Chapter 1

I had a secret.

His name was Liam Hayes, and for three years, he was mine in the dark. He was my brother' s best friend. He was also five years younger than me.

He would climb through my window after my brother, Ryan, was asleep in the room next door. The scrape of his boots on the trellis was the only sound I lived for.

"Shhh," he' d whisper, his lips against my ear, his body pressing me back into the mattress. His hands knew every part of me. He owned me in those moments, and I let him. I wanted him to.

He had this way about him, a boyish charm that made you forget he was a man who knew exactly what he was doing. He' d look at me with wide, innocent eyes, his hair falling over his forehead, and tell me I was the only one who understood him.

"Chloe," he' d murmur, his voice thick with a concocted vulnerability that I drank like water in a desert. "No one gets me like you do."

And I believed him. I held on to those words when I saw him in the daylight, laughing with my brother, barely glancing my way. I held on to them when he talked about Sarah Jenkins, his childhood sweetheart.

Sarah Jenkins. The name felt like sand in my mouth. She was my rival in the local music scene, a singer with a manufactured sweetness that critics and audiences adored. She was also the girl Liam claimed he was over.

Tonight, he was particularly intense, his kisses desperate, his touch leaving a trail of fire on my skin. He held my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking my cheeks.

"I was thinking," I said, my voice barely a whisper, afraid to break the spell. "Maybe it' s time."

Liam went still. Just a subtle shift, a tension in his shoulders that wasn' t there a second ago.

"Time for what, Chloe?"

"For us," I said, my heart starting to beat a little too fast. "To not be a secret anymore. I don' t care what Ryan thinks. I can handle it."

He pulled back, just an inch, but it felt like a mile. He avoided my eyes, looking at a loose thread on my pillowcase.

"Ry would kill me," he said, his voice flat. "You know how he is."

"I' ll talk to him," I insisted, propping myself up on my elbows. I was ready to fight for this, for him. "I' m not a kid, Liam. I can make my own choices. I' ll tell him it was all me."

He finally looked at me, and for a second, I saw something flicker in his eyes. It wasn't love. It was panic. He forced a smile, a tight, unconvincing thing.

"Let' s not rush it, okay? It' s perfect like this."

He kissed me again, a quick, dismissive peck, and then he was moving, pulling on his jeans.

"I should go. Early start tomorrow."

Just like that, the intimacy was gone, the air in the room turning cold. He was already halfway out the window when his phone buzzed on my nightstand. He' d forgotten it.

"Liam," I called out, but he was gone.

I picked up the phone to hand it to him, but the screen was lit up with a text from one of his friends, Mark. The message was right there.

`Did it work? Is Sarah jealous yet?`

My blood ran cold. I stood frozen, the phone heavy in my hand. Then I heard their voices from the street below my window. Liam must have met them right after leaving. I crept to the window, peering through the blinds.

Liam was leaning against a car, laughing with Mark and another friend, Jason.

"She totally bought it," Mark was saying, clapping Liam on the back. "You' re a master, man."

"I' m telling you, it' s the only way," Liam said, his voice stripped of all the softness he used with me. It was hard, and arrogant. "Sarah saw me leave the club with Chloe' s arm around me tonight. She looked pissed. Another few weeks, and she' ll come running back, just to prove she can have me."

My stomach dropped. The floor felt like it was falling out from under me.

"Three years, though," Jason said, shaking his head. "That' s a long time to pretend to like an older woman just to get your ex back."

Liam shrugged, a casual, cruel gesture that broke my heart into a million pieces.

"It' s not so bad. Chloe' s grateful for the attention. And honestly? It' s good practice. Besides, it' s all for Sarah. It' s always been for Sarah."

The world went silent. The air left my lungs. Three years. Three years of stolen nights, whispered secrets, and a love I thought was real. It was all a game. A performance. I wasn' t the lead in a secret romance. I was a prop in his.

I backed away from the window, my legs trembling. I sank to the floor, wrapping my arms around myself. The tears wouldn' t come. There was only a hollow, aching void where my heart used to be.

He didn't love me. He never had. He had used me, my body, my love, my hope.

And in that moment, sitting on the cold floor of my bedroom, I made a decision. It was over. I would not be his fool for one more second. I would cut him out of my life so completely he would become nothing more than a ghost.