bChapter /b150

    “Thank you for visiting,” Amber replied. “You made Alice very happy.”

    ‘And you?” I asked.

    She didn’t say no. Instead, she said, “Goodnight, Julian,” and closed the door.

    I walked down the porch with a spring in my step, looking forward to tomorrow.

    Amber’s POV

    After Julian left, Anna came over to help me finish packing. Though once she was actually in my half of

    the duplex, we did little actual packing and more talking.

    “I think Julian wants us to be a familyb,/bb” /bI said.

    Anna gave me a strange look. She always had mixed feelings about Julian, not liking the way he treated me in the pastb, /bso I wasn’t sure what to expect from this conversation.

    She surprised me by asking, “That’s what you want too isn’t it?”

    “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It’s easy to say I want that, and it’s easy for Julian to promise we’ll be a family. But it’s so much harder for it to actually happen, especially with Olivia around.”

    “She won’t be on the trip,” Anna pointed out.

    I wasn’t so sure. Olivia always seemed to show up at the worst possible moments where Julian was, like

    she was tracking him or something.

    But, even if she didn’t physically appear during the trip, the thought of her would still haunt us.

    “While I do feel close to Julian, closer than I’d ever been, even when we were actually together…” When he kept me as his secret wife, tucked away. “With how much he feels he owes Olivia, I don’t think he would

    ever put me, or Alice, first.”

    He might have thought he would. He might even make promises about how things would be different

    this time.

    But I knew the truth.

    If Olivia were to need him, he would feel obligated to go to her, regardless of whatever else was going on

    in his life.

    When he already hadmitments like that, I didn’t know if I could ever fully trust him.

    I never wanted to feel like I was second again. And I wasn’t going to let Alice go through that either.

    “Maybe, just see how things go,” Anna said. “Be open to it.”

    I shook my head. “I already know how this ends.”

    Chase’s POV

    When Chase returned to his hotel room, Olivia was already waiting for him inside. He had no idea how

    she managed that. He certainly didn’t give her a key. She must have charmed someone at the front desk.

    He really just wanted to get some sleep, tired of the moral uncertainty he was feeling, but Olivia’s

    presence denied him that, as did her words.

    “Tell me everything that was said.”

    So he did, and then he showed her the text messages. As she read through, her smile grew and grew.

    “This is perfect,” she said.

    “I’m just saying goodbye,i” /iChase said.

    b“/bNo, Chase. You aren’t just doing that. Can’t you see the opportunity here? Goodbyes culminate in hugs.

    When you go in to hug Alice – oops! The sp opens on her ne and it falls to the ground. Julian

    gets a whiff of her true smell and realizes this isn’t his daughter. The entire trip is canceled.”

    As she was talking, her eyes went a bit wild. She’d always been ruthless, that was nothing new, but this…

    manic sort of desperation made Chase feel incredibly ufortable.

    Like this, she was unpredictable. And he knew that ruthlessness of hers could so easily turn against him,

    even if he did everything she asked.

    His eyes turned to ice as she raised her re to him. “You will not screw this up, Chase. Or you won’t like

    what happens next.”