He Called Me His Wife’s Cousin

The last time Nathan Reid looked at me like I mattered, I still believed the story he told me about working overseas. Six years later, I found out the truth on a sidewalk outside a hotel, three feet from the woman he actually married. He didn't apologize. He introduced me as his cousin and asked me to keep my voice down so she wouldn't hear. That same afternoon, a stranger helped me pick my resume up off the pavement and offered me a job on the spot. His name was Adrian Doyle. I had no idea his new wife's brother would turn out to be the same woman standing under that hotel awning. I took the job. I kept the second one too, the one that pays in cash, the one that covers what my son's medical bills need and my new paycheck can't yet. I never touch anyone there. I never take private offers. It was never supposed to matter to anyone but me. Then Adrian's company booked the club's back room for a client dinner, and Adrian walked in. He thinks I planned all of it. That I used his sister's kindness to get close to him by day and worked the room by night for money, or worse. I can't prove otherwise with anything but the truth, and the truth has never once worked out in my favor. What none of us know yet, not Adrian, not his sister, not even me, is how much further back this actually goes.