The cake was strawberry. His favorite, not mine.

I'd driven forty minutes across town to pick it up, the box balanced on my lap the whole way back. My name was on top in pink icing. *Happy 25th, Lila.* I'd ordered it myself, because Damon had texted me that morning: *Slammed at work, babe. Dinner tomorrow?*

So I decided to surprise him.

I still had the spare key to his apartment. I slid it into the lock, grinning like an idiot.

The door swung open. Music was playing. Low, slow, something with a bassline.

Then I heard a woman laugh.

"Damon, stop. You'll make me spill."

"So spill," he said. "I'll lick it up."

My feet kept moving. I didn't tell them to. The bedroom door was half open, and through the gap I saw his bare back. Red nails dragged down his spine. A blonde woman sat on his lap, wearing his gray college hoodie and nothing else.

That hoodie was mine. He'd given it to me in October.

"Who's that?" she whispered, her eyes landing on me over his shoulder.

Damon twisted around.

For one second, his face went blank. Then it went pale.

"Lila. Shit. Lila, wait."

I didn't wait. I backed up so fast that my heel caught the rug. The box slipped out of my hands and hit the hallway floor with a wet, soft thud. Pink frosting splattered across my shoes and up the hem of my white dress.

I stared down at it.

*Happy 25th, Li—* The rest was smeared into nothing.

I laughed. A short, ugly sound. Of course. Of course that's how it would go.

I pushed out into the stairwell and made it down one flight before my knees quit. I sat on the step and pressed both hands over my mouth so nobody would hear the noise coming out of me.

Footsteps came up from below.

A pair of black boots stopped in front of me. Someone crouched down.

"Hey," a man said quietly. "You okay?"

I lifted my head.

And froze.

It was Damon. The same dark hair. The same sharp jaw. The same gray-green eyes. But he was dressed. Black jacket, a motorcycle helmet hooked under one arm. And he was looking at me like he'd never seen me before in his life.

"How did you—" I choked. "You were just—"

He tilted his head. "I was just what?"

"Don't." I scrambled backward up a step. "Don't you dare play games with me right now."

He didn't move closer. He set the helmet down, pulled a folded handkerchief out of his pocket, and held it out.

"I'm not playing anything," he said. "You've got frosting on your face."

"It's tears."

"Both, then."

When I didn't take it, he reached up himself. His thumb was warm. He wiped under my left eye, then my right, slow and careful, like I might bolt. His voice was rougher than Damon's. Lower. Damon never talked this softly to anyone.

"Strawberry?" he asked.

"What?"

He nodded at my dress. Pink smears ran all the way down the skirt. Without asking, he pressed the handkerchief against the fabric and dabbed at the worst of it.

"It's ruined," I said.

"Probably." He kept working at the stain anyway. "Was it for someone special?"

"It was for me." My throat burned. "It's my birthday."

His hand stopped.

He looked up at me, and something in his face hardened. Not at me. Past me. Up the stairs.

"Lila!"

Damon's voice crashed down the stairwell. He came around the landing with his jeans half buttoned and his shirt inside out. Then he saw who was kneeling in front of me, and he stopped dead.

"Kian," he said. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I looked from one face to the other.

Same eyes. Same mouth. Two different men.

"You have a twin," I said slowly. "Two years, Damon. Two years, and you never once told me you had a twin."

"It's complicated."

"Not really," Kian said. He rose to his feet, unhurried. "You just never mention me."

"Shut up." Damon's jaw ticked. He turned to me, and his whole face rearranged itself. Soft eyes. Sorry eyes. I knew that face. I'd forgiven that face before. "Babe. Listen to me. That was nothing. She's nobody. A mistake."

"She's wearing my hoodie."

"I'll buy you ten hoodies."

"That's not the point!"

"Okay. Okay." He came down two steps and reached for my wrist. "I screwed up, alright? I know. But I'll make it up to you. Tomorrow, I'll take you anywhere you want. We'll redo your birthday. A better one. I promise."

His fingers closed around my arm.

I looked down at his hand. At the red scratch marks on his forearm that weren't mine.

Something in me went very, very quiet.

"Redo it," I repeated.

"Yeah. Anything you want."

"Anything?"

"Anything, Lila."

I pulled my arm free. Then I turned, grabbed the front of Kian's jacket with both fists, and dragged his mouth down to mine.

He went stiff for half a heartbeat. He tasted like cold air and mint. His hand hovered near my waist, uncertain.

Behind me, Damon made a sound like he'd been punched.

I broke the kiss but didn't let go of Kian's jacket. I faced the man I'd planned to marry and kept my voice perfectly steady.

"No need," I said. "Save your make-up for whoever's in your bed."

Damon's face went red, then white. "Are you out of your mind? That's my *brother.*"

"I noticed."

"Kian." Damon's voice cracked like a whip. "Step away from her. Now."

I waited for Kian to pull back. To apologize. To tell me I'd made a scene, the way Damon always did.

He didn't.

Instead, his hand finally settled on my waist, firm and warm through the ruined dress. He looked over my head at his brother, and the corner of his mouth curved up.

"Funny," Kian said. "Last time I took something of yours, you swore you'd kill me."

He leaned down until his lips brushed my ear.

"Happy birthday, Lila. Hope you know what you just started."

Damon took the last two steps in one jump.

"Get your hands off her."

He grabbed my elbow and yanked. My hip slammed into the railing, and the cold metal bit through my dress. For a second, he had me. His fingers dug in hard, the same way they did whenever I tried to walk out of an argument.

"Lila. Come upstairs. We'll talk."

"We're done talking."

"You're upset. You're not thinking straight."

"I'm thinking fine." I twisted my arm until his grip broke. "We broke up, Damon. Five minutes ago. Up there, in your bedroom. So I can kiss whoever I want."

His mouth fell open.

Then he laughed. It was short and mean, and he aimed it at his brother instead of me.

"Whoever you want? You don't even know him."

"I know he doesn't cheat on me."

"Because he's had you for thirty seconds."

Kian said nothing. He bent and picked up his helmet, and he brushed a smear of frosting off the visor with his sleeve. He was so calm about it. That seemed to make Damon angrier than anything I'd said.

"You think this is funny?" Damon jabbed a finger at him. "You crawl back into town, and the first thing you do is put your hands on my girlfriend?"

"She put hers on me," Kian said. "I'm just standing here."

"Ex-girlfriend," I added.

Damon's face turned a dark, blotchy red. Upstairs, a door creaked. The blonde's voice floated down the stairwell, thin and whiny.

"Damon? Babe? Are you coming back?"

Nobody moved.

I looked up at Kian. "Can you take me home?"

His eyes flicked to mine. They were gray-green, exactly like his brother's, but they didn't dart away. They held still.

"Yeah," he said. "I can."

"Lila, if you walk out that door with him—"

"What?" I turned on the step. "You'll what, Damon? Cheat on me again?"

He didn't have an answer for that. I didn't wait for one.

---

I'd driven there myself, but my hands were shaking too badly to hold my keys. Kian took them from me without a word. He left his motorcycle chained by the curb and folded himself into the driver's seat of my little hatchback. His knees nearly hit the steering wheel.

He didn't ask for directions. He just waited.

"Maple Street," I said. "Off Fifth."

He pulled into traffic.

For six blocks, neither of us spoke. The frosting on my shoes had started to dry and crack. I picked at it with my thumbnail until a piece flaked onto the floor mat.

"You don't have to be nice to me," I said finally.

"I'm driving a car. That's not nice. That's basic."

"You know what I mean." I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, wrecked dress and all. "That kiss. It didn't mean anything. I just wanted him to feel it. The way I felt it when I opened that door."

"I figured."

"I used you."

"I know."

I turned and stared at him. "That's it? You're not mad?"

His thumb tapped once against the wheel. A red light glowed through the windshield and painted half his face. He stopped the car, and he didn't look at me.

"Did it work?" he asked.

"What?"

"The revenge. Did he feel it?"

I thought of Damon's face going white on the stairs. Of the choked sound he'd made behind me.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I think he did."

"Then it wasn't for nothing."

The light turned green. He didn't move.

A horn honked behind us. Kian ignored it.

"Can I ask you something, Lila?"

His voice had changed. It was flatter now. Careful, like he was stepping onto ice.

"Okay."

"I've got the same face he does." He finally turned his head. "The same eyes, the same everything. So why didn't you pick me back then?"

I blinked at him.

"Back when?"

The horn behind us blared again, long and angry.

Kian studied me for one more second. He looked at my eyes, then my mouth, then my eyes again, like he was hunting for something he'd lost. Whatever he was searching for, he didn't find it.

His jaw set. Then it eased.

"Never mind," he said, and he drove.

"No, wait. What do you mean, back then? Kian, I met you an hour ago."

"Sure."

"Don't sure me. Have we met before?"

"You'd remember if we had." He flicked on the turn signal for Maple. "Wouldn't you?"

That wasn't an answer. We both knew it wasn't. But he pulled up in front of my building and cut the engine, and suddenly I was too tired to fight anyone else tonight.

He set my keys in my palm and closed my fingers over them.

"Lock your door," he said. "My brother doesn't like losing things."

"I'm not a thing."

"No." Something flickered across his face, fast enough that I almost missed it. "You're not."

He was already calling a ride on his phone as I climbed out. I didn't look back. I wanted to, and that scared me a little.

---

My mailbox was stuffed. Bills, a coupon flyer, and the glossy business monthly my office kept sending to my home address by mistake.

I almost tossed it in the recycling bin.

Then I saw the cover.

He was wearing a charcoal suit instead of a leather jacket, and his hair was slicked back. But it was the same jaw, and the same steady eyes that didn't dart away.

**THE GHOST OF NORTHGATE COMES HOME.**

My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor.

I sank onto the arm of the couch and flipped the pages so fast that one of them tore.

*Kian Mercer, 29, founder and CEO of Northgate Holdings, has spent five years running a global empire from overseas. He has never given an interview and has never been photographed at a public event. Last week, he quietly returned to the city. Insiders say he has already bought controlling stakes in three local firms.*

Three local firms.

My stomach turned over. I knew one of those names.

It was Mercer & Lowe, Damon's company. Damon had complained for a month about some mystery buyer who was circling the board.

I read the paragraph three times. Then I grabbed my phone and scrolled back through two years of photos. Holidays. His parents' anniversary dinner. Thanksgiving at his mother's house, where the dining room had one empty chair nobody ever sat in.

I had asked about that chair once. Damon had told me it was nothing.

Five years. His brother had been gone for five years, and he'd never said a word. He had buried him completely, as if Kian had never existed.

And the brother he'd buried was richer than him. More powerful.

And now he was home.

I turned to the last page of the article. There was a single pull quote, printed in bold under a blurry photo of Kian stepping out of a black car.

*"Why did I come back? Someone took something from me a long time ago. I'm here to collect."*

My phone buzzed against the couch cushion.

I didn't recognize the number.

The text was only four words.

*It's Kian. Save this.*

I stared at it for a long time. Then I saved it, turned off my phone, and slept in my ruined dress.

---

By noon the next day, I had a list. My laptop charger. My grandmother's ring, in the dish by his sink. Three work blazers. My silk pajamas. The good knife set I'd bought with my own money.

I knocked this time. I didn't use the key.

Damon opened the door in sweatpants, like nothing had happened. His hair was damp. He smelled like his cedar body wash, the one I'd picked out for him.

"Hey," he said. Soft. Relieved. "I knew you'd come back."

"I'm here for my stuff."

"Sure you are." He leaned on the frame and filled the doorway with his shoulder. "Lila, come on. You made your point last night. Big, dramatic point. I got it."

"Good. Then move."

"You're still mad. That's fine. Be mad inside, where it's warm."

"I'm not *mad*, Damon. I'm leaving."

He smiled like I'd told a cute joke. "You've left before."

That one landed. Last spring, I'd packed a bag after he forgot my mother's surgery. I made it to my car. He showed up with flowers an hour later, and I unpacked by dinner.

I shoved past his arm. He let me, which was worse. It meant he thought it didn't matter.

Then I stopped in the middle of the living room.

She was on the couch. The blonde. She had her bare feet tucked under her and a mug of coffee in both hands.

She was wearing my pajamas. Pale blue silk, with my initials stitched on the pocket.

"Oh," she said brightly. "It's you."

"Those are mine."

"Are they?" She glanced down at the pocket. Then she looked back up, and her mouth curled. "L.R. I thought it stood for something cute."

"Take them off."

"Right now? In front of Damon?" She giggled. "Sweetie, he's seen it."

My face went hot. I walked to the bathroom, yanked my blazers off the hook, and stuffed them into my tote. I grabbed my charger from the outlet. My hands were steady. That surprised me.

When I came back out, she'd moved. She was leaning against the kitchen island now, right next to the dish where my ring should be.

The dish was empty.

"Where's my grandmother's ring?"

"Babe," Damon called from the door. "Relax. It's somewhere safe."

"Where, Damon?"

"I'll give it to you when you calm down."

The blonde sipped her coffee. "Can I ask you something?" She tilted her head, all sugar. "Last night. On the stairs. Did you actually know which one you were kissing?"

"Brianna," Damon warned, but he was grinning.

"No, I'm curious." She set the mug down. "Because if you can't even tell your boyfriends apart, maybe the problem isn't him."

Something in my chest went cold and flat.

I didn't yell. I didn't throw her coffee. I took my phone out of my pocket, turned it on, and pressed the newest contact.

He picked up on the first ring.

"Lila."

"Come get me," I said. "Your brother won't let me leave."

Damon's grin dropped right off his face.

There was a pause on the line. Then Kian's voice came back, low and even.

"Ten minutes. Don't touch anything sharp."

He hung up.

"You called *him*?" Damon pushed off the door frame. "You called Kian? Over a ring?"

"Over you." I sat down on the arm of his couch and crossed my legs. "I'll wait."

---

It took him eight minutes.

The knock wasn't loud. Two raps, spaced out. Damon didn't move to answer it, so I did. He caught my wrist halfway across the room.

"Don't."

"Move your hand, Damon."

He held on. Behind me, Brianna had gone quiet for the first time all day.

The door opened anyway. Damon had never locked it.

Kian stood in the hallway in a black coat. No helmet today. His eyes went to Damon's fingers around my wrist and stayed there.

He didn't say a word.

Damon released me like my skin had burned him.

"Unbelievable," Damon said. He laughed and dragged a hand through his wet hair. "You really came running. You know what this is, right? Tell me you're not that stupid."

"Enlighten me," Kian said.

"She's using you." Damon pointed at me without looking at me. "That's all this is. She's pissed at me, so she grabbed the closest thing that looks like me. You're a revenge prop, Kian. A cardboard cutout of your own brother."

Kian turned to me. His face didn't change. He was waiting.

I could have lied. It would have been easy.

"Yes," I said. "I did it on purpose."

Brianna snorted into her coffee.

Damon spread his hands, triumphant. "There it is. Thank you. She *said* it."

"I'd do it again," I added. "In front of you. Every time."

Kian's eyes stayed on mine. Then, of all things, he laughed. Quiet, under his breath, like I'd surprised him in a good way.

He stepped past Damon and took the tote bag off my shoulder. He picked up the box of knives from the counter and tucked it under his arm.

"Then you'd better stay mad a long time," he said.

He held out his free hand.

I looked at it for one second. Then I put my hand in his. His fingers were warm and dry, and they closed over mine without squeezing.

"Wait," I said. "My ring."

Kian didn't look away from me. "Damon."

"It's hers when she comes to her senses."

"Damon." Kian's voice didn't rise. It just got heavier. "Mom's ring. Pearl setting. You know which one."

Damon went still.

I turned and stared at Kian. I had never told him what the ring looked like.

Damon dug into his sweatpants pocket and slapped the ring down on the counter. Kian picked it up and set it in my palm. He closed my fingers over it the same way he'd closed them over my keys last night.

Then he walked me out.

---

The hallway felt a mile long. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

Kian pressed the elevator button. The numbers above the door crawled. Seven. Six.

Behind us, a door banged open.

"Lila!"

Bare feet slapped the carpet. Damon was running. In two years, Damon had never once run after me. Not out of a restaurant, not to my car, not anywhere. He'd always waited for me to come back.

He skidded to a stop three feet from us, breathing hard.

"Don't get in that elevator."

The doors slid open with a soft chime.

Kian stepped in first. He didn't drop my hand.

"Lila, listen to me." Damon's voice cracked down the middle. "You don't know who he is. You don't know what he did."

I stepped in beside Kian. "Then tell me."

Damon's eyes went to his brother. Something passed between them, something old and ugly.

He opened his mouth.

The doors began to close.

"Ask him," Damon said, "why Mom still won't say his name."