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“Yes, if you let me tell them I’m hanging out with you and only you tonight.”

“No, don’t. I can’t answer questions they will ask, when I don’t know the answers myself.”

My phone rings. “Hey.”

“Quinn, what questions are you so worried about? Why don’t we just come up with some answers together, and then we can stop hiding. I don’t want to go to a bar tonight with everyone. I had everything planned for our date.”

My phone starts beeping, and I’m relieved. “It’s Piper. I need to answer this.”

“Quinn—”

“I’ll call you in a bit.” I switch over the line. Sure enough, Piper is inviting me out. I tell her I’ll go and text Jamison.

It’s not that I don’t want to go out with Jamison alone. I do. But I’m not ready to have twenty questions thrown at me about our relationship.

Plus, all of Jamison’s friends will know you are his mistress.

“Quinn, how could you go down this path? You know the screwed-up life I live with your father,” my mother’s voice runs through my head from when she spoke with me one-on-one after my brother stormed out of her birthday dinner.

“Don’t refer to him as my father,” I said in disgust about the man I’ve always known as her boss and found out was my father when I was eighteen. “And Jamison isn’t Maximillion. He’s not cheating on his wife.”

She grabbed me by the shoulders. “Men all have their stories. I don’t want you ending up like me. I’m trapped. You’re not.”

“You aren’t trapped. You choose to be with him. You choose to continue fucking him behind his wife’s back.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“No. I’m not going to sit here and listen to you be a hypocrite. What you are doing is wrong. You’re lying, and your lover is a cheater. I’m not doing anything like that.”

She sarcastically laughed. “You think you aren’t his second priority? He has a wife. You will always be his second priority.”

“I’m not,” I say, but in the back of my mind, I can’t help but feel like maybe my mom is right. And it scares me.

“Don’t be a fool like I am. Leave him now and move on with your life. You are young. You still have a chance for a normal relationship.”

“I’m not leaving him. I love him,” I told her.

It’s the truth. I love Jamison so much it pains me to be away from him. And I know I’m hurting him by not moving to New York and telling our friends that we’re together, but I can’t figure out how to get past the fact he is married. Sham or not, he is still married.

And you are his mistress.

Shame once again fills me. I wish I could figure out how to not feel this way.

You will figure this out, Quinn. What you have with Jamison is real. Just get ready, have fun tonight, and worry about this tomorrow.

I spend the next hour getting ready. There is a knock on my door. I look out the peephole and see Jamison.

I open the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Everyone is down in the car. I came up so I could steal a kiss.” He bends down and kisses me, embracing me tightly to him, making me feel like I am his everything.

But you aren’t. He still has his wife to take care of and protect.

I retreat from the kiss. “What did you tell the others?” I ask in a panic.

“Hey, Jamison, thanks for the awesome kiss,” he teases me.

I wince at him. “Sorry,” then tug him down for another kiss.

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