Chapter 1

Chapter

One

VICTORIA

"Why?"

That one stupid word was all I could manage, and even as it left my lips, I knew I wasn't ready to hear the answer just yet. Instead of listening to him, I turned around and left.

"Victoria, wait! Aren't you even going to hear me out?"

"Why should I, Devin?" It hurt too much to turn back around and look at him. All I could see was the scene I'd just walked in on. The one that let me know that my boyfriend's public girlfriend – his beard to keep people from looking too closely at our relationship – wasn't as fake as he'd always led me to believe. His dark hair was mussed like someone had been running their fingers through it, and I couldn't be too sure at that point if it had been him or her.

"Come on, Vic." He sighed. "That's not fair and you know it. It was once and you were out on a date with someone else."

"You've been out on a date with someone else how many times? The difference is that mine was a set up by my mother and I didn't even remotely enjoy it. Yours has been with the fake girlfriend that you swore you weren't sleeping with, but suddenly I walk in on her talking to you about the baby you two are responsible for?” A dark chuckle escaped me. "Tell me which scenario seems fair. I never slept with anyone else and you were apparently fucking your fake girlfriend the whole time."

"It's not like that. If you'd just let me…"

"No. As far as I'm concerned, you made your choice when you stuck your dick in Justice – apparently raw – and got her pregnant. That went a little beyond the whole, 'fake relationship' terms that were set up in the beginning. I'm assuming you two have had your own rules all this time that I knew nothing about."

"You're the one who insisted on the secrecy and you're dead wrong. It was one time, Vic. Once."

"Well, Devin, that's one time too many, especially since you managed to knock your girlfriend up in the process."

"Wife," he huffed the word out reluctantly.

"Excuse me?" The question exploded from me as if painful shards of glass had just ripped me apart from the inside. I didn’t want to, but I had to turn back around to see his face as he tried to explain to me how he could have possibly married someone else. Someone who wasn’t me.

"When she told me, we ran off and got married because…" I couldn’t bear to see him look so wrecked by his admission, as if it pained HIM. The love of my life married another woman. A woman he apparently knocked up at some point while we were dating. If it was possible to die of a broken heart, I might just crumple to the ground on the spot.

"Stop!" My shout bordered on the hysterical. "That's enough."

I was not proud of my actions, but I turned and ran from the only man I'd ever loved. I couldn't do it any longer. I couldn't stand there and face him as the woman he got pregnant, and married behind my back, stood in the background smirking at me.

I'd always thought our situation was ideal because she was involved in a taboo romance with her father's best friend – who happened to be a married man. It meant that she and Devin formed the perfect beard relationship. He helped to conceal her activities, and she kept my little brother, Dallas, off our backs.

I should have known if she didn't have any issues carrying on a clandestine relationship with a married man, especially one so close to her own family, that she would have zero qualms about sleeping with her fake boyfriend – my man. The thing that made it easy to overlook that possibility had been that I had absolute faith in Devin.

I really should have known better. She was age appropriate for him, and didn't come with the baggage that was my brother and the rest of our family. She was also a petite blonde with unnaturally large tits. They were natural, but didn't look as though they fit her otherwise tiny frame. Then there was her faux innocent denim blue eyes that everyone always raved about – including my boyfriend when he played the doting partner at her side.

They were married now and expecting a baby together. They were both 22. I was closing in quickly on 29 and 30 loomed in the not-too-far distance. I'd spent the past three years in a relationship with the man. Well, we spent two years in a secret relationship after a year where Devin chased me until he finally wore me down.

My eyes blurred with unshed tears as I made it to my car, got inside, and flipped the locks before Devin could come after me and grab it open. I had the car turned on before I glanced up and realized he never even bothered to follow me. Instead, he made his way back toward the bitch, who conveniently had her arms wide open for him to step into.

I guess that picture was worth a thousand words and all of them pointed to the fact that I'd been the toy. All along, I'd been the other woman in my own relationship and hadn't realized it. How fucking stupid was I?