This time, her use of pronouns registered. “We?”
“My sister and I.” She still wasn't looking at me, her eyes fixed on her plate as she played with her food.
“You have a sister?” Maybe she hadn't only wanted the money for her business but to bring her sister here. “If you need more of the money upfront so you can bring her to America, I'll get it for you.”
At first her smile was warm, as if she was touched by the gesture, then it turned a little bit condescending and proud. “I made enough as a model in Europe to bring us both to the United States. I would not have left her behind. She is the only family I have.”
I had the sudden urge to reach across the table and squeeze her hand, to reassure her that she was part of my family now. It was silly, since this wasn't a real marriage, but her story touched a place in me I seldom explored.
Instead of touching her, I spoke, “She's younger than you?” Livie's personality was definitely more of the oldest child than the youngest. Hard-working, driven, responsible, all characteristics that she shared with my eldest brother.
One corner of her mouth tipped up in a partial smile. “She is, though she would say that only a few minutes should not count.”
“A few minutes?”
“Katka and I are twins,” she said. “Identical in appearance though not in personality.” She smiled fondly. “My sister says we are mirror personalities. She is a free spirit, such a handful as a child, but I am thankful for her joy.”
She continued on a bit, talking more about how she and her sister were alike but also different. I wasn't hearing her exact words though. My ears were filled with a buzzing noise as all of the pieces clicked into place.
The way her personality seemed to change.
Her voracious sexual appetite.
Her pushing me away.
The lack of acknowledgement or memory of our sexual encounters.
Livie hadn't been denying what had happened because of embarrassment or morning-after regrets. She honestly hadn't remembered because nothing had happened between us.
I hadn't slept with Livie.
I'd slept with Katka.
I'd had sex with my wife's twin sister.
I was so beyond fucked.
End of Vol. 2
Twisted Affair Vol. 3
Chapter 1
Katka
I hated lying to my sister, but this was for her own good. At least, it had started out that way. The plan had made perfect sense when I'd come up with it. As soon as Livie had told me the name of the man she intended to marry, I had known I couldn't allow her to go through with it.
The problem was, my sister was even more stubborn and hard-headed than me, no matter what she claimed to the contrary. Once she got something in her mind, it was impossible to get her to change it. Unless she felt as if she'd been wronged, she wouldn't let go. Her word meant a lot to her, but she wasn't someone who allowed people to walk over her.
I had hoped to use her idealism against her. If I could prove Blayne wasn't the man she claimed he was, there was a chance I could get her to annul the marriage, especially since it hadn't been consummated.
Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten the chance to put things into play before the wedding, but once they'd arrived home after the honeymoon, I'd known I had no choice. Livie had actually stopped speaking to me while she was in Europe, annoyed that I continued to question her decision. I wanted the old Livie back. I needed her to see Blayne as the arrogant, spoiled playboy I'd heard about. Not the kind, charming, though slightly irresponsible, man Livie believed him to be.
I had a foolproof plan to prove it. At least I thought it was guaranteed. I hadn't considered the possibility of it completely flopping because Livie hadn't told Blayne about me. After all, why wouldn’t she tell him she had a twin sister? I'd counted on him figuring out who I was after our first night together. But we'd had sex twice now and it was clear he still thought I was Livie.
Now I couldn't tell her I'd slept with her husband; I didn't want to be the bad guy. Sure, she would've been annoyed at me once Blayne told her about us, but her anger would've been directed at him, especially if it had only been once.
There was one other little problem with my ‘foolproof’ plan I hadn't seen coming.
I hadn't thought I'd actually like him.
When I'd first walked into the club, I'd pretended to be my sister on purpose. I figured I'd sleep with him and then, when he realized I wasn't Livie, things would fall apart. She'd see that as soon as she let her guard down, he'd go against his word, and try to get into her pants. Hell, it had barely taken him any time at all to flirt with me and I hadn't even had to push for the kiss.
I closed my eyes and tried to push the memory of our kiss out of my mind. It wasn't easy. Before I'd gone in to see Blayne, I'd told myself I would go through with it no matter how bad the sex was. After all, men like him were usually much worse lovers than their reputations said they were. Women probably told him what he wanted to hear because they were after his money and would say anything.
One kiss and I'd known I was wrong. He knew what he was doing. The perfect combination of demanding and giving. He was confident, but not arrogant. I'd kissed my fair share of men in my fairly short life, and only a couple had ever kissed me like that. When we'd gone back to the penthouse he shared with my sister, I'd told myself I was just following through on my plan. Sex between the two of us had been a means to an end, nothing more.
I'd still been telling myself that lie the first time he'd made me come.
Afterwards, I'd waited until he'd fallen asleep and snuck out, careful to avoid my sister's room. Then I'd waited for her call. And waited. When it hadn't come the next day, I'd begun to wonder. Had he'd decided to pretend it hadn't happened? Which meant he wouldn't say anything that would start the revealing process. By mid-day Monday, I decided I needed to see him again. I needed to seduce him in such a way he would know I wasn't my sister.
I hadn't admitted to myself, however, that I wanted to see him again. I'd enjoyed my time with him much more than I'd intended to. He was funny and charming, but not in the sleazy way I'd expected. He hadn't pressured me or made it seem like he'd expected anything from me. It was so frustrating. My plan to prove to Livie that he wasn't a good guy hinged on him not being a good guy.
The second night we'd had sex, I'd been sure he would realize I wasn't Livie. She didn't dress in sexy lingerie and certainly didn't behave in a sexually forward manner. But when he'd called me Livie again, I realized she still hadn't told him about me. That meant he honestly thought he'd been fucking his wife. I'd known I should've stopped things right there and come clean, but the feel of his hands on my skin had been my undoing. I'd wanted him and I'd been weak.
I'd been more myself during that encounter than I had during our first time and I thought he'd enjoyed himself. I definitely had. But then it had been over and he still hadn't known who I was. I should have told him then, followed through with my plan to tell my sister about how he'd slept with me. Or apologized because he wasn't the man I'd thought he was.
He didn't deserve what I had wanted to do. I'd known I couldn't do it, but I also couldn't take back what had happened. The best I'd been able to do was to leave and vow I’d stay away from my new brother-in-law. It wasn't a perfect plan—they'd be married for three years according to their contract. But I figured it was better to spend three years with limited access to my sister than destroy my relationship with her, and hers with her husband.
The one thing I hadn't thought about was how I'd feel about not seeing Blayne. I didn't sleep around a lot, but I did like to have my fun. It was never anything more than fun though. I didn't do the whole relationship thing and I never got hung up on a guy. When it was over, it was over. Considering Blayne hadn't even known who I was, I couldn't consider us to be anything other than finished.
But I couldn't stop thinking about him. I'd gotten a bit obsessive before, but that had been all about protecting my
sister from someone I'd considered a threat. Now, I saw him differently. I saw Blayne Westmore as the person my sister had seen. Maybe as more.
I knew the story of how his family treated him, how they'd considered him to be an embarrassment, a failure. I knew how his father had set things in motion by threatening to cut him off if he didn't straighten up, including getting married. These were things Livie had told me when she'd explained why she was marrying him. She'd told me he was funny and a genuinely nice guy.
But I knew he was more than that. He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. A sensitive man who hid his true feelings with jokes and misbehavior. He was loyal and passionate. And I knew I had only barely scratched the surface. Despite what anyone else thought, including what he thought himself, Blayne had a lot to offer.
I tried telling myself that I needed to stop thinking about him that way, especially after Livie and I went to lunch and she told me how weird things had been the last couple days. She'd been so confused by Blayne's insistence that they'd slept together, all I could do was hope she hadn't guessed the reason why. My supremely intelligent sister, while one of the smartest people I knew, thought it was more likely that Blayne had either had a sex dream he'd thought was real or he was messing with her. She hadn’t considered for a moment that I'd tricked him. Part of me had wanted to tell her the truth because I'd felt bad about lying to her. Another part had felt even worse about letting her think negatively about Blayne.
I'd kept my mouth shut about it though. The only thought that hurt worse than lying to my sister, was wondering what Blayne would think of me when he discovered the truth. I knew it would come out eventually, especially if Livie decided to talk to him about it. I knew she would, because my sister could never leave well enough alone.
I'd given her the suggestion of hooking up with some random guy for more reasons than the ones I'd given her. I'd known that if she slept with someone, she'd realize she didn't have to try to make things work with Blayne.
The difference between my current desire to keep my sister away from Blayne and my previous one, however, was that now, I didn't want her near Blayne because I wanted him for myself.
It was a hard thing for me to admit, wanting my sister's husband. Livie and I had never gone after the same guys. We may have been identical from our caramel-colored curls to our dark green eyes, but when it came to personality, we were mirror opposites. It was usually the same way with men. Not that Livie really went for many of them. She generally didn't bother with romance, but the few times she had found guys she liked, I'd thought they were... well, let's just say my sister had always had a soft spot for lost causes.
None of them had been bad boys like Blayne – that was more my thing – but they'd all had some sort of brokenness to them that attracted my compassionate sister. She may have appeared to be this highly practical, almost cold, business woman, but matters of the heart always thawed her and led her to these men she felt she could save.
Maybe that was it, I thought. Blayne was the combination of the guys I liked and the ones my sister was drawn to. He had the confidence and compassion, the sensitivity and attitude. He had been hurt by his family, but still managed to stay on his feet.
And then there was that smoking hot body. I ran my hand through my curls. Dammit. Sandy brown hair and dark gray eyes. Broad shoulders, muscular torso. Those deep v-grooves pointing down to a cock that made my mouth water and my pussy throb just thinking about it.
Fuck.
It wasn't just his body I wanted. It was all of him.
And it was that thought that sent me out on a chilly February afternoon, walking along the streets of Philadelphia, heading towards the bus stop that would take me into the city and then to Blayne's penthouse. Livie wasn't there, I knew, but Blayne would be, and I had to see him. I had to know if he knew the truth, and if he didn't, I had to tell him.
There were hundreds of reasons not to and hundreds of reasons why I should, but I wasn't doing this for any of those reasons. I was doing it because I couldn't stand waiting anymore or being the only one who knew the truth. I'd never been a patient person and this was killing me. I had to come clean.
I didn't use the key Livie had left for me before the honeymoon, in case of an emergency, she'd said. I was pretty sure she hadn't meant seducing her husband. This time, I knocked on the door. When Blayne opened it, one look in those gray eyes told me he knew who I was.
“Katka.”
My heart clenched at the sound of my name. I hadn't realized how badly I'd wanted to hear him say my name and not hers, not until now.
“I need to talk to you.” I fought to keep my voice steady. It was funny, I thought. Livie had once told me that the way she'd gotten through working in situations where she'd had to pretend to be friendly with strangers was to ask herself what I would say or do. I had always been the out-going one, the social one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly speechless.
Chapter 2
Blayne
Ever since the disastrous date with Livie the night before, I hadn't been able to think straight. I doubted she knew anything bad had happened, but I'd always been good at pretending to be okay when I wasn't. We'd finished our meal and continued with the whole 'getting to know you' conversation, but I'd been reeling the entire time, consumed with the revelation that the two times I'd had sex with my wife, it hadn't been with my wife at all.
It wasn’t until we'd gotten back to the apartment and I'd been able to think that I realized I had no idea why my wife's twin sister would've pretended to be Livie. Twice.
If it had been some sort of accident, where we'd both been drunk and fallen into bed together, that would've been one thing, but that hadn't been the case on either occasion.
This Katka had deliberately come to see me at the club and pretended to be Livie. We might've been a little buzzed, but there was no doubt in my mind that we'd both been completely aware of what we'd been doing. The second time had been even more planned.
I'd spent most of last night and pretty much all of today trying to figure out what to do now. Livie had gone out for some business thing, which I was glad about, but I still had no clue how I wanted to handle this mess. I had a bad feeling Katka's intentions towards me had been less than honorable and it didn't take much of a leap to get to blackmail. Now that I knew of her existence, I wondered if I should try to find her, get things out in the open. Livie seemed to think her sister was some sort of sainted free spirit. Not perfect, but not someone who'd try to hurt her either. If that was the case, I didn't know why Katka would sleep with me. Unless the pair had been in it together.
Was it possible that Livie and her sister had cooked this whole thing up? Livie knew the terms of my agreement with my father. Had she set me up to sleep with her sister, knowing my father would never believe some story about me not recognizing my wife? All she'd need to do is have pictures or some other proof of the sexual encounters and threaten to tell my father. Maybe she thought if she could prove infidelity, she could still get money out of me before my father cut me off.
That was the theory I was working on when someone knocked on my door.
The last person I expected to see was her.
And I knew it was her, not Livie. I could see the differences now. How she carried herself. The way she wore her hair. Even the look in her eyes wasn't the same.
She said she wanted to talk and even though I knew it was a bad idea, I motioned for her to come inside.
“You want to talk,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “Talk.” I knew I was being rude, but considering the circumstances, I didn't think it was an entirely inappropriate reaction.
My emotions were all over the place and I struggled to keep them all in check as she walked inside and then turned to face me. Her face was an open book and I could see how upset she was. It should have made me mad. What right did she have to be upset when I was the one who'd been wronged? Instead, the near-anguish in her eyes tempered
my anger.
“When did you figure it out?” she asked.
“Does it really matter?”
She shook her head, looking down at her hands. “I suppose not.”
She raised her head, a stubborn set to her jaw I'd seen on her sister's face. In that moment, they really were identical. Then she shook her head and her loose curls obscured her face and the moment was gone. It was just Katka.
“I did not trust you,” she blurted out. A flush stained her cheeks, but she kept going. “When my sister told me she was marrying a man who I had heard was known for his...” She paused and I could tell that she was looking for the right words.
The fact that she didn't seem to want to insult me was amusing and I decided to help. “Keep going. I know what my reputation is.”
She nodded. “Then you can understand why I did not approve of this marriage. Why I did not attend the wedding.”
I'd wondered about that too. Why I'd never met this mysterious sister. Her explanation made sense.
“When Livie stopped talking to me while you were in Europe, telling me that I had to accept her actions, I decided to prove to her that you were not the man she thought you were.”
That surprised me. I'd never really given much thought to the kind of man Livie thought I was. Not really.
“Livie forgot to disconnect the messaging system that sends our text messages to our tablet as well,” Katka continued. “So I received the message to meet at the club and went in my sister's place. My plan was to prove to Livie that you would try to seduce her despite the rules she had set.”
I opened my mouth to defend my actions, but Katka raised a hand.
“The fault lies solely with me. You did nothing wrong.”
I laughed. “I slept with my wife's sister. I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon in most places.”
Twisted Affair: The Complete Series Box Set Page 14