Page 21 of This Life of Mine

Because Cole and his nephew Steven were close. Like brothers. Steven and I had grown up together. Same high school. Same football games. Same dumb teenage drama. We were friends long before I officially became part of the Allister family. Close enough that trust felt automatic.

Which made what happened hit both of us like a brick wall. Steven lost his best friend and his uncle in one blow. Betrayed by the man who helped raise him and the woman he loved—the mother of his children. Everything Steven believed was solid collapsed at once.

And me? I lost my husband to that same woman. The same Cassie.

The overlap is almost laughable for how cruel it is. An uncle sleeping with his nephew’s girlfriend. And the girlfriend getting pregnant by both men.

The entire situation was so absurd it sounded made up whenever I tried explaining it. It wasn’t only messy and complicated. It was…twisted. The kind of betrayal that blurs every boundary that should exist between people.

Everything folded in on itself until nothing was distinguishable from harm. A family imploded in real time while Cole and Cassie pretended nothing was wrong.

There wasn’t just one villain. There were two. Two selfish people choosing themselves over everyone around them and leaving the rest of us to sort through the wreckage.

But Cole choosing to cheat withherof all women had always confused me.

I may be a little vain about myself and think I’m pretty, but that’s not truly the reason I questioned his choice. I questioned his choice because Cassie wasn’t his type. At least not the type he spent years convincing everyone was his type.

If you’d asked me back then, who Cole would eventually cheat with, I would’ve pictured some gorgeous bartender with a wicked smile. A fitness model. A stripper. Someone effortlessly sexy and impossible to ignore.

NotCassie.

Then again, maybe I’d misunderstood what Cole actually wanted. Cassie never challenged him. Never questioned him. Never disagreed with him. She fed his ego like it was her full-time job.

You’re so clever, Cole. You’re such an amazing husband, Cole.

The memories alone make me want to gag.

It may not have been about beauty. Maybe it was about worship. And Cassie had always been willing to kneel.

Chapter seven

Lina

Seeing Cassie’s face drags every ugly memory back into the light. Months after everything came out, I’d fantasized about confronting her. And it had no connection to Cole.

No, I wanted to know how she slept at night.

How she smiled to my face while lying to me. How she sat across from me, and never once experienced any guilt for being a conniving slut.

There had been a time when I’d daydreamed about smashing that face of hers into something hard. A wall. A table. Now the dairy cooler three feet to her left.

Not for sleeping with Cole, but for helping him destroy a family and then acting like she’d done nothing wrong.

Makes me wonder how quickly security would escort me out of Sprouts if I let my fantasy become a reality and introduced her ugly face to the dairy fridge glass.

I force the thought away. I’m not going to jail because of this bitch.

“Cassie,” I mutter. Her smile widens.

“I thought that was you.” Of course she did.

I force myself to stay composed.

“It’s so good to see you,” she says.

The fucking audacity.

Cassie rests a hand on her stomach. Like a reflex. Or a weapon.