by Sierra Rose
The waitress gestured them to a booth in the corner, and then left with a knowing smile.
“—at which point, I went online to research sea urchins and whether or not they happen to be poisonous,” he concluded with a grand relish, ripping open a packet of sugar and pouring it into his coffee. “Coincidentally, they’re not. At least, not the one that stabbed me.”
She shook her head in amazement, gazing across the table in sheer disbelief. When did a man on a construction salary have time to take a four week long vacation to Bermuda? On that note, how the hell was he able to take off two weeks right now? Without putting in any notice.
“It sounds like you’ve been everywhere,” she mused, lowering her eyes to the menu, before glancing up again at his face. “The Caribbean, Malta, Greece, New Zealand. I’m trying really hard not to be jealous. How could you possibly afford to do all that?”
His smile froze for a moment, before he cleared his face with a charming smile. “My parents took me. They were really big on travel.”
She nodded slowly, scanning his eyes for any trace of a lie. “Your parents—the teacher and the librarian? They had the money to travel all over the world?”
This time, the smile faded. Wilting his shoulders along with it. He bowed his head for a moment, looking as though there was something he would very much like to say. Then he sighed quietly, and flashed her a tight grin.
“You certainly do your homework.” It sounded like he wasn’t at all pleased about this little realization. “Is there anything else you found in my file that I should know about?”
She returned his forced smile with one of her own. “No...why?” Her head cocked curiously to the side. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
They froze at the same time. Staring across the table. Neither one willing to be the first to blink. Neither one willing to be the first to break.
“Hey there—are you folks ready to order?”
Lacy startled in surprise, then looked up in disappointment at the waitress.
Perfect timing. Right when I was FINALLY getting somewhere.
“Uh...yes.” She glanced once more at her menu. “I’ll have the Belgian—”
“Logan Chase?”
This time, the entire table turned in surprise, looking to see where the voice had come from. They all turned except one. The second he’d heard the name, Dylan had gone very still.
A man walking towards them paused deferentially, but then continued to come closer—a look of sheer astonishment splashed all over his face. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but...it’s you, isn’t it? Logan Chase of Skylight Resorts? The corporate billionaire from Miami?”
“What? You must’ve made a mistake.”
The man snapped a picture. “I don’t think so. And I think you’re busted. How much did you pay that guy to take your place in Florida? Are you hiding a secret girlfriend? Or a secret wife? And why are you meeting up with a PI in Cleveland? What secret are you hiding?”
“Who are you?” Lacy asked.
“I work for TMZ.”
“A tabloid?”
“A celebrity news website. And our assignment is Evan here. I knew that clown back in Florida wasn’t Evan. And when he dropped his driver’s license, I snapped a pic. I came here and followed Evan from that exact address.”
A few more photographers surrounded the table shouting questions. Flashes blinded her and she held up her hands.
Lacy stared at the man in shock, before turning slowly back to Dylan...
...only to have her worst nightmare suddenly confirmed. He couldn’t be Dylan, the construction worker.
Over the last few days, she’d seen him repeatedly fail to react when his own name was called. Whether she was trying to wake him, or a neighbor was getting his attention, or a friend was flagging them down at the movie theater. He never once reacted to the name Dylan, but the second this man said Logan, his entire face had frozen perfectly still.
The manager kicked out all the photographers and threatened to call the police. Logan followed them outside and had a talk with all of them. She was sure he was paying them off to keep quiet. When he came back inside, her eyes widened.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” She knew the answer, before she even asked the question. “Logan Chase...that’s your real name?”
Just like that, Dylan disappeared forever, as Logan came forward to take his place.
A look of fear flashed across his face, but it was paired almost instantly with a depressed sort of resignation—like he knew there was no way to deny it. The man who’d exposed him was still standing there, holding out pen and a napkin for an autograph, but a second later, he skittered away under the force of Logan’s gaze. The waitress was soon to follow.
“Yes,” he said softly, unable to meet her eyes. “That’s my name.”
She blinked. Stared down at the table. Then blinked again.
This can’t be happening! How is this possibly fucking happening?!
“But...no.” She shook her head sharply, unable to make the pieces fit. “I followed Dylan Stone for a long time with my job. Looked into his background, his job, his picture.” Her eyes filled with tears as she glared up at him, refusing to believe it was true. “I know what he looks like. I know what you look like. This...Logan? This can’t be real. A twin brother never showed up on my report.”
Logan stared at her for a second longer, his lovely face tightening with an unspeakable kind of sadness. Then he bowed his head with a quiet sigh.
“Dylan Stone is my twin brother. It was a secret adoption that the public doesn’t know about. We were both adopted at birth—sent to live in different households at opposite ends of the country. We didn’t know about each other. We only found out a few days ago when we met in Cleveland.”
He spoke in a low, practiced monotone—as if he had already played out this moment many times in his head. For her part, Lacy was absolutely speechless. What he was saying was impossible, and yet, her gut was telling her that every word was true.
“We decided...we decided to switch places. Just for two weeks.” He looked up slowly, hoping to gauge her reaction. “My business in Florida...it’s very successful. Dylan wanted to see what it would be like to live that kind of life.”
A flat, chilling silence rang out over the table. Leaving them both cold in its wake. Lacy opened her mouth several times to speak, but on each occasion, the words stuck in her throat.
“And you?” she finally managed, glaring straight into those lovely eyes. “Why did you come to Cleveland? What is it you were hoping to find?”
A look of sheer devastation flashed across his face, but he forced himself to speak.
“I was hoping to find you.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Lacy leaned all the way back in her chair.
“...what?”
Logan shook his head, looking like he was coming to realize the words himself even as he was saying them. “I didn’t know it at the time, I would never have believed it if you would have told me...but I was looking for you. Not some variation of you. Not a beautiful, hypothetical idea of you. But you.” With a look of extreme hesitation, he reached across the table to take her hands. “Lacy Larson...I’ve been waiting my whole life for this. This life. This love. For you.”
By now, the entire diner had fallen eerily quiet. Whenever someone asked loudly for an autograph, people looked around to see what it was all about. But although they didn’t recognize the people sitting at the table, they couldn’t fail to see the expressions on their faces. They couldn’t fail to overhear the impossible words. Several had whipped out their phones to snap a secret picture. Some had frozen with their forks raised halfway to their mouths.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” Lacy pushed to her feet before Logan could stop her, ripping her hands away from his. “I’m serious—Logan—what the fuck do you possibly expect me to say?! You played some stupid game. And you did a damn good job. Maybe you could fill in for your
brother at his next job interview. I bet you’d soar right through it.”
“I don’t...” He pushed to his feet as well, completely immune to the spellbound audience as he stared deep into her eyes. “I don’t expect you to say anything. I just had to—”
“You lied to me,” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Every day, since the very moment we met. You lied to me. How could you do that?! And now I know why I saw all those flashing cameras. I thought that maybe somebody might be stalking me. But it was your photographers, the tabloids, the press. All trying to sneak a picture of your new girlfriend.”
“I didn’t know they were following you.”
“Looking for a scoop. Now it all makes sense.”
“I’m sorry if they’ve been stalking you.”
“It must take getting used to. I’m sure you’re used to it.”
“But you’re not. And I’m sorry if they frightened you.”
“They never approached me. Just took pictures in the shadow.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should’ve told me all of this.”
He flinched back like she’d hit him, his eyes tightening in despair. “I didn’t want you to leave,” he answered quietly, so quiet it was almost impossible to hear. “I hated myself for it, every day, I hated myself. But I didn’t want you to leave.”
“So this?” She gestured to the two of them. “Everything that’s happened between us, that was all a lie? Some sort of twisted game you were playing with your damn twin brother?!”
“No!” he cried, reaching instinctively again for her hands, before remembering himself and pulling back. “It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a game. He’s over there, and I’m over here—that’s the only deception there is. Everything that’s happened since I got to Cleveland...” He trailed off, staring down at her with huge, entreating eyes. “Lacy, I...I fell in love with you.”
She stared back. Unable to speak. Unable to move. Willing to give up everything she had if they could just turn back the clocks. Go back to a time before they’d come to the damn diner. Back to a time when he was still Dylan, and she was still Lacy, and everything was fine.
Except there was no going back. For either of them.
“And you knew all I ever wanted was the truth.”
Chapter 13
Lacy went straight to the office from the diner. Ignoring the hordes of bustling pedestrians crowding her way. Pushing through Cleveland’s early morning foot-traffic, only to get into work a full hour before the office was supposed to open.
She shoved her key into the lock with enough force to chip the metal, and body-slammed open the door—secretly relieved she hadn’t cracked the glass in the process. The lights flipped on, she turned on the heat, and she stomped straight to the breakroom to turn on the coffee maker.
Cursing all the while.
“No, I didn’t fall for the notorious philanderer...I fell for his SECRET FUCKING TWIN BROTHER INSTEAD!” A cloud of coffee misted up into the air, as she slammed the container onto the table. “But not to worry, LOGAN CHASE is apparently IN LOVE WITH ME, and as for the whole secret identity thing, I’m sure that will just work itself out in time.”
She tore through six coffee filters, before finally fitting one into the machine. Then she punched the button so hard, the entire thing made an ominous groan.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Lacy whirled around as her assistant Quin came rushing inside. She took one look at the tortured coffee maker, before scooping it into her arms like a child. “Are you crazy?! You could have killed him!”
Lacy abandoned her quest altogether and slumped back against the counter with a quiet sigh. “Tell me again why you decided not only to personify our coffee maker, but why you also determined it was male...”
“I don’t care what issues you’ve got going on this morning,” Quin fired back, cradling the machine protectively in her arms, “but keep them away from Nester. He’s only ever helped.”
Of course his name is Nester. Remind me to fire Quin Leshay as soon as possible.
“I’m sorry,” Lacy mumbled. “I’m sorry, Nester,” she added when her assistant shot her a threatening look. “It’s just...been a long morning.”
Quin’s disapproval was replaced with instant mischief, as she pressed a few buttons and the smell of steaming espresso wafted through the little room. “A long morning, because you had a long night? Cavorting over at the lake with a certain Nordic god I’ll one day steal for myself?”
An image of Logan’s face drifted through Lacy’s mind, and her throat tightened so dramatically that she was unable to speak. Instead, she turned her misdirected rage to the cupboards, ripping them open as she yanked down a handful of mugs.
“...or maybe we didn’t have fun at the lake?”
It was a probing question, but to be fair, Quin was rather entitled. The three women who worked at Verum Investigations spent almost every waking moment together, and there was very little about the others they didn’t know. Lacy’s budding relationship with the notorious Dylan Stone was the talk of the office, and questions were to be expected.
That being said, Lacy was one of two people in the world who happened to know that she wasn’t in a budding relationship with Dylan Stone at all. She was in one with his brother.
Or at least...she had been.
She debated a moment as to what to say. Admitting the truth made it seem all the more real, and she wasn’t ready for that yet. Maybe with Sarah, but not with Quin. It didn’t help that the man in question could decide at any moment to simply show up and—
“What’s wrong with the board?”
Quin glanced over her shoulder, as Lacy suddenly set down her mug. Her bright eyes fixed on the giant board mounted in the center of the wall—the one the three members of Verum Investigations had spent countless hours staring at over the last few years. The one that was plastered with pictures and hand-scribbled notes of all ongoing case suspects.
There was a giant hole in the middle. One picture was conspicuously missing.
“Well, we...uh...” Quin shifted nervously, unable to look her boss in the eye. “I mean, Sarah and I were talking, and we thought it was probably in bad form to leave up your new boyfriend’s picture.” She backtracked quickly upon seeing the look on Lacy’s face. “Just seeing as he was your new boyfriend and all...”
A wave of anger welled up in the pit of Lacy’s stomach, but she kept her face a perfect calm. Instead of answering, she stormed over to the trashcan, pulled out the crumpled but flawless picture of Dylan, and hammered it back in the center of the wall.
“Dylan Stone is not my boyfriend. ...He never was.”
“Because he’s a womanizer?” Quin asked.
“The man I dated, well, I don’t believe he would ever treat women that way. Not ever! Not in a million years.”
“But we saw the pictures and heard the stories.”
“Sometimes...things aren’t what they seem.”
“I’m more confused than ever!”
Lacy abandoned her coffee altogether, leaving the break room, the picture, and a very confused assistant behind her as she swept angrily out into the hall.
By the time she fired up her computer and scanned briefly over the events of the day, Sarah was just getting into the office. She shook back her dark hair and glanced up at Lacy in surprise—setting her purse and jacket down in the center of her desk.
“What are you doing here?” she asked curiously. “I figured you and everyone’s favorite lover boy would still be in bed. Pretending it’s dark out. Pretending you don’t have real jobs.”
Another surge of anger, and Lacy fought to keep a straight face. She needed to get some aggression out. She needed to go to the gym. But Stella was at work halfway across town.
“Ems, how would you feel about sipping a smoothie while I beat up a mannequin?” She tilted up her face with a sweet smile. “I’ll buy.”
Sarah paused, studying her friend with the hint of
a smile.
“...is that some kind of metaphor?”
“Oh—forget it.” The sweet smile vanished as Lacy pushed abruptly to her feet. Her head was spinning, her blood was boiling, and she didn’t see how she could possibly contribute to the greater good by staying at the office. “I’m taking a sick day. See you tomorrow.”
Sarah had just sat down, but pushed back to her feet with concern as Lacy gathered up her things and headed for the door. “Hey—wait a second. Is everything okay—”
Before Lacy could answer, the door burst open and a manic-looking woman flew inside. She took only a second to get her bearings, before zeroing in on Lacy with the focus of a hawk.
“Miss, do you work here?!”
Lacy grimaced as the woman grabbed her by the hands. “Not today.”
“But please!” The woman stifled a broken sob and pulled a crumpled photograph out of her purse. “I think my husband is lying to me—”
“You know what?” Lacy wrenched herself free and swept out the door. “I’m sure he is.”
Chapter 14
The rest of the day passed in a sort of blur. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Lacy got in her car and drove south out of the city limits. The industrial highways were soon enveloped in trees, and a world of grey uncertainty gave way to nature’s green. She pulled in deep breaths of the clean mountain air—feeling like she was able to clear her head for the first time in weeks. The newfound clarity was addictive, and she made it almost all the way to the Oregon border, before swerving suddenly into a rest-stop.
The rest of the highway traffic flew past her, as she stared out the window—her eyes fixing with dilated intensity upon the sunlit trees.
What am I doing leaving the city? It’s MY city! He doesn’t even live there! Dylan Stone might live there, but Logan Chase is from—what—Miami or something?!