Chapter 1

1.

Raymond James had a hearing problem. When I talked to him, only half of it got through.

Ask him to help around the house and he only ever did the first half of the job; the finishing always fell to me.

He shorted the weight on groceries and left tasks half done.

Every time he heard it wrong, Raymond apologized.

"Sorry. The hearing aid's old. It isn't very sensitive."

Then one time in bed, when things got too rough, one of his hearing aids fell out.

It landed on my face, and from it came a burst of laughter.

"Come on, Raymond, put your back into it. We still can't hear anything over here."

I shoved Raymond off me and picked up the thing shaped like a hearing aid. It was an earpiece.

"This hearing problem of yours. You've been lying to me the whole time?"

Raymond admitted it without a flicker of shame.

"It's more of a thrill this way."

A yelp came through the earpiece.

"She didn't just figure it out, did she?"

Only then did I understand. Three years with him, and it had all been for a bet.

I looked at Raymond, quiet.

He'd come clean. So I was done acting too.

1.

I called it off right there. Raymond didn't try to stop me.

He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette.

I have bronchitis. I can't stand cigarette smoke.

I coughed until it hurt. Raymond acted like he didn't see.

"You should know I've got better options than you."

"But leave me, and can you find anyone better?"

The smoke blurred his face, and I said nothing.

As a boyfriend, Raymond had honestly been perfect.

If I got cold at night, all I had to do was call out, and no matter how tired he was, he'd get up and tuck a blanket around me.

If I mentioned wanting dumplings in passing, he'd cross half the city and stand in line under the blazing sun to get them for me.

He seemed to read what I was thinking, and gave a cold laugh.

My last illusion was ripped away without mercy.

"Everything I did while chasing you, the guys fed me through the earpiece."

"You didn't actually think you were worth me putting in the effort myself, did you?"

Watching this face I'd loved for three years say all this with no expression at all,

even braced for it, my chest still gave a helpless twist of pain.

The smoke stung my eyes. I forced the words out, needing to hear it again.

"So all that pain about your family, all the good you did for me, none of it was real?"

Raymond gave an indifferent smile.

"If I didn't play it that way, how would you ever let your guard down for me?"

"You're pathetically stupid, you know. A lie that clumsy, and you still swallowed it."

My nails dug deep into my palm.

The reason I'd believed those lies was that my own family really was exactly like the story Raymond invented.

The pain he made up had actually happened to me.

It was that shared suffering that made me lower my defenses and let Raymond in.

I stared into his eyes, trying to find an answer there.

"Why me, of all people?"

The smile left Raymond's face for a moment.

When he spoke again, his tone had shifted entirely.

"Because that night at the bar, you were the one waiting on our table."

Such a careless reason.

Not even that I resembled her somehow. Only that I happened to walk by that day.

Just a bet. It didn't need much of a reason.

So the first time Raymond and I met was much earlier than I remembered.

I'd thought we met when he came to apply at the coffee shop where I worked part-time.

Somewhere in the small talk, I'd been amazed to discover it.

With the matching pasts and the shared interests, we were soon telling each other everything.

Now I could see that meeting had been a carefully planned hunt.

I stood up in silence and picked my clothes up off the floor, putting them on one piece at a time.

I looked back at Raymond one last time.

"Raymond, people who betray love get what's coming to them."

Raymond lit another cigarette, his smile careless and mocking.

"People who don't take love seriously don't end well either."

"Bianca Sullivan, let's just wait and see. Which one of us gets what's coming first."