"You have single-handedly turned our office into a circus."

"I don't think it was that bad."

Joshua held open the front door for me, frowning. It was a good show, but I knew he wasn't actually that mad at me. I had caught a slight smile on his face a few times during the drive back to the house. We hadn't spoken a word, which was fine, and when he hadn't been shifting gears, his hand rested on my thigh. Every time I caught him fighting a grin, he'd squeeze my leg.

"It's an HR nightmare."

Okay, yes, I could see that. Nothing I did there today was appropriate. There was no way that kind of behavior would have been tolerated at my old job. Granted, it was a school and there's no way something like today would have happened. Nevertheless, they would have fired me immediately. And I knew better than to act this way.

"Joshua, I'm sorry."

He ran both hands through his long blond hair. "You don't have to apologize."

"Yes, I do. I was completely unhinged."

He laughed. Finally. His blue eyes crinkled in the corners, and I laughed with him. "I wouldn't go that far. Both Mal and Melody have a way of pissing people off."

I wasn't going to argue that point. "Then why are you mad?"

"Not mad," he said and motioned for me to go into the study. "Just preparing myself for any fallout."

I chose a large, comfy-looking leather chair near one of the bookcases and facing the enormous wooden desk. The desk that was locked. Something was inside it that Noah - it was his desk, I just knew it - didn't want someone to see. Or was it just me he was hiding something from? Maybe Joshua would know.

Now was not the time to ask him. He sat in the matching chair next to me, sighing as he slouched into it. We were waiting for Noah and Mal to get here. Joshua had messaged Noah when we left, giving him the condensed version of events, and told him to meet us here as soon as his meeting concluded. Mal was already on his way home when Joshua had called him.

After kicking off my heels, I tucked my legs under me. "Why would you have to deal with the fallout? What do you do there?"

He closed his eyes like whatever he was about to say would be difficult. "I'm the legal counsel for the company."

That was the last thing I had expected. "You're a lawyer?"

Ah, there it is. His smile came back again. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

"You never mentioned anything about being interested in law school when we were younger."

"A lot changed after we lost touch."

"Except we didn't 'lose touch', did we?" I used air quotes to emphasize my irritation. "You lied to my brother to save your own asses, Noah disappeared, and then I barely saw you for ten years."

"Noah told us to keep our mouths shut. It was bad enough for Riley to lose Noah as a friend. He didn't want him to lose us, too."

I remained silent. Noah would do something like, there was no doubt. Always trying to protect people. My anger dissipated, and I reached a hand across the space to Joshua. He grasped it tightly and finally opened his eyes to look at me. We smiled at the same time.

Someone was stomping down the hall towards us. We both knew it was Mal, and we said nothing as he strode into the room. He gave our joined hands a glance and then came over to stand in front of my chair. Without a word, he scooped me up, sat down, and settled me into his lap. He made a point of not disrupting Joshua's hold on me.

"When Noah got in trouble," Mal began and I stiffened.

"Should we wait for him?"

"No," Joshua and Mal answered together.

Joshua turned in his chair to face us. "This is our part of the story."

"Noah got arrested, lost his case, and went to prison," Mal said. His tone was ineffectual, disconnected. His usual don't-give-a-shit attitude was gone. This bothered him to talk about it. "We knew it was bullshit. All of us. Riley wasn't speaking to him yet; that came later, but Jay and I were determined to help him."

"The police and law let him down," Joshua continued. "He was sentenced for something he never did, and no one would do anything about it."

"So you decided to become a lawyer?" I asked.

"And I became a cop."

I turned in surprise to Mal. Before I could ask him anything, he put a finger to my lips.

"Let us finish."

They took turns telling me about their journeys to become Noah's advocates. Mal left school when he turned nineteen to enter the police academy. It was easy for him. After graduation, he advanced quickly through the ranks, relying on his strength and intelligence to eventually become a detective. In his spare time, he investigated the circumstances surrounding Noah's arrest - he left out any details specific to exactly what Noah was arrested for. He quickly discovered that the detective in charge of the case had been accused numerous times of accepting bribes and falsifying evidence, along with several officers in the same precinct. That's where he focused his effort. If he could discredit them, or at least the work they had done on the case, then there was a chance Noah could get out.

Meanwhile, Joshua finished his undergraduate degree and moved on to Boston University's School of Law. He worked as an assistant at Davenport, Williams, Basset, and Associates. John Davenport's law firm. He started sharing evidence and details he got from Mal, and eventually, the firm agreed to represent Noah and appeal his case.

By then, Riley and Noah had been back in touch for a few years. Noah had given Riley control of all of his inheritance to maintain the marketing agency after Noah's parents passed. My twin was preparing everything for Noah's return, confident that he would be released now that he had proper representation. He purchased the Brownstone so they could have a home. So Noah could have a home.

I had to interrupt. "I don't understand. Why didn't he have the representation before? His parents -"

His parents had been rich, they had the means to hire the best lawyers for him. Yet it didn't seem like that happened.

"I didn't tell them what was happening," Noah spoke from the doorway. "They never found out. And then they died."

He looked so casual, leaning on the door frame with his arms crossed and his shirt partially unbuttoned. He had removed his jacket and tie before coming in and rolled up his shirt sleeves like he was preparing to dig into something dirty. Maybe that's how he viewed his past. Some dirty secret.

"Why didn't any of you tell me?" My voice cracked with my newfound anger. It was misplaced. I was sad and so devastated that Noah had gone through whatever this was without me. "I could have helped! I would have - maybe if I'd, I don't know! I could have done something!"

Mal let me go as I fought to stand, to go to Noah. Noah met me halfway, looking down at me with sorrowful eyes. He cupped my face in his hands, kissed my forehead, and then took my hands so I would stop wringing them.

"I didn't want you to know. I was embarrassed. I thought you'd hate me even more than you already did."

He backed me up towards the chairs until I felt someone's hands on my waist, pulling me down into a lap. Joshua positioned me so my back was to his front, and there was enough room in the large chair for me to tuck my legs so they wouldn't be awkwardly hanging off. Joshua must have felt my hesitation and desire to go back to Noah. He wrapped his arms around my middle, holding me in place.

"Leave him," he whispered so only the two of us could hear.

Noah turned away from me, and I watched as he took a few deep breaths, the muscles in his back expanding and contracting as he prepared to finally tell me everything I wanted to know.

"Daphne," he breathed out. "The girl I told you I slept with."

Dread washed over at the mention of her. "What did she do to you?"

He turned then, meeting my eyes. Something flickered across his face. Surprise? Relief? Did he really think that after everything Mal and Joshua had told me, I still believed he was to blame for whatever was coming next?

"Turns out, I never actually had sex with her. We met at a party, she tried flirting, but I wasn't interested. When I told her I was unavailable, she didn't take it well. Daphne was not used to being turned down. We lived in the same dorm, much to her delight, and somehow, she found out I was rich. Her advances got even more desperate.

"It was around a month or so of her throwing herself at me when I lost my temper and said some things I shouldn't have. She said some nasty things about you, and I threatened her. It happened at a bar, at my roommate's birthday party, and a lot of people saw and heard the whole thing. Looking back on it, I think she did it on purpose. She was already planning something."

"She's the one that got you arrested," I said. There was no doubt in my mind.

"Yes. That same week, I learned she had been telling people that I had been abusing her. She'd show up to class with a black eye and marks all over her arms. Someone had posted a video of me threatening her at the bar, so it was easy for her to convince almost everyone that she was a victim. At our next party together, she drugged me. She must have had help because the next thing I knew, we were waking up naked together in a bedroom, and Daphne was screaming that I raped her."

Bile rose up the back of my throat. Joshua readjusted so he could place a hand along my spine, stroking to calm me, to try and reassure me. It wasn't helping.

Mal had stood from the chair and began pacing. The retelling of this story upset him, his anger rolling off of him in waves. Noah clapped him on the back as he passed by him, giving him a jerk of his chin in understanding. Without another word, Mal left the room.

"But you didn't do anything. You didn't touch her!" My vehement reaction made him smile. It was a little sad, but a smile nonetheless.

"That wouldn't be proven until much later. She said I drugged and raped her. She even went as far as to go to the police but didn't give them my name. Not yet. One of her stupid friends had pictures - staged photos - and then Daphne winds up pregnant. It wasn't until I refused to give her any money that she outright accused me. It was all blackmail. She wanted to trap me, wanted my money, and she thought claiming that I was the father of her baby would do it. But I knew it wasn't mine. I just knew it."

He stood suddenly and came for me, yanking me from Joshua's lap. His hands encircled my upper arms, holding me in place as his eyes searched my face. He was desperate to know what I was thinking, except he didn't ask or say anything. Part of him was probably afraid that I would blame him, be mad at him, still hate him.

I started to cry. It was not the reaction he was expecting. He released me in surprise but I threw my arms around his neck and buried my face into his chest. "I'm sorry, Noah, I'm so sorry."

"You're sorry?" He held me to him. "Whatever for?"

"You could have told me. I would have understood. You'd never do something like that. Never!"

Noah pulled back, looking ashamed. "I couldn't face you. I was a coward. To have you find out I was in prison for sexual assault, for rape? No," he shook his head. "It was better you thought I was just an asshole that ran away."

This man and the stupid ways he tried to protect me were going to kill me someday. I couldn't wait to allow him to try. "You didn't need to hide it from me. You never have to hide from me."

I paused, leaning back from him. "How long have you been out?"

He and Joshua could both tell where I was going with that question. Noah may have been wrongfully imprisoned for seven years, yes, and as much as it hurt me that he felt he couldn't tell me, I recognized why. What had he been doing when he got out, though?

Joshua wrapped his arms around me from behind, my hands resting on Noah's chest. "We were putting his life back together, baby girl. He was - adjusting."

"Rehabilitating," Noah spoke the word with disgust. He wouldn't look at me. Instead, he concentrated on tracing the cuts that lined my palms. "Riley, well, he pretty much got me back to normal. I wasn't fit for much when I first got here, and he helped me. Your pain-in-the-ass brother saved my life."

I stilled. "How did you try to do it, Noah?"

His head jerked up. I knew what he wasn't saying.

I cupped his cheek in my hand, and he leaned into it. At the same time, he held his arms out in front of him, turning them so I could see the inside of both his wrists. Beneath the wide wristband of his watch, I saw a silvery white scar peeking out, running vertically up his arm. It wasn't very long, but if he had cut deep enough, it would be all he needed. There was a matching one on the other wrist.

My tears fell in the silence. Joshua whispered reassuring things into my hair while I clung to Noah's arms, thumbs stroking over the scars.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I murmured over and over to him. Not because I felt I was at fault. The pain he must have been feeling, the hopelessness, the absolute loss of any purpose that drove him to hurt himself so badly, to give up - I was sorry he felt any of it. He had lost his best friend, his education, his parents - oh God. They had died when he was in prison. He hadn't even been able to go to his own parents funeral. Riley had been there. Riley had gone for him.

Now I was crying for my twin.

"The day after he found me, he brought me something in the hospital. He said that if I ever tried to do something so stupid, so selfish, ever again, then he'd never let me see you again. And then he dropped your memory box on the bed and stormed out. He told me later that he had found it in my belongings that my mom and dad had at the beach house."

Noah blew out a laugh. "He said he almost lit it on fire when he saw some of the letters inside."

My cheeks flushed a bright red, and Joshua laughed behind me.

"Instead, he kept it, trying to decide if he would ever give it back. Then I went and did this," he gestured to his wrist. "And he put a bunch of your pictures in it."

The picture from the party. The one of me in the purple dress. Riley had asked for that early last year. He had been collecting things specifically for Noah. My pictures, trying to get me to come out for another visit, planning the holidays together... Riley had been trying to get me back into Noah's life.

"Riley may have saved me, but you're the one that brought me back to life, Reggie."

I wiggled from their embrace. Noah looked hurt at my retreat. Joshua narrowed his eyes.

This was it. The moment to take the leap.

I turned back to them. "I'm in this with you, Noah. In this with all of you." My eyes drifted to Joshua.

"I'm staying in Boston."

"Like you ever had a choice!" Mal yelled from the hallway.

His answer broke the tension, and Noah let out a long breath. "You know what this means then, right?"

"What?"

"It's time to celebrate." Noah reached for me, but Joshua shoved him away.

"Absolutely not. Celebrate later. Now we eat."

After the emotional ride I just took, I wasn't sure if food was necessarily the best option. My nerves were raw, and my stomach was in knots. "I'll pass."

Joshua glared. "It wasn't a suggestion. I need you fed and hydrated."

I rolled my eyes at him and crossed my arms. "Why?"

He stepped toward me, his body invading my personal space and pushing me back into the desk. "It's time for your punishment."