Chapter 1

Nathan Reed and I had been together for three years when I found out he was cheating—while I was trying on wedding dresses.

A friend from college sent me a photo of my fiancé having dinner with the woman he’d never gotten over.

He was supposed to be helping me pick out my wedding dress.

I yawned, took off the gown, and went on a shopping spree.

I maxed out the card Nathan had given me.

Men could be unreliable. As long as their money wasn’t, I could live with that.

Later, I went to a bar to get drunk. I was just about to hook up with a cute blond guy

when someone scooped me up and carried me away.

As he settled my tab, he told the bartender he was my husband.

His scent was familiar. Like that bastard of a fiancé of mine…

But also like someone else.

One wild night. We used every condom I’d had in my pocket.

He wore me out, insisting that I say his name.

Nathan Reed was seriously unhinged. He’d bought a decibel meter and put it beside the bed.

Honestly, I knew it was probably because the woman he’d never gotten over was back.

I’d rarely suffered any real setbacks in life. When Nathan and I first met, I had no idea there was someone like that in his past.

But it didn’t really bother me. Who didn’t have someone they couldn’t forget?

To everyone else, we were a perfect match. Three years together, equally wealthy families, a handsome man and a beautiful woman.

To me, we were more like two backup plans keeping each other warm.

I’d caught real feelings. That made me a bad backup plan. It wasn’t his fault.

When I met Nathan in college, he was student body president. In his white shirt, he looked almost luminous. He was the golden boy everyone admired, young and confident and full of promise.

Our lives shouldn’t have crossed. I rarely left my dorm unless I had to, and I hated campus activities. The only event I’d ever participated in was an online campus beauty contest.

My roommate Chloe had entered my photo. First prize was five hundred dollars.

She’d used my student ID picture, taken right before freshman year. My hair barely brushed my shoulders, and my smile was awkward. Chloe said I had a very particular kind of beauty in that picture—the kind that looked easy to scam…

I came in second. First place went to Paige Morgan, a pretty girl with two dimples when she smiled.

“Em, you kind of look like her!” Chloe said.

The comments said the same thing.

What pissed me off was that some people actually claimed I’d had surgery to look like Paige.

Nathan and I met at a basketball game.

Chloe’s boyfriend was a freshman architecture major who wore number eight. According to her, he’d saved her the best seats so she could properly appreciate him in action. The girlfriend seats, basically. Since Chloe had dragged me along as her plus-one, I sat beside her.

Nathan was sitting on my other side. His jersey number was seven.

I didn’t understand basketball, so I started playing Candy Crush. A few levels in, I got stuck. Then I saw that someone else had already beaten that level, and my competitive streak kicked in.

After a while, a male voice spoke beside me.

“Can I try? I’ve beaten this one.”

That was when I finally noticed him. His skin was almost luminous.

His face was flawless, his eyes bright and slightly upturned. His features couldn’t have been more perfect.

Yet there was something gentle about him.

He looked so familiar.