million had bent him.

He didn't want to be with me. He needed the money.

The day the contract ended, he would leave.

Julian was good-looking, and he was good at the work. Plenty of people in our circle wanted him.

I had meant, when the three years were up, to give him a settlement large enough that he would never again have to give himself to someone for money.

Now he had the Hales behind him.

And I, once the DNA test came out, was the one he would settle with.

The next day at the office, I did two things.

First, I struck the on-call clause.

The lawyer thought I had lost my mind. He made me confirm it three times.

Second, I raised Julian's pay to a number that meant he would never again have to watch anyone's face.

If I was going to pay for it, I was going to start now.

The comments were right. I had taken twenty-eight years of his life, and three years of his body. Before the reckoning, I would give back what I could.

The peak-end rule said that if the ending felt good, the hate dropped with it.

The comments drifted back.

[She made a list.]

[Everybody look. She turned paying for it into a spreadsheet. One check for every thing she gives back.]

[Don't laugh. Crocodile tears can be measured too.]

I pretended I didn't see them and saved the list in my notes.

Item one. Give him his freedom back.

Julian took it calmly.

"What is this, Ms. Hale?" He stood on the other side of the desk and pushed the struck page back at me.

"Compensation."

"Compensation?" He said it again, and smiled. "The three-year contract isn't up. Are you trying to get out early, Ms. Hale?"

"Not ending it." I said. "I think those terms were too much."

"Too much?" He leaned down, both hands on the edge of the desk. "Who was it who said, Julian, I want you on call, and you don't get to refuse me?"

Me.

"Who was it who said, for the length of the contract, no dating, no nights away, not one extra minute at another woman's party?"

Me again.

The comments were having a wonderful time in front of my eyes.

[She's scared.]

[Too late, girl. Everything you did is coming back as a slap.]

[Julian, don't fall for the candy. She wants to come out clean before the truth hits.]

I got the rest of it out through my teeth. "None of that counts anymore. From now on, you're free."

The office was quiet for a long time.

Julian straightened, folded the page, and put it in his pocket. "Fine," he said. "Whatever you say, Ms. Hale."

I let out a breath. He had taken it. That was enough.

At eleven that night I had just gotten into the car in the garage when the passenger door opened.

Julian got in, cold still on him.

"What are you—"

His hand closed on the back of my neck, and he kissed me.

There was none of his usual patience in it. Heavy. Urgent. Like he needed to check that something was still there.

He had me against the seat, my back to the window. The glass was cold enough to make me shake.

When he finally let go, his forehead stayed on mine. Both of us were breathing wrong.

"Bored of me?" His voice was low and rough.

"No."

"Then there's someone else."

"What?"

"Sabrina." He looked me in the eye, one word at a time. "You said you'd get bored of me fast. I never believed it. Tell me now which part went wrong."

"Am I too old for you?"

"You like the intern who started yesterday. Don't you."

"You looked at him for ten seconds."

I looked at that face, unfair even when he was angry, and shook my head before I could stop myself. The intern wasn't even in the same room as him.

"Or I haven't been taking care of you well enough, Ms. Hale?"

He pushed my skirt up as he said it.

"If you think I'm dull in bed, I can change that."

Another second and he was going to prove it right there.

"No. You're good. Don't overthink it." I caught the hand that was already moving over me.

I was more than satisfied with him that way.

Three years, and I wasn't bored. I wanted him more.

"Liar. You moved to the guest room last night."

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

How was I supposed to explain it?

That there were words only I could see. That I was the swapped child, the fake one, that I had been sitting in his place for twenty-eight years, that in a few days I was going to be thrown out, so I was letting him go first?

The comments tore across my eyes.

[Here it comes. He's about to find out how vicious this woman is.]

[Wednesday. The lab. Public humiliation, live. I've already got my chair.]

"What. You won't even explain now?"

"That eager to push me off?"

I looked at his eyes, red at the rims, and stopped trying to talk. I hooked an arm around his neck and kissed him back.

I held on to the plan. Before the reckoning, give him something that felt good.

Julian went still for half a second. Then his hand locked on my waist and he pressed me down into the seat.

The garage lights cut out. In the dark there was only breathing, each one heavier than the last.