Chapter 1

Nigel Matthews was allergic to alcohol. In the three years we'd built the company together, I'd taken on every deal that came with a bottle attached, every toast, every negotiation soaked in liquor. Not once did I let a single drop touch his lips.

At the gala celebrating the company's IPO, I was at it again, holding the line ten drinkers deep, drinking on his behalf.

Halfway through the banquet, I stepped away to take a sobriety pill and catch my breath.

That was when I saw him slipping my sobriety pill between the lips of his little secretary.

"Mr. Matthews, if you give me your sobriety pill, what about Ms. Pruitt?"

"She's a born drinker. She could put away eight bottles of the strongest stuff and still stand. Worst case, she makes a fool of herself."

The little secretary covered her mouth, giggling. "What kind of fool?"

"Stripping in a client's car... and the next morning she thought it was with me..."

The whole table of girls burst out laughing.

Only I stood there as if nailed to the floor, going from numb, to a sharp sting, to something in me turning to cold ash.

No wonder he kept saying the company owed everything it had become to what I'd given up for it.

The next second, he picked up the secretary's glass and drained it in one go.

Then he pinched her cheek.

"Same rule as always. Don't tell Selina Pruitt, or there'll be no one left to drink for me."

So even the alcohol allergy was a lie.

I didn't call him out. I forced myself to turn away and, with a single tap, sent off the email transferring away every last one of my shares.

From now on, I would never drink for him again.

……

Behind me, the stunned laughter kept rolling on.

"Mr. Matthews, so it's not that you can't drink, it's that you didn't want to?"

Nigel made a hushing gesture and said, carelessly:

"Selina loves to drink, and she loves that beauty-saves-the-hero glow she gets from drinking for me. As her boyfriend, I had to indulge her little fantasy!"

Mila Atkins, the little secretary, added in a sugary voice:

"Actually, the first time Mr. Matthews had an allergic reaction, it was because of a mango cake I made. Ms. Pruitt just assumed he was allergic to alcohol."

The others gasped.

"Mila, you're really something! You knew Mr. Matthews that far back?"

Mila laughed prettily and answered:

"I was the only scholarship student Mr. Matthews ever funded. I had nothing to repay him with, and the only thing I could offer was a cake I made myself. Who knew it would turn into such a huge mix-up!"

"But it's a beautiful misunderstanding. Mr. Matthews never has to drink at a single business dinner again for the rest of his life. Even if he hit me or cursed at me, I'd take it!"

Nigel shot her a mock-scolding look.

"As if I'd ever hit you or curse at you. I baby you every single day, and you still have the nerve to go spilling our little secret!"

The doting in his voice came through crystal clear, even from the other side of the door.

A cold dread shot up from the base of my spine to the crown of my head.

The grief and fury of being deceived were buried completely beneath that cold.

That night had been my first time with Nigel.

Candlelight, red wine, roses, cake. Everything so perfect.

The only flaw was Nigel suddenly flushing all over, his throat swelling up.

I was so terrified I couldn't think straight, sobbing, ready to call 911, but he stopped me and said he'd be fine after an allergy pill.

Afterward, I asked him how he could possibly have had a reaction out of nowhere.

He told me it was an alcohol allergy.

It was never a misunderstanding at all. It was him covering for Mila.

Because the wine was something I'd bought. The cake was something Mila had made.

That night, guilt-ridden, I did everything I could to please him, and for the three years after, I drank down countless glasses in his place at the table.

I ended up in the hospital three times with a perforated stomach, suffered through drunken headaches too many times to count, and he would say he loved me over and over with red-rimmed eyes, yet never once would he tell me the truth about the allergy.

Still less did he ever tell me he had once funded someone else.

How laughable, that I'd treated that night as our most precious memory.

That I'd treated all those days of drinking for him as the foundation stones of the happy future we were building together.

Never once did it occur to me that it was only ever a fantasy of my own.