The Fake Heart Made of Gold (The love that lied)

Chapter 2

Jason Hart had no idea how long he had been out.

When his eyes finally opened, the first thing he saw was a ceiling he didn't recognize. Crystal chandelier. Crown molding. The kind of room that cost more per night than most people made in a week.

He was lying in an enormous bed with silk sheets twisted around his bare body. Every stitch of clothing was gone. The pillows were scattered everywhere, and the sheets looked like a war zone.

Something had definitely happened last night.

His skull pounded like someone was swinging a hammer inside it. He pressed his palm against his forehead and tried to drag the memories back, but there was nothing. Just a black hole where the entire night should have been.

I found the paternity test. I went to a bar. I got wasted.

That much he remembered.

But after that? Complete darkness.

Did I bring some random woman back to a hotel room?

His stomach dropped straight through the mattress.

Then I'm no better than Lauren. She cheated on me, and now I've gone and done the same thing on the very same night I found out about it.

The thought disgusted him.

But almost as quickly, a colder voice in his head pushed back.

No. It's different. I already decided to end this marriage the second I read those results. As far as I'm concerned, Lauren Chase stopped being my wife yesterday. Whatever I did last night has nothing to do with her anymore.

It wasn't the strongest argument in the world, but it was enough to keep him from hating himself completely.

Jason tried to sit up.

The headache hit him so hard his vision went white.

"God..." He collapsed back into the pillows, one arm draped over his eyes.

That's when he heard it. Water running in the bathroom. Someone was in there.

His whole body went rigid.

The bathroom door swung open.

Lauren walked out in a hotel robe, her hair damp, her skin still flushed pink from the steam. She looked like she had just stepped off a magazine cover.

Jason's brain short circuited.

She caught me. She actually caught me.

The irony hit him like a punch to the throat. This woman had fooled him for fifteen years without leaving a single clue, and the one time he slipped up, she walked right into the evidence.

He stared at her, bracing himself for the explosion.

It never came.

"You're finally awake." Lauren's voice was warm, almost playful. She walked toward the bed like it was any other lazy morning.

"You drank so much last night I thought you were going to pass out on me. And then you kept me up until almost four in the morning, so of course you feel like garbage right now." She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair off his forehead, her fingers cool against his clammy skin.

"You're forty years old, Jason. You can't go that hard and expect to bounce back like you're twenty five."

Jason blinked at her. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

No screaming. No accusations. No tears.

She was taking care of him.

"I had the front desk send up some bone broth for your hangover. Sit up and drink it before it gets cold." She nodded toward a tray on the nightstand.

None of this made any sense.

"How did I get here?" Jason's voice came out like sandpaper scraping wood.

"And how did you get here?"

Broken pieces of the night flickered behind his eyes. An underground parking garage. An apartment he had never seen before. He had been so sure it was one of Lauren's secret properties.

So how the hell did he end up in a hotel?

"You texted me." Lauren tilted her head, a teasing light dancing in her eyes. "Said you'd been drinking and didn't want to come home. Told me to meet you here."

She paused. Her cheeks turned a shade darker.

"I wasn't expecting you to be that far gone. But once I got here..." Her voice dropped to something low and private, meant only for him. "You were like a completely different person."

She bit her lower lip, and the look on her face made Jason's pulse jump despite everything.

"You scared me a little, honestly. You didn't hold back at all. Not even for a second." Her eyes traveled down his bare chest and then back up, slow and deliberate. "If you ever want to do something like that again, at least give me a warning first. Let me prepare myself. Because last night..." She leaned closer until her lips were almost touching his ear. "You almost broke me."

The satisfaction on her face was unmistakable. Whatever had happened in this bed, Lauren had enjoyed every single minute of it.

Jason's foggy brain scrambled to catch up. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and opened his messages.

There it was. A text sent from his number to Lauren at 11:47 PM.

I've been drinking. Don't feel like coming home tonight. It's been forever since we did it in a hotel. Come over. I want it to feel like the old days.

He stared at the screen.

He did not remember typing that. He did not remember sending that. He had been so drunk he couldn't even walk straight, and somehow he had composed a perfectly coherent booty call to his wife?

It made zero sense.

But the message was right there.

Jason exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes.

Fine. Then this was the last time. The very last time I will ever touch this woman.

He got dressed, cleaned up, and went downstairs to check out.

That's when things got stranger.

The room had been booked under his name using his own ID, and both the room charge and the deposit had been paid in cash.

"Can I see the security footage from last night?" Jason asked the woman at the front desk.

"I'm sorry, sir. We can't share security recordings with guests. It's hotel policy." Her expression was polite but firm.

"Then can you at least tell me who brought me in?"

The receptionist hesitated, then said, "The woman who checked you in had short blonde hair. That's all I can tell you."

Jason frowned.

Short blonde hair?

Lauren's hair was long and dark. Always had been.

Someone else had brought him to this hotel. Someone who wasn't his wife.

But who?

Before he could press for more answers, Lauren appeared beside him and looped her arm through his.

"Come on. I'm starving. Let's go eat."

He followed her out, glancing back at the front desk one last time before the doors closed behind them.

They ended up at a high end restaurant nearby. Lauren reserved a private room in the back and ordered enough food for four people, including a massive platter of raw oysters that she pushed directly in front of him.

"Eat these. You need to replenish after last night." She popped one into her own mouth and smiled. "You might still have the stamina of a younger man, but you're forty now. You have to pace yourself if you want to keep performing like that for another twenty years."

Jason picked at his food without tasting it. His mind kept circling back to the text message, the blonde woman, the hotel room he couldn't remember booking.

None of it added up.

He put his fork down and stared at his phone again. The message glowed on the screen like a lie written in his own handwriting.

I would never have sent this. Not after what I found out yesterday. Not in a million years.

"You're not eating." Lauren's voice pulled him back.

He looked up at her. Even now, even knowing what he knew, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Perfect skin. Perfect smile. The kind of face that made men do stupid things and feel grateful for the opportunity.

If he had never found that test, he would have spent the rest of his life worshipping this woman without ever knowing the truth.

That thought burned worse than all the whiskey from last night combined.

"Lauren."

"Hmm?" She looked up from her plate, elegant and calm as always.

"You're beautiful. You're famous. Men must throw themselves at you everywhere you go."

"Of course they do." She didn't even blink. She said it the same way someone would say the sky is blue.

Jason's chest tightened until it hurt to breathe.

"Have you ever cheated on me?"

Lauren's fork stopped halfway to her mouth. She set it down slowly, then looked at him with an expression that was half amused and half confused, like he had just asked her if the earth was flat.

"Where is this coming from? Since when did you turn into the jealous type?" She shook her head with a small laugh.

"You're underestimating yourself, Jason." Her smile turned soft, almost tender. "And you're underestimating me."

Jason said nothing for a long time.

Then he reached into his bag, pulled out the folded paternity test, and placed it on the table between them.

"Then explain this."