From Bridal Designer to Bride

by Kandy Shepherd

  ‘Tori contacted me over social media, outlining the story of the twins adopted separately when they were two years old, telling me she believed I was her sister.’

  He took a step towards her, wanting to comfort her. ‘That must have been a shock.’

  She took a step back, pointedly rejecting him. ‘You could say that. It brought back in its entirety the shock of finding I’d been adopted. Tori had only just discovered that Baby One—me—had been adopted to a Boston couple, Dr Debra Evans and Dr Adam Evans—my parents, of course. Tori was Baby Two, adopted to Marissa Preston and Tom Preston, also of Boston.’

  ‘She’d been waiting for that information as confirmation.’ Josh felt as if he was pushing his way through thick sand, caught in a quagmire of deception that hadn’t been entirely of his own making.

  ‘And you knew that. You knew.’ She spat the accusation.

  ‘Yes,’ was all he could manage to choke out, his mind racing to see how—if—he could salvage something from this.

  ‘She sent me a photo of her. It was like looking at me with short hair. A...a different version of me. I nearly hyperventilated. You see stories in the media about this kind of thing. You don’t expect in a million years that you could find yourself in the story.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He’d made a few abortive attempts to tell her something of the story, but had still not been sure how much had been his to tell.

  He could have prepared her for this. Or could he have? Not without revealing she might have a twin sister. He was stymied whichever path he took. But at least Eloise was telling him what had happened and hadn’t booted him straight out of the door. Although that might be because he was the only other person she knew who also knew Tori and she needed to talk about her.

  Eloise raked her fingers through her hair. ‘Tori asked could we video chat? Before I considered that option, I called my mother. She was as shocked as I was—she’d had no idea there were two babies; neither apparently did Tori’s adoptive mother. I suspect both the mothers would have had a moment, even for a split second, of wondering what it would have been like if they’d been given the other baby.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

  ‘I had no idea there was a connection to you at that stage. It was something so intensely personal I had to do it for myself. A sister. Then tell you about it afterwards.’

  ‘So what happened on the call?’

  Tori was obviously so cranky with him about leaving her out of the engagement news, she hadn’t presented him in a favourable light. He wished he’d known that before he’d come over here with his goofy bunch of roses. Because he knew where this was heading. Had known when Eloise had so pointedly averted her face from his kiss. But he wouldn’t give up without a fight. He was in love with her.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she said, the wonder and shock still in her voice. ‘At first we just stared at each other for what seemed a long time without saying a word. I saw myself on the screen. I wanted to put out my hand to touch her. To see if she was real. It was seriously like looking in the mirror. We’re the same, yet I think we’re very different people. She dresses in a rock chick kind of style. But then, you know that, don’t you? You’ve been friends since high school. Only friends, she reassured me. Strictly platonic.’

  ‘I think of her like a sister; her family were good to me,’ he said. ‘Remember I told you how my mother and I went to live with my aunt in the North End? I met Tori at my new school. She took the new kid under her wing.’

  ‘Yeah. She said that.’ Her tone was frigid. As if his role in this was irrelevant. As if he was no longer relevant to her.

  ‘She has two brothers. Great guys. Did she tell you that?’

  ‘She did. Our lives growing up were very different. But it seems we both had good adoptive parents.’

  ‘So did you like each other? I was sure you would.’

  Her face softened. But for Tori, not for him.

  ‘Immediately we clicked. Certain things fell into place. We were together until we were two years old, so must have buried memories of each other. We both felt something was missing in our lives. Turned out I was her imaginary friend. She was the picture I drew for my mother as the sister I wanted. There were other weird things. We both broke our left arms when we were ten. Had our appendix out at the same time. Both creative and into art and design. Both work with rescue dogs. And seriously weird that we each have wedding-related businesses. Dresses for me, cakes for her.’

  ‘Not weird but a twin thing, I guess.’ Maybe a bit weird considering the sisters hadn’t seen each other for twenty-six years. ‘I’m so happy for you both—it’s an amazing thing to have found a sister.’ He didn’t want to point out that he was the one who had actually found her. It would not be appreciated, he was certain of that.

  ‘It got very emotional; we were both crying by the end. Of course we’ll get DNA tested. Did you know identical twins share almost one hundred per cent the same DNA? But we don’t need a test to know we’re sisters. And there was another thing. I talked to her on my laptop in my bedroom. She noticed on the shelf behind me a small, pink stuffed rabbit. I’ve had it ever since I can remember. Tori left the camera for a minute and came back with an identical one in her hand. A bit more battered than mine, as she grew up with two brothers, but she’d been told it was from her birth mother. I guess mine was from my birth mother too. But of course I’d never been told that. Maybe my parents didn’t know its significance.’

  Josh ached to take her into his arms and comfort her. Finding out about Tori was obviously a positive thing for her, but a deeply emotional one. One she would need quite some getting used to. He wanted to hug her and tell her everything he knew about Tori and what a wonderful person her newly found sister was. But she’d folded her arms across her chest and the emanations coming from her were distinctly hostile.

  ‘I won’t offer you a drink or a snack or even a seat,’ she said. ‘Because you won’t be staying. I can’t believe I was fooled by you when I so wanted to believe in you.’

  ‘But you can still believe in me, Ellie.’

  Her bottom lip stuck out, just like Tori’s did when she was angry. They were sisters all right. ‘Don’t call me Ellie.’

  Another kick to the gut.

  ‘How can you honestly think I could believe anything you say? Tori told me everything. How you discovered a picture of me in a magazine and pointed out the resemblance. How you volunteered to look me up when you were here to report back to Tori in Boston.’

  ‘I had no doubt, that first day in the park, that you were twins.’

  ‘And you kept that to yourself. Even...even when we became lovers. How could you have done that?’

  ‘Out of loyalty to Tori. It was her right to tell you. Wouldn’t you do the same for a friend? Wouldn’t you want to help if it was, say, Vinh? If you had a friend, a good friend who had taken you into her family when your own family had dumped you. A friend who had always felt something—someone—was missing in her life. Wouldn’t you help her find her look-alike who just might be her identical twin?’

  ‘I wouldn’t completely misrepresent myself like you did.’

  ‘Tori made me promise not to say anything to you. I respected that. It was her secret, her story. Your story and your sister’s story. It wasn’t mine to tell.’

  ‘But you let things get so far between us.’

  ‘That’s where Tori doesn’t know the full story. I said I’d try to find you and get a close look at you to check you really were her double as you appeared to be. Photos can lie. But I didn’t count on being attracted to you. On not being able to stop thinking about you. That’s why I flew back up from Melbourne—just so I could see you again.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘I know. I made new business appointments in Sydney to justify the trip, unable at that stage to admit to myself it was reall
y all about you. That was real. What happened last night was real. Those...those feelings were real.’

  Slowly she shook her head. ‘It doesn’t change anything, Josh. I could never trust another word you said. Everything you said to me last night and this morning, I wanted to believe it. And you know what? It makes me distrust Tori too.’

  ‘You can trust her. Tori had no idea about our fake engagement or what happened between us at Silver Trees.’

  ‘Don’t talk about what happened between us. Don’t remind me that I trusted you, believed in you. Now I... I never want to see you again, Josh.’

  ‘Please, Eloise, don’t say that. I’m sorry about how I handled this. Above all, I didn’t want to hurt you. Ever.’ He wasn’t one to beg and plead, but he also didn’t want to let go what he’d found with her without a fight.

  ‘Hurt? Why would I be hurt? It was, after all, only one night. I... I hadn’t had time to get attached.’

  One night had been enough for him to change his entire way of thinking. ‘We talked about making it more than one night.’

  ‘That was before I discovered how you’d lied to me.’

  She was hurting, even if she was denying it. He knew her well enough to know that. And that pain had been inflicted by him. He’d tried to do the right thing by Tori and by Eloise too. Reuniting these two sisters could be a wonderful thing for them. The imaginary friend and the girl in the drawing. Now they were both angry with him. A united force.

  ‘Can’t we try and start again, Eloise? Now that you know the truth about Tori.’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Perhaps we could meet tomorrow and talk this through?’

  ‘There is absolutely no point. Unless you have further business in Sydney, I suggest you fly back home to Boston.’

  ‘Did last night mean anything to you?’ he challenged. It sure as hell had meant something to him.

  She raised her chin. ‘It was great sex,’ she said.

  ‘It was that,’ he agreed. Their lovemaking had been so awesome because emotions had been at play that neither of them had been prepared to admit to. Until they’d let down their guards in the morning. This morning. It seemed an age ago now. Her barriers were right back up again.

  ‘But that’s all,’ she said, making absolutely sure he got the message.

  It had been so much more than sex for him. But he had no right to argue the point. He had to disengage from her. This aftermath of relationships gone wrong was one of the main reasons he had avoided them for so long.

  ‘The only thing I ask, is if we can keep up the pretence of the engagement for a while longer,’ she said. ‘If it gets out now that we’re frauds, it will do more harm than good and I’ll be a laughing stock.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘We’ll stick to the timeline. Give it a few months to peter out. You can tell people we’re in touch. Fabricate a few phone calls. Whatever you need to do. I’ll be in Boston, right out of your way. If someone should happen to ask, I’ll give them the same story. Just text me when you decide it’s gone on long enough, so we keep our stories straight about ending it. I have no intention of returning to Sydney.’ He’d been planning to buy a house here to make it easy to see her.

  He was hurt. But he’d had plenty of experience of hiding his hurts. That old shield around his heart would still do its work, and the cracks would eventually mend. He’d stay clear of the Tori-Eloise reunion. He’d done his best to bring them together. Time to bow right out.

  ‘Let me know if you change your mind about meeting,’ he said.

  Her silence told him she wasn’t going to change her mind.

  ‘I’ll fly out tomorrow.’

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  There was nothing good about it, not as far as he was concerned anyway.

  ‘Don’t take what happened between us out on Tori,’ he said. ‘You’ll like having her as a sister.’

  Wordlessly, she nodded.

  ‘Goodbye, Eloise.’

  He turned on his heel and walked out, not looking behind him.

  * * *

  Eloise was left staring after Josh. She had to hold on to the back of a chair for support, take deep breaths to steady herself. How had this wonderful new phase of her life suddenly gone so horribly, horribly wrong?

  She’d gained a sister. A twin. A miracle. But she’d lost a man she’d thought she could fall in love with. A man she’d started to spin dreams around.

  She breathed in the lingering scent of him, mingling with the rich sweetness of those magnificent roses. How did he know they were her favourites?

  The same way he knew how to please her in bed, how to make her laugh, how to make her think she was with the most wonderful man on earth. And she’d believed in him. Only to have that belief thrown back at her by the discovery of his deceit.

  She’d had a lucky escape. More time spent with him and she would have been back in that sticky, sweet trap of infatuation. She’d made the same old mistakes, thrown away all her hard-won caution. All for a few exciting kisses, a thrilling time in bed.

  Deep down, she knew it had been more than that. There had been an undeniable connection between her and Josh, something so compelling it had overridden caution and common sense. That was what had made it so agonising to find out the truth about him. That he was there in the park that day had been no accident. He’d been there specifically to watch out for her. Mara, the waitress, had recognised him because he’d been sitting at her café hoping to catch sight of her to report back to Tori. What else didn’t she know about him? She’d thought she knew enough to trust him.

  Eloise knew she couldn’t stay here by herself. She’d go crazy with regrets and self-recriminations and a chorus of what ifs hammering into her brain. Home. She’d go home to her mother, who’d said for her the discovery of her twin was almost like finding another daughter. She would want to talk about Tori. She’d pick up Daisy, the little dog whose instincts she’d trusted over her own. Which was a kind of crazy all by itself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Three weeks later

  THE LAST TIME Eloise had flown into Boston’s Logan Airport she’d been fifteen years old and accompanied by her mother and father, arriving from Sydney for their annual trip to her father’s hometown. Her grandparents—her father’s parents—had been waiting for them when they’d come out of Security. Family. That was what it had been all about then. Her memories were bittersweet: her father had died not long after and she hadn’t seen her grandparents since. She was tempted to contact them while she was here—maybe they’d mellowed—but wasn’t sure she could handle their rejection.

  Today she’d flown in from New York and she was also being greeted by family. Her twin sister, Tori. Her blood family. Since the first day they’d connected online they’d chatted most days, even if only for minutes at a time. The need to see each other face to face had become overwhelming. And the opportunity to meet came sooner rather than later. She could hardly wait to hug the sister she hadn’t seen since she was two years old.

  She’d be meeting Tori’s parents and brothers too, which was exciting. As for Josh... Tori knew to keep his name right off the reception committee. During their online chats, Eloise had specifically asked her new-found sister not to talk about Josh. How could she forget him any other way?

  Eloise had spent the last week in New York City. Roxee’s actress friend’s wedding had turned into a mega celebration with twelve bridesmaids and three changes of gown for the bride. It was a job that had required Eloise’s hands-on presence. The American side of the business was burgeoning and getting more and more time-consuming. Not just for the actual design and production of the garments but also the tariffs and taxes on importing Australian-made products into the United States and the consequent paperwork. Then there were the celebrities impatient at being put on an ever-growing waiting list.

  It w
as getting to the stage that the balance was starting to tip between her Australian clients and her clients in the USA. She had to be careful not to overstretch herself—that could be the death of creativity, and she’d seen it too many times when designer friends had started their own labels and ended up bankrupt.

  She might have to establish an atelier in New York, perhaps put Vinh in charge. But the fact was it was her name on the label. And it was Eloise Evans those demanding new clients wanted to see, certainly in the first instance.

  She should be deliriously happy about her business’s rapid expansion. Trouble was, she couldn’t take much joy in it.

  ‘You’ve had too many emotional ups and downs,’ her mother had said soothingly. Her mum knew about Josh, as Eloise had sobbed out her distress on her shoulder.

  ‘There are plenty of other fish in the sea,’ her mother’s advice had been. That was always her relationship advice. She didn’t think any of Eloise’s boyfriends had been worthy of her daughter. This time, Eloise suspected she was secretly glad things hadn’t worked out with Josh. She didn’t want to lose her only child to Boston.

  Her mother had joined in some of the video chats with Tori. ‘We’ve found each other, but we’ve also each found a new family,’ Tori had said several times in delight.

  So the deeply hidden gap in Eloise’s life caused by her long-lost sister had been filled. Sadly there was now another painful gap: Josh. True to their agreement, they hadn’t contacted each other. For her own well-being, she needed to forget he’d ever been in her life. So why did she miss him so much? She couldn’t go to her favourite café in the park, the restaurant where they’d had their first date, even Mara’s café near her work. So many memories for such a short time together. And that was apart from the dreams that haunted her sleep and had her waking to tears when she realised he wasn’t there. Poor Daisy had had her fur wetted with tears, but the little dog had only given her comfort. Eloise didn’t know how she would bear to give this dog away. She might have to admit to being a foster fail and keep her.