THE SOCIALITE WHO WASN'T

Three years of playing socialite, and the rich boyfriend I landed turned out to be the little brother of the ex who lied to me for four years.

In college I paid tuition for Christopher, the broke guy every girl on campus watched, and put his mother's hospital bills on my credit card.

Then he cut me off overnight, and that was when I found out he wasn't broke at all. He was the oldest son of the Aldridge family.

The night I met his family, Christopher backed me into a corner, leaned down, and laughed softly. "So you've dated the older brother and the younger one too." "Satisfied?" Chapter 1 I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said quietly.

Christopher paused, then raised an eyebrow. "Right." He looked me over. His eyes stopped on the knockoff necklace at my throat. "You changed your name, you're an heiress now.

Why would you remember anything from back then." My hand closed into a fist. My nails dug into my palm, but I smiled. "Mr. Aldridge, your brother is waiting for me downstairs.

If there's nothing else, I'll be going." I turned sideways to get past him. He put his arm out and blocked me.

His long fingers toyed with the loose hair by my ear. "Micah tells me you two are each other's first love." I didn't say anything.

Christopher laughed, low in his throat. "First love?" "Does he know who used to stay up half the night in that rented apartment, hanging on me, kissing me over and over?" The blood left my face. "The night before graduation…" His fingers slid down from my ear to my jaw and tipped it up, made me look at him. "Who was sitting on top of me, saying she'd never love anyone but me?" He bent his head close to my ear. "Delilah Mercer." "If I told Micah about all of that, do you think he'd still want you?" My face went cold.

Micah was obsessive about honesty in a relationship. His brother had to know that. The first time he told me about it, we'd known each other six months.

He'd had too much to drink that night.

He leaned on my shoulder, slurring. "Baby, I hate being lied to more than anything." "A few days before my dad found out my mom had another guy, she was still telling me I was her favorite.

Me and my dad." "She's the only person in my life who's ever lied to me." "You're the second person I've ever loved, after her.

You can't lie to me…" I laughed and ruffled his hair. "I know." But I knew better. I'd been lying to Micah from the beginning. And now Christopher had that on me.

Smiling while he threatened me with it. I lifted my head and looked at him. He was leaning against the wall, head tilted, waiting for me to speak.

In the dim hallway light his face looked sharper than it ever had.

Nothing like the boy in the washedout Tshirt. "Are you threatening me?" Christopher shrugged. "Just stating a fact," he said evenly. My face hardened.

I had no interest in standing there going over old times with him. Chapter 2 "Is there a point to any of this?" "Yes.

I lied." "But I learned that from you, didn't I?" Christopher went stiff. While he was still frozen, I turned and walked off. At the corner I checked without turning my head.

He hadn't come after me. I let out a breath. Micah was sweet. Nothing like his brother.

He saw me coming down and his face went anxious. "Baby, I forgot to tell you my brother lives on the third floor.

You went up there for my charger—he didn't give you a hard time, did he?" I shook my head and forced a smile. "No. We just ran into each other, said hello." Micah relaxed.

He put an arm around my shoulders and steered me toward the garage. "That's just how he is. He's cold with everybody. Don't take it to heart." "Come on.

I'll drive you home." Half tucked under his arm, I looked back at the house. The hallway window on the third floor was still lit.

Christopher stood at the window in silhouette, his eyes dark and unreadable. He was watching me after all. I turned away and got into Micah's car.

The moment the door shut, I sat back against the seat and closed my eyes. There was only one thought in my head.

Christopher was not going to let this go, me being his brother's girlfriend. Not after the way we ended it. I'd slapped him in front of a room full of people.

That was three years ago. In college, I bankrolled a boyfriend. I was good at what I did. I went to a topranked school, in the major everybody wanted.

I picked up so many scholarships I lost count. I started a design studio on campus, too. Took dozens of commercial jobs and made some money. Then I met Christopher.

He was standing in the shade of a tree handing out flyers. White Tshirt, the collar gone soft from washing. Sleeves rolled to his forearms, a clean line of wrist showing.

You couldn't look away. I stood ten feet off and watched him for half a minute.

Then I walked over and took a flyer out of his hand. "How much for this card?" He looked up, his eyes resting on my face for a second. "It's a gym membership…" "I'll take it." He blinked. "You haven't even read it—" "Don't need to." I folded the flyer and pushed it into my pocket. "You're here.

So I'm signing up." The tips of his ears went red. At the time I thought he was shy. Later I understood what he'd probably been thinking: This idiot is unbelievably easy to fool.

He hadn't had to do a thing. He just stood there, and I took the hook. I chased Christopher until I had him, and after that almost every dollar I earned went to him.

To save that sick mother of his in the hospital. Then it was graduation. Christopher said he'd come to campus, bring me flowers, take pictures with me. I waited a whole day.

He never came. I went back to the dorm in a fog and found out he had blocked me. It was the middle of a blazing summer. I was cold all the way through.

Christopher was gone from my life.

I couldn't reach him, and when I went to the hospital to find his mother, the woman at the front desk looked the name up for a long time and said there was no such patient.

I threw myself at résumés, competitions, interviews. Anything to keep busy, so there was nothing left in me to spend on Christopher. I found a show the industry took seriously.

Ten people in the final, and at the end the winner could take a job at a top agency. I got through the first round, then the second, all the way to the last one. Ten down to one.

Chapter 3 The one I was up against at the end was the college roommate I'd fallen out with—Gabriella. But honestly. Her résumé wasn't as strong as mine.

Her work didn't stand out the way mine did. Even her internships were pathetically thin. And when they announced it, nine of the judges held up her card. One picked me.

I stood there on the stage with no idea what to do. Gabriella had a crowd around her, congratulating her.

Afterward, when people were filing out, a girl from my school couldn't take it anymore. She sighed and said to me: "Don't torture yourself over it.

The money behind that agency is Aldridge money." "Gabriella's dating Christopher, the Aldridge heir.

What judge is going to embarrass her?" I stood frozen. "She's dating… who?" The girl opened her photos and found a group shot to show me. Front row, the judges and the organizers.

Behind them, the people from the investment side and a few younger faces. And behind all of them, on a couch near the corner.

Christopher, lounging back, a careless curve at the corner of his mouth. His head tipped down, listening to Gabriella beside him. The two of them close. Something between them.

Everything in me went hazy. I was certain. That was Christopher. He was in a tailored suit, with a watch on his wrist I'd seen in a magazine. Six figures and up. I knew him anyway.

That face, those eyes. I thought about them every day.

Except that not long before… He'd been out on the balcony hanging up the $9.99 Tshirt I'd bought him online. … "Hey, are you all right?" I dragged an awful smile across my mouth and handed the phone back to her.

My voice wasn't steady. "I'm fine. Thanks for telling me." Gabriella blew up on that show and got the job at the top agency. She threw a party for herself.

She invited all my roommates. Me included. I wasn't going to go. Then I thought about that photo.

It was the first time I'd been in a neighborhood like that, and what I saw stopped me cold.

The house stood back behind old oaks, and the landscaping stone in the yard cost more than I wanted to think about. I'd made a little money by then.

I also knew I couldn't have bought one of the small bathrooms in that house. Gabriella sat in the middle of the couch, flushed, a lot of drinks in by the look of her.

Christopher sat next to her, back against the cushions, a cigarette between his fingers. Loose and easy. His eyes were half shut. No telling what he was thinking.

I had never seen him smoke. I had never seen that expression on him, either. Distant. Indifferent.

The boy who used to smile at me with a dimple in his cheek, who ducked his head and said, "Thank you, Lila" — he was a completely different person.

Gabriella turned to look at him, glowing. "Kit, what do you think Delilah's doing right now? I sent her an invitation. No idea if she'll come." Christopher didn't answer.

Gabriella leaned closer, her voice slurred with wine. "Seriously, watching her get taken in by you like that put me in such a good mood." That made him turn his head and look at her.

He raised an eyebrow. "Feel better now?" "So much better." Gabriella's eyes crinkled. "It was a lot of work for you, though, Kit.

Playing broke with her that long." "But all that money she spent on you, and then you dropped her.

I loved every second of it." Christopher laughed once and crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. "As long as you're happy." I was standing outside the window, my nails digging into my palm.

Chapter 4 I couldn't take it anymore. I was inside before I understood I'd moved. I walked up to Christopher. Raised my hand and slapped him across the face. The crack of it.

The whole house went silent. His head snapped to the side. He turned back and looked at me, and his face went dark. Gabriella shrieked. "Delilah?

What are you—" I didn't look at her. I looked into Christopher's eyes and said it one word at a time. "Christopher.

Let me tell you something." "I will never have anything to do with you again as long as I live. You make me sick." I turned and walked out.

After that day, Christopher's payback started. Payback isn't even the word. For people with that kind of money and that kind of reach, it took one phone call.

My résumés started coming back rejected, one after another. I applied to more than thirty places. Not one interview.

One HR woman was kind enough to tell me on the side: "Honey, did you get on somebody's bad side? Word came down from above.

Your résumé gets pulled before anyone reads it." In the end there was nothing left to try. I changed my name, left New York, moved to another city, and started over.

What I hadn't counted on was that surviving in Miami was even harder than it had been in New York. So I went crooked.

Found myself a "coach," played socialite, and landed Micah, who had never dated anyone before me. When I got home, my phone lit up. A message from Micah.

Sitting above it, a bank alert.

Sixty thousand dollars. [Baby, don't take what my brother said today to heart.] [That's just how he is, he's awful, he's rude to everybody.] I looked at the screen and my eyes stung.

It made me think of when I first met Micah in Miami. My mom got sick. The surgery cost fifty thousand dollars, and I didn't have it. I wasn't good at "playing socialite" back then.

I couldn't even carry a knockoff bag without feeling like a fake. When I had completely run out of options, I lied to Micah and told him my birthday was coming up.

Micah was delighted. He got me a birthday present worth close to a hundred thousand dollars. I sold all of it and paid for my mom's treatment.

At first I thought Micah was just another rich kid looking for fun. Then I found out he wasn't. He really did love me.

Even when his brother said he had bad taste, the first thing he did was turn around and talk me out of being upset. [It's my aunt's birthday in a couple of days.

Come with me?] I held the phone and said nothing for a few seconds. After meeting his brother, I was honestly afraid to walk into an Aldridge house again.

Then another message popped up on his end. [If you don't want to go, forget it.

Don't force yourself.] I thought about it and wrote back. [I'll go.] Micah sent a string of happy cat stickers. Two days later he picked me up for the party.

The house was huge, cars packed all along the front. Micah held my hand and walked me in.

He could tell I was nervous, so he leaned down close. "Don't be scared, baby." "I want you to meet someone. My cousin, my aunt's daughter.

She's your age, you two should hit it off." I let out a breath and followed him through the crowd, over toward the terrace. He called out. "Gabby!" A girl turned around.

Everything in me locked up. It was… Gabriella. She was in a long champagnecolored dress, her hair pinned up. Prettier than she'd been in college.

She turned with a smile in her eyes. "Micah, you're here." Then her gaze went past Micah, like she wanted a look at me.

Chapter 5 "So this is the girlfriend you wanted me to meet?" I edged half a step behind Micah before I knew I was doing it.

Micah glanced back at me, gave a helpless little smile, and gently drew me out from behind him. "Baby, Gabby's great." "You're the same age, you're both girls.

Talk to each other." I stood beside him with my fingers ice cold and nothing to say. Gabriella tilted her head and finally got a clear look at how white my face was.

The smile on her face began to set. Confusion first. Then disbelief.

Then shock and fury, coming up all at once. "…Delilah Mercer?" Her voice shot up. "What are you doing here?" My head was roaring.

I held on to Micah's arm and couldn't get out a single word.

Micah looked down at the two of us and the smile slid off his face. "You two… know each other?" Play a game like this long enough and sooner or later you get caught.

I dropped my head. My lips shook and nothing came out. When I found out Christopher had been faking it, I still had the nerve to hit him. But Micah… Micah was actually good to me.

And this was his aunt's birthday party. I was terrified of getting into it with Gabriella, of the two of us tearing each other apart in front of everybody.

I made myself lift my head. I made myself steady. "You've got me confused with someone else." Gabriella laughed out loud at that.

She folded her arms and looked me up and down. "Delilah Mercer, do you think I'm stupid? I'd know that face if you burned it to ash." She took a step forward.

She lowered her voice, but people around us had already started to look. "What, you couldn't make it in New York, so you changed your name and came down to Miami to hook my cousin?

That's quite a skill set." Micah was right beside me. I don't know whether he caught all of it.

But his brow had already drawn together. "Gabby, what is going on with you two?" "What's going on?" Gabriella turned her head toward Micah and laughed, cold. "Micah, do you have any idea what this 'girlfriend' of yours was doing in college—" "Gabriella." A man's voice came from behind us and cut her off.

My back went rigid. I turned my head. Christopher stood a few steps away in a black shirt, cuffs rolled to his forearms. There was nothing on his face.

He looked at Gabriella, then at me, frozen where I stood. "Your mom's asking for you." Gabriella opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then swallowed it, gave me one hard look, and walked away.

She said something under her breath as she passed him. Christopher didn't answer. He came toward us. Micah's relief was obvious. "Christopher, what's wrong with Gabby?" Christopher