“He does. I was ten when my parents split.” Nat’s voice was tight as she asked, “How old were you?”

“They’re still together,” Violet said. “My dad works in the city, but he comes home to my mom and me every weekend.”

Nat absorbed this news without a visible reaction, but inside, her intestines roiled with betrayal. Gabe was married. He had a wife. Everything he’d told her had been a fucking lie.

“He’s a workaholic,” Violet continued. “He drives all the way home and then spends the entire weekend on his laptop. My mom forces us to have a family meal on Sundays, but she’s the only one who enjoys it.”

“He sounds like an asshole.”

“He’s a corporate lawyer.” Violet spat out the words, like she was saying pedophile. “We don’t have the same principles. I mean, I have principles. He doesn’t.”

No, he doesn’t.

“You know how you can idolize someone and then you find out who they really are?” Violet’s voice had turned tremulous. “My father cares about money and success and power. That’s it.”

Nat’s voice was husky. “And your mom?”

“She’s a good person. She had cancer a few years ago, but she’s okay now.” Violet’s eyes were misty. “We’ve had our issues . . . I was pretty wild when I was younger. But she’s always stood by me. She always supports me.”

Nat held it together until she got home from the museum, and then she came apart. Hot tears of shame and hatred and guilt poured down her face, sending a sharp pain searing through her head. She’d been deceived, used, played, and the thought made her want to vomit. Gabe had lied to her. Why?

But she knew why.

If Gabe had told her he was married, she would never have gone out with him. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She would have gone for the first drink, the pay-per-meet, and then she would have walked away. She wouldn’t have fallen for him, wouldn’t have convinced herself that they had something real. And that’s what Gabe Turnmill needed: blind devotion. He got off on it. His enormous ego could only be fed by pure adoration. It didn’t matter to him that Nat’s heart was broken, that his lie had upended her life. He had charmed her, played her, and then dropped her when he got tired of her.

He was a narcissist. A sociopath. A monster. So why did she still miss him? Why did she still love him?

She had to let it go and move on. She had to figure out a way to pay her rent or give up the studio and apply for student housing. She needed to stop day-drinking, had to find a job. But here she was, drunk at two in the afternoon, sifting through Violet Turnmill’s Facebook photos, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gabe in the background. Since the girls’ museum encounter, they had been texting regularly—friendly chatter, flirtatious banter. Nat knew she shouldn’t encourage Violet’s interest, should cut off the friendship before it went any further. But she couldn’t. The connection to Gabe, however sick and wrong, was irresistible.