The words leave my mouth quietly, but the way Zayne’s expression changes tells me they land harder than I expected. For a second he just stares at me. Like the sentence hasn’t fully registered yet.
“What?” he says finally.
I swallow, my fingers tightening around the glass of iced tea in front of me.
“Celeste isn’t her real name.”
The room feels smaller now. The warm light above the kitchen table is suddenly too bright, too focused.
“Her real name is Quinn Hart,” I say. “She changed it.”
Zayne’s jaw tightens slightly. He leans back in his chair like someone just knocked the air out of him.
“Quinn…” he repeats under his breath.
The name clearly means something to him and that alone makes my stomach twist. Because hearing my mother’s name in my boyfriend’s voice is one of the stranges
