My Fake Boyfriend Is My Ex‑Fiancé’s Twin Brother

The last chord was still hanging in the air when the crowd rose to its feet.

I stood with them, clapping until my palms burned. On stage, Evan Rourke bowed over his piano. His dark hair fell across his forehead, and the spotlight made him look like something carved out of gold.

Three years. Three years tonight.

I tucked the small black box tighter against my chest and slipped out of my seat before the second encore.

At the stage door, the security guard lifted his eyebrows at me.

"Miss Hale. Back again?"

"I'm on the list, Marty."

"You're always on the list." He swung the door open. "Funny how you never get mentioned in the program."

I didn't answer. What could I say? *I'm his girlfriend, but nobody's allowed to know*?

Evan's voice played in my head as I walked down the corridor. It was the same thing he'd said a hundred times.

*"Ivy, be patient. One scandal and the label drops me. One photo and everything I've built is gone."*

*"Then when?"* I'd asked him last spring, curled up on the far end of his couch, because he never let me sit close.

*"After the tour. After the album. After Vienna."* He'd kissed my forehead. Only ever my forehead. *"And then I'll marry you. In front of everyone."*

I'd believed him. Every single time.

The box in my hands held a pair of silver cufflinks. I'd had them made by a jeweler in the Garment District, each one shaped like a tiny piano key. On the back, I'd had them engraved: *E & I. Forever in tune.*

Cheesy. I knew it. He'd tease me about it.

I was smiling when I reached his dressing room.

The door wasn't closed all the way. A thin stripe of light spilled into the hall, and with it came a sound—a soft, wet sound, followed by a woman's low laugh.

My smile faded.

"Evan," the woman purred. "Somebody might walk in."

"Let them."

I knew that voice. I'd know it anywhere.

My hand moved before my brain caught up. I pushed the door open.

Evan had a woman pressed against the vanity, his hands buried in her blond hair, his mouth on hers like he was starving. She wore a red silk dress that slid off one shoulder. Her fingers were hooked in his belt.

I recognized her too. Celine Marchetti. The violinist who'd opened for him tonight. The one whose picture was all over the lobby posters.

The box slipped out of my fingers.

It hit the floor and burst open. The cufflinks bounced across the tile, one skidding under the vanity, the other rolling until it clinked against Evan's shoe.

He looked down at it. Then he looked up at me.

He didn't flinch. He didn't let go of her. His arm stayed curled around Celine's waist like it belonged there.

"Ivy," he said, like he was reading my name off a grocery list.

My voice came out thin. "What is this?"

Celine glanced over her shoulder. Her lipstick was smeared across her chin, and she didn't bother to fix it.

"Oh," she said. "Is this the little fan you told me about?"

*Fan.*

The word slapped me harder than anything else in that room.

"I'm not a fan." I stared at Evan. "Tell her. Tell her who I am."

He sighed and finally stepped back from Celine. But only to straighten his cuffs. His bare cuffs.

"Ivy, don't make a scene."

"A scene?" Something cracked open inside me. "Three years, Evan. Three years of hiding. Three years of you telling me we couldn't even take *one* picture together. You said you'd ruin your career. You said—"

"I know what I said."

"You wouldn't even *touch* me!" My voice bounced off the mirrors. "You told me you wanted to wait. You told me it was because you respected me!"

Celine laughed. Actually laughed, her hand flying up to cover her mouth.

"Oh, honey," she said. "He waited because he didn't want to."

I stared at her. Then, of all things, a laugh tore out of me too. Short and ugly and wrong. Because she was right, wasn't she? It was so obvious. How had I not seen it?

Evan's jaw went tight at the sound.

"Stop it, Ivy."

"Was any of it real?" I asked. "Any of it?"

He bent down, picked up the cufflink by his shoe, and turned it over in the light. His thumb brushed across the engraving. For one second, I thought something moved behind his eyes.

Then he set it on the vanity like a piece of trash.

"We're done," he said. "We have been for a while. I just didn't know how to tell you."

"You didn't know *how*?"

"Now you know." He turned back to Celine and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Close the door on your way out."

My knees buckled. I grabbed the doorframe so I wouldn't fall in front of them.

I didn't close the door. I just ran.

The hallway behind the stage was long and narrow and barely lit. Old posters lined the walls, peeling at the corners. My heels slipped on the concrete, and I didn't care. My chest burned. My eyes stung so badly I could barely see the exit sign glowing red at the far end.

*Fan.*

*We're done.*

*Close the door on your way out.*

Every word looped through my skull, louder and louder, until I wanted to claw it out.

I turned the corner too fast.

And slammed straight into someone.

It was like hitting a wall. A warm wall that smelled like cedar and rain. Strong hands caught my upper arms before I could bounce off and hit the floor.

"Sorry—" I gasped, shoving at his chest. "I'm sorry, I didn't see—"

He didn't move. He didn't let me pull away either.

I couldn't make out his face in the dark. Just the shape of him, tall and broad, a sharp collar, the faint shine of a watch at his wrist. His grip wasn't rough. It was steady. Like he'd been standing there waiting.

"Please," I whispered. "Just let me go."

Instead, he leaned down.

His breath grazed the shell of my ear, and every hair on my neck stood up. His voice was low and smooth, quiet enough that only I could hear it.

"Are you really going to let it end like this?"