✓✓✓✓✓✓ CHAPTER EIGHT ✓✓✓✓✓✓

GRAYSON VALE

I hadn’t meant to do it.

At least, not at first.

It started as a thought. A stupid, impossible, intrusive thought that I kept swatting away until I found myself standing in my guest bathroom holding Janelle’s toothbrush like it was a live wire.

I stared at it for a long time. Then I dropped it into a sealed bag like I hadn’t just crossed a hundred lines.

The hair came later… from the black coat she left hanging over my chair. A few strands clung to the wool like static. It felt like stealing. It was stealing.

But I did it anyway.

I sent both to an old friend of mine… Dr. Reid Garrison. He ran a private lab in Palo Alto and owed me a favor from years ago. We’d met back when I was still coding out of my garage and he was running DNA tests for ancestry startups.

I called him late that night.

“You want me to run a full sibling match?” he asked, yawning through the line.

“Exactly what I've been telling you since the world began,” I said casually.

“On who?”

I hesitated. “On two women. One’s… gone. The other might be her twin. I need to know if they’re blood.”

“You sure you want the answer to this?”

“No,” I admitted. “But run it anyway.”

He grumbled something about ethics and timelines and told me he’d call me in three days. I didn’t sleep for two.

When he finally called back, I was in the back of my car, parked outside Janelle’s apartment.

“Grayson,” he said. “We need to talk.”

I knew.

I just… knew.

“They’re biological twins,” he said. “Same mother. Same father. 99.99% match. I triple-checked. I thought I screwed up, so I reran the test. It’s real.”

I didn’t respond right away.

“Grayson?”

“I’m here,” I said, my throat dry.

“Who are these women? Because this is some movie-level mystery crap.”

“Thanks, Reid,” I said quietly. “I owe you.”

He let out a long breath. “You might owe me an explanation too.”

I didn’t give him one.

Instead, I drove off and ended up at Rowan’s apartment—the one friend I trusted enough to unload even a fraction of this on.

Rowan was in boxers and a hoodie when he opened the door, toothbrush hanging from his mouth. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Close enough,” I muttered.

He stepped aside. “Come in. Let me guess. It’s about her.”

“Yeah.”

“The mystery chef. Eden’s doppelgänger.”

I sat on his couch, rubbed my face with both hands. “She’s not a doppelgänger.”

Rowan paused. “What?”

“They’re twins, Ro. Biological. Full blood.”

“You can't be so sure, man,” he said, sounding dismissive.

“I ran a test.”

His mouth opened and closed like he didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t plan to,” I added. “But once I saw her... I couldn’t let it go.”

Rowan slowly sat across from me. “Holy shit.”

“I don’t know what this means,” I said. “I don’t know if Eden knew. I don’t know if Janelle knows. But it changes everything.”

“Does it?”

I looked at him.

“Because from where I’m sitting, it just makes things messier. Grayson, you’re falling into a spiral. Again.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?”

I stood, pacing. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I know Janelle didn’t grow up with Eden. She didn’t even know she was adopted until recently. Her whole history’s been tampered with.”

“So what do you want to do? Show up with a PowerPoint and say ‘surprise, you have a twin sister and your life’s a lie’?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped.

Rowan held up his hands. “Okay. Breathe. I’m just trying to slow you down before you do something irreversible.”

“Too late for that.”

“Why? What’d you do?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled out my phone and dialed her again. Straight to voicemail.

Again.

Again.

And again.

Nothing.

I texted her:

‘I need to talk to you. Please. It’s important.’

‘It’s about Eden.’

‘Janelle, pick up.’

No reply.

I dropped the phone and sat back down.

“I screwed it up,” I murmured. “I pushed her too far.”

Rowan studied me. “You care about her.”

I didn’t answer.

He leaned back. “Wow. Grayson Vale, the emotionally unavailable tech god, falls for a woman who thinks he’s a liar, a control freak, and possibly a murderer. That tracks.”

I shot him a glare, but he just grinned.

“Look, man, I get it,” he said. “She’s different. Smart. Fiery. She challenged you.”

“She’s more than that.”

Rowan’s smile faded. “Then maybe don’t treat her like a project. Or a ghost.”

That hit harder than I expected.

Later that night, I ended up at a bar with some of my old college buddies… people I hadn’t seen in a while. They were the kind who drank whiskey neat and still made jokes like we were twenty-two.

One of them, Declan, raised his glass and said, “So rumor has it Vale’s dating some hot chef now. One who nearly killed someone with undercooked shrimp or something?”

The table laughed.

I didn’t.

“Guess you have a thing for danger,” another joked.

“I guess I have a thing for people who actually fight back,” I said coolly.

Declan leaned forward. “Wait. Are you serious about her?”

“No,” I lied.

“Good,” he said. “Would be embarrassing if the great Grayson Vale fell for some broke girl who can’t even keep her business afloat.”

I stared at him for a moment too long.

“Relax,” he said. “I’m kidding.”

I downed the rest of my drink, stood, and threw a few bills on the table. “You should work on your jokes.”

And then I walked out.

They didn’t know.

None of them knew.

She wasn’t some girl I was slumming with. She wasn’t a charity case. She wasn’t a replacement or a regret.

She was something else entirely.

And if I’d had the guts, I would have told them exactly why I fell for her.

But I didn’t.

Not yet.