Page 11 of Don't Date Your Nemesis

Our fingers touched, and I jerked my hand back as if he had burned me.

“Still compensating with excessive chlorine exposure, I see,” I said sweetly.

His jaw ticked, but he forced a smile and said, “Still showing up where you’re not wanted?”

“It’s my cousin’s engagement party.”

“And Ethan’s my best-friend. I was in his life before you were born.”

The audacity. The absolute audacity of this man.

“We’re the same age, you egotistical⁠—”

“Children!” Marcus cut in, laughing as if this was all very amusing and not a powder keg about to explode. “Perhaps we could save the death match for after the toasts?”

Liam’s date appeared at his elbow. Valentina was a model who worked for about seventeen different charities. She also had an engineering degree, because of course, she did. She was probably gearing up for Miss Universe too. Women like her didn’t just have one talent. No, they collected them like Pokémon cards.

“Is everything okay?” Valentina asked, her voice like honey.

“Fine,” Liam said tersely.

“Wonderful!” I beamed, with enough fake enthusiasm to power a small city.

We were not fine. Nothing was fine.

I was about to grab my champagne glass, ready to retreat to literally anywhere else, when I heard the whispers and the shift in energy meant that something terrible was happening.

I turned and there they were.

Yash Malhotra, my ex-boyfriend and the man I had planned to marry. Who promised me forever, who looked me in the eye and said he loved me.

And Diya. My twin sister, my other half, and wearing the same golden dress I was wearing.

The same fucking dress.

Except hers was shorter, showing more leg, and somehow the dress that had made me feel beautiful suddenly made me feel like a before picture. Like the curvy, too-much version of my own sister.

Yash’s hand was on Diya’s waist, possessive and familiar in a way that made my stomach turn.

Diya saw me and had the audacity to look surprised. “Oh! Deepika! I didn’t know you’d be wearing… I mean, you look⁠—”

I couldn’t hear the rest. Blood was rushing in my ears, my heart was hammering against my ribs, and I was going to either cry or commit murder, and I wasn’t sure which would be more satisfying.

So I did what any rational adult would do.

I turned to grab my champagne for a sip and accidentally threw the entire glass on Liam’s Tom Ford suit.

The champagne arced through the air in slow motion, splashing across his chest, his jacket, and probably his shirt underneath.

“Oopsie,” I said, not sorry at all.

Liam looked down at his ruined suit. Then at me and then at his suit again.

“Oopsie,” he repeated, his voice deadly calm.

If it hadn’t been for the situation I was in, I would have laughed at him.

And then he bumped into me accidentally of course, sending me stumbling backward directly into the dessert table.