Mistaken for His Girl, I Dumped the Mafia Heir

I'd been dating a mafia heir online for six months when I learned he'd meant to pursue my roommate.

He'd been given the wrong account.

I'd refused his money and returned his gifts. Grant Whitmore took that as proof I was hopelessly in love with him.

Then an anonymous number sent me his messages with a friend.

“Keep it quiet. I've got her roommate's number. I'll decide when I've figured things out.”

“Decide what? Date the roommate. This one will still be waiting when you're done.”

So he started dating her and muted my messages.

Including the one where I'd already dumped him.

But when I went three days without texting the heir to another crime family, he messaged first.

“No hubby today?”

——————————

When I got home, designer boxes covered the living room couch.

Vivian Blake sat in the middle of them while our other two roommates admired a diamond bracelet. She held her phone above her face, finding the best angle.

“He said this was his apology for wasting time with the wrong girl.”

I put my keys in the dish by the door.

The four of us rented a brownstone apartment in Brooklyn. We weren't family, and we weren't particularly good friends. We had met through mutual acquaintances, and splitting the rent had seemed sensible at the time.

Vivian's father kept the books for one of the Whitmores' legitimate businesses. That connection got her into their parties. Her looks made sure everyone remembered her afterward.

My father had once done accounting work for people in the same circle. He'd retired years ago. At twenty-four, I worked as an editor for an independent publisher, paid my share of the rent, and mostly tried to stay out of the family business everyone carefully avoided naming.

Then I'd made the mistake of answering Grant's message.

He'd been away handling business for most of those six months. Our relationship had existed on our phones: texts, voice calls, photographs, promises about what we'd do when he came home.

Apparently, he'd come home to Vivian instead.

“God, that has to be worth fifty grand,” one roommate said, holding up the bracelet.

The most expensive thing Grant had ever offered me had cost about fifteen hundred dollars. I'd sent it back.

The difference wasn't subtle.

“Some people have no shame,” the other roommate said, looking straight at me. “Looking a little like Vivian doesn't mean you get to pretend to be her.”

“No wonder she kept putting off meeting him.”

“He was out of town,” I said.

Vivian smiled gently. “Don't make her explain. Maybe she really didn't know.”

“For six months? Please.”

“She's going to fall apart when he drops her.”

I stopped halfway to my room.

They didn't know I'd already dumped him.

He probably didn't know, either. He'd muted my messages.

Vivian settled the bracelet around her wrist.

“I actually feel sorry for her. Six months, and she didn't even get a latte. She was spending her own money on him.”

I shut my bedroom door before they could see me smile.

Grant had started ignoring me a week before the date we'd planned for his return.

Before that, we'd talked about everything. He'd tell me a dinner had run late without saying who he'd been meeting. I'd complain about an author who thought deadlines were a personal insult. Sometimes we stayed on the phone until we fell asleep.

I'd worked out a whole weekend for us: a hike, a little cabin, a restaurant with a view. Things that had nothing to do with his surname.

Then his replies became “Busy” and “Later.” Eventually, I stopped getting even those.

I lost sleep. I replayed conversations, looking for something I'd said wrong.

One night, I sent him six messages. Two days later, he answered.

“Working. Stop overthinking.”

I picked up my phone to reply, imagined spending another two days staring at it, and put it down again.

I didn't want this anymore.

I had always been good at leaving. With broke boyfriends, I'd joke about wanting houses and cars, knowing perfectly well they couldn't buy them. With rich ones, I accepted nothing that might come with conditions.

I liked having my own money. I liked being able to say goodbye without hearing a list of what someone had spent on me.

I was trying to find a polite way to end it when the screenshots arrived.

Grant had seen Vivian at a charity gala before leaving the city. He'd asked a friend for her Instagram. The friend had mistaken me for her and sent him mine.

Vivian and I looked enough alike to invite comparisons, and different enough that I always lost them.

Once, I'd worn the same dress as her to a fundraiser. A photograph of us ended up in a private group chat where the sons and daughters of their circle entertained themselves at other people's expense.

After a week of comments about the bargain version, I switched to loose sweaters and stopped going to parties.

Grant's friend, it turned out, had terrible eyesight and hadn't worn his glasses that night.

I'd wondered why Grant wanted my account. But he was handsome, he was interested, and I'd been too happy to question it.

Our conversations had never involved him calling me Vivian. He mostly called me baby. My account used my initials. The few photos I'd sent apparently hadn't challenged what he expected to see.

Now I knew what he'd said when he finally met her again.

“Thinking about the things I told that girl makes me sick.”

“Vivian wouldn't talk like that. I should've realized.”

“Even if I missed it, she should've known I wasn't asking for her.”

I stared at that last message for a long time.

Then I opened our conversation and typed my goodbye.

Dating him hadn't been a complete waste. Wanting to feel comfortable beside him had pushed me to exercise, learn makeup, and stop treating every attractive man as someone out of my league.

That afternoon, on my way back from the gym, I walked into a man outside a coffee shop.

A firm hand caught my elbow before I could stumble into the curb.

I looked up.

Straight nose. Dark hair. A mouth that briefly distracted me from the rest of his face. He was well over six feet, wearing a charcoal coat that did nothing to hide his shoulders.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was texting.”

“I noticed.”

He let go as soon as I had my balance.

A black sedan waited at the curb. The man beside it watched us, then looked away when my stranger gave him a slight nod.

I recognized the arrangement. In the circles my father used to work in, men rarely waited beside cars just to enjoy the weather.

That should have discouraged me.

Unfortunately, he was extremely good-looking.

“Can I get your Instagram?”

He looked ready to refuse. Then his gaze settled properly on my face, and he hesitated.

“It's okay if you don't want to,” I said, already stepping back.

He took out his phone and showed me his profile.

Cole Hayes.

The surname was familiar. I couldn't immediately place it, and I didn't ask. For once, I wanted to meet the man before the reputation.

At least I'd asked him myself. No middleman. No chance of picking the wrong person.

Already an improvement.