CHLOE POV

Jake’s words clung to me like cold hands around my throat.

“You’re my Zoe.”

They echoed over and over as I backed away from him, my heart thundering, breath unsteady, the world spinning slow and then fast again.

He believed it.

Fully.

Dangerously.

I turned, needing space. Air. Anything that wasn’t his penetrating stare or the suffocating lie hanging between us.

But as soon as I took two steps, the ground wavered under my feet.

The ...