For as long as I could remember, Deacon had called me “Charlie Girl” and had tried to joke with me in an attempt to bring me out of my shell. But that Deacon had been missing for years. Out of his friends, he had been the fun one and nearly always had a lax smile and booming laugh . . . but that guy was nowhere to be found now.

Grey always referred to Deacon as a teddy bear. The man in front of me was anything but.

He was tall and had a large, intimidating frame, courtesy of his love for the gym. His white shirt stretched tight over his chest and shoulders, and was stained with grease, as was his jaw. His dark hair was wild from running his hands through it over the course of the day. And his honey-colored eyes, darkened with frustration, highlighted the angry set of his mouth, which curled into a taunting smile when I backed into the warehouse wall.

“You gonna try to finish that thought, Charlie?” he asked in a low voice. “Is the shy, sweet girl trying to find a backbone for once? Oh wait, no, you know all about backs, don’t you? You were probably on yours when you got pregnant.”

My mouth slowly fell open as his words tore through me. “What?” The word was nearly inaudible, but I couldn’t find my voice anymore.

“Everyone around here acts like you’ve done nothing wrong, and I don’t fucking get it. Shy, sweet Charlie,” he mocked again. “No one would have ever expected you to try to ruin a relationship—and who knows how much longer you would’ve gotten away without anyone knowing?”

“You know nothing,” I choked out.

He placed his hands on the wall above me, and leaned down. “I know you fucked Grey’s fiancé . . . that’s all I need to know.”

“It wasn’t—”

“It wasn’t what?” he asked in a dangerous tone, cutting me off. “Somehow you have everyone around us feeling sorry for you because you had to “deal” with Ben’s death alone. Had to hide the pregnancy, and then pretend Keith wasn’t yours. None of that would have happened if you’d kept your legs closed in the first place.”

“You’re an asshole.”

Deacon barked out a sharp laugh. “Why? Because I’m the only one who would dare be mad at innocent Charlie for what she did to a girl who is like my sister? Because I’m not as blind as the rest of them? You somehow twisted the situation around so that everyone was not only mad at, and blaming, Ben for something that you had equal part in, and then lied about for years; but you also had them feeling fucking sorry for you! Forgive me for seeing the situation for what it was,” he said with a sneer, then pushed away from me and turned back toward my car, but called over his shoulder, “Go on, go tell Grey and Jagger so they can feel sorry for you some more.”

I wiped at the few tears that managed to fall, and gritted out, “I don’t need or want anyone to feel sorry for me. I have never claimed to be innocent, and I will always hate myself more than anyone else could for what I did to Grey. But I will never be able to regret what happened because it gave me Keith, and he is the best thing in my life.”

“What?” He glanced over at me from where he was now bent under the hood again. “You mean the kid you pawned off on your brother for a year? Yeah, excuse me if I don’t buy your perfect mother act, either.”

No! A shuddering breath left me as fear and lifelong insecurities clawed at me. He doesn’t know me; I’m not like my mother, I thought desperately.

As soon as he released me from his cold stare, I turned and slipped inside the warehouse, letting the weight of my body shut the door as I stumbled back against it.

I looked up at the ceiling and blinked quickly, trying to force the tears away, but my chest still heaved with a silent sob.

I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hate him so much . . . but I couldn’t. Because Deacon had just said everything I’d been thinking of myself for years.

Ben, Jagger, and Grey had been best friends for most of their lives, and even though Ben had been with Grey for years, I’d loved him for as long as I could remember. He was my Prince Charming, my white knight coming to rescue me from my tower, my everything . . . even if only in secret.

It wasn’t until the spring of my senior year of high school that I’d found out my feelings hadn’t been one-sided.

“Why do I want you so bad when I love her? And why do I love her when I know she should be with him?” Tortured, whispered words I’d waited years to hear, and words I would never forget.

For two nights, my fairy tale seemed to come true. For two nights, everything seemed to finally be right in the world. I had Ben, and Jagger would finally have Grey. The way it was always meant to be.

Before I could even begin to grasp the high Ben had given me, he yanked it away the night he asked Grey to marry him, and drove the knife a little deeper when he told me that what we’d done was a mistake. As I had told Deacon, a mistake I would never regret, because it gave me my son. But months later, just before their wedding, Ben had died from an undetected, rare heart condition. He’d known about Keith, but only for a short time before he was gone.

Upon my mom’s demand, I kept the pregnancy a secret, pretended it was her child, and didn’t tell anyone the truth until Keith was two years old.

I’ve never felt so free as when those words left my lips.

Not because a secret that had been weighing on me was finally out in the open, but because after years, I was finally allowed to grieve for the only love I’d ever had.

And now, four years after his death, and I still hurt. It felt like a weight was pressing on my chest when I thought of him, making it nearly impossible to breathe. It felt like something vital to my body and soul had been ripped from me.

Four years later, and I still wanted to hate him for what he’d done to me, and the way he’d treated me, in those last months. I wanted the chance to yell at him face to face for telling me that he loved me, but wasn’t in love with me, after taking everything from me and making me believe that we could have it all.

Four years later, and I was still so sure that I was in love with him despite everything. I had a feeling the greatest love I would ever know had been taken from me too soon—and I would never know anything like it again.

Four years later, and guilt still clawed at my chest whenever I thought of how I betrayed Grey, even though she had clearly found her happy ever after with my brother.