I looked at Gideon.
He did not deny it.
That hurt more than I expected.
Not because he had done anything wrong.
Because after days of lies, even an omission felt dangerous.
“How long?” I asked.
Tristan laughed.
“Tell her.”
“Enough,” Gideon said.
“No. She deserves the truth, right? That’s your favorite word now.”
I turned to Gideon.
“How long?”
His eyes remained on mine.
“Three years.”
My breath caught.
Tristan and I had been together three years.
“You knew?”
“I met you before Tristan did.”
I searched my memory.
Then I remembered.
A hospital fundraiser.
Rain.
A man in a black suit standing alone on a terrace while I escaped a ballroom because one of the donors had spent twenty minutes explaining my own specialty to me.
“You were at the Founders Gala.”
“Yes.”
“We talked for maybe ten minutes.”
“Twenty-seven.”
Despite everything, I stared at him.
“You counted?”
“I remembered.”
Tristan scoffed.
“Touching.”
Gideon’s gaze hardened.
“I never interfered in your relationship.”
“No,” Tristan said. “You just stood there judging it.”
“You were my brother.”
“And she was the woman you wanted.”
I felt overwhelmed.
“Stop.”
Both men fell silent.
I looked at Blythe.
“Pack a bag.”
Tristan stepped forward.
“She’s not leaving.”
Blythe flinched.
I moved between them.
“She decides.”
Everyone looked at her.
For perhaps the first time in her life, Blythe had nowhere to hide from a choice.
She wiped her cheeks.
“I’m leaving.”
Tristan’s expression emptied.
“Blythe.”
“I need time.”
“After everything we did?”
Her face twisted.
“That’s exactly why.”
Twenty minutes later, we left with two suitcases.
Blythe stayed with our parents.
I returned to Gideon’s house because reporters were still camped outside mine.
The drive was silent.
Inside, I went straight to the terrace.
Gideon followed several minutes later.
“You should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because you had just discovered your fiancé with your sister. Telling you I’d wanted you for years would have been selfish.”
I folded my arms.
“And now?”
“Now it’s still selfish.”
“Then tell me anyway.”
His expression shifted.
He walked to the railing.
“I met you at that fundraiser. You were furious because a donor called you sweetheart.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“He deserved worse.”
“He did.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember almost everything you said.”
The ocean moved below us.
“When Tristan told me he had started seeing you, I stepped away.”
“Why?”
“He was happy.”
“And you?”
“That wasn’t your responsibility.”
There it was again.
No manipulation.
No demand that I reward his feelings.
Just truth.
“You never tried to break us up?”
“No.”
“Even when you knew he was cheating?”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Gideon.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I was supposed to be married yesterday.”
“I know.”
“My sister was supposed to stand beside me.”
“I know.”
“My career is under investigation, my ex-fiancé may have committed federal crimes using my identity, and apparently his terrifying older brother has been quietly in love with me since a fundraiser where I threatened a donor with a shrimp fork.”
A corner of his mouth lifted.
“It was memorable.”
I laughed.
Then, without warning, I started crying.
Gideon did not tell me to stop.
He did not tell me everything would be fine.
He simply opened his arms.
I stepped into them.
He held me carefully at first.
Then tighter when I buried my face against his chest.
I cried for the wedding.
For my sister.
For the years I had spent believing being dependable meant never being allowed to fall apart.
For the patients I could not see while administrators debated my integrity.
For the version of myself who had stood in a wedding dress and believed Tristan’s promises.
When I finally pulled back, Gideon wiped one tear from my cheek.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for crying.”
“I hate crying.”
“I noticed.”
I looked at his mouth.
He noticed.
His hand moved to my waist.
Then stopped.
“Laurel.”
“Don’t make the decision for me.”
His eyes darkened.
“I’m trying very hard not to make the wrong one.”
“Then let me.”
I kissed him.
It was nothing like kissing Tristan.
There was no polished certainty.
No rehearsed romance.
Gideon kissed me as if restraint had been holding him together for years and I had just pulled one thread loose.
Then he stopped.
His forehead rested against mine.
“You’re vulnerable.”
“I’m heartbroken. I’m not incompetent.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“Then don’t treat me like I am.”
His thumb brushed my cheek.
“I won’t.”
We did not go further.
Not that night.
The kiss was enough.
In the morning, reality returned.
Blythe called.
“I remembered something.”
“What?”
“Tristan asked me to sign documents last month.”
My stomach tightened.
“What documents?”
“He said he was creating an investment account for us.”
“Did you read them?”
Silence.
“Blythe.”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Send me everything you have.”
An hour later, Gideon and I spread the documents across his dining table.
BHC was indeed Blythe Harper Cole.
Tristan had created an account in her name.
But the signatures told another story.
Some were hers.
Others had been added electronically afterward.
“He was setting her up too,” I whispered.
Gideon nodded.
“If the scheme collapsed after your marriage, he had two possibilities. Your credentials authorized the hospital transfers. Blythe’s account received part of the money.”
“He could blame either one of us.”
“Or both.”
I felt sick.
Blythe had betrayed me.
Tristan had betrayed both of us.
There was an ugly symmetry to it.
That afternoon, federal investigators met with us and Elias in a private law office.
For six hours, we provided records.
By evening, they had enough to begin formal action but asked us not to disclose the investigation.
When I stepped outside, cameras flashed.
Somebody had leaked my location.
“Dr. Mercer! Did you steal from Greyhaven Memorial?”
“Are you involved with Gideon Rourke?”
“Did your relationship with Gideon begin before your engagement ended?”
That last question stopped me.
Across the street stood Tristan.
He wasn’t speaking.
He didn’t need to.
He had given them a new story.
I was no longer the abandoned fiancée.
I was the woman who had secretly wanted her fiancé’s brother.
Gideon moved beside me.
“Keep walking.”
I did.
By morning, photographs of us entering his house were online.
The headline was vicious.
SCORNED BRIDE OR SECRET AFFAIR? LAUREL MERCER MOVES IN WITH FIANCÉ’S OLDER BROTHER
My hospital suspension became front-page news.
Comment sections filled with strangers deciding who I was.
Then Tristan went on television.
He sat beside a local reporter and spoke softly about my “increasingly erratic behavior.”
He said he had tried to protect me.
He said the financial irregularities were “complex.”
He said he hoped I got help.
I watched from Gideon’s living room.
Blythe arrived halfway through the interview.
She stood behind the couch, listening.
When Tristan said, “Laurel has always struggled when she loses control,” my sister’s face changed.
“He said that about me.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Last week. He told me I was unstable because I questioned the bank account.”
She sat down slowly.
For once, there was no rivalry between us.
Only recognition.
“He does this,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“I helped him do it to you.”
I didn’t rescue her from that truth.
“Yes.”
She nodded through tears.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the first apology she had given me without an excuse attached.
I sat beside her.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you yet.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want him destroying you either.”
She reached for my hand.
This time, I let her.
The television interview ended.
Gideon entered from the hall carrying his phone.
His expression was grim.
“What?”
“The investigators found another account.”
“How much?”
“That isn’t the problem.”
He looked at Blythe.
“The account belongs to our father.”
Tristan’s crimes had begun years earlier than any of us realized.
And suddenly the question was no longer whether Gideon could expose his brother.
It was whether exposing Tristan would tear down the entire Rourke empire with him.