by Sue Wilder
Luna rolled her eyes. “Like?”
“He cooked dinner,” I teased. “Soup and grilled cheese, then glasses of wine while he tried to order me around. But I’m glad you called him. Or Connor did. My car ended up high-centered on the rocks.”
“I worried about you.”
“I know you did.”
Luna tipped her head against mine the way she’d done when we were kids, and I smiled at the memory. She looked gorgeous. I loved the fawn-colored blouse she wore with capris pants. Connor wore a casual gray sweater and jeans—as handsome as ever—but I wasn’t envious of Luna anymore. She was my twin, and I was genuinely happy for her.
“I’m sorry my drama dragged you here,” I whispered, glancing at Connor as he and Garrett approached. “I screwed up all those date nights he owes you.”
“Don’t worry about Connor,” my twin whispered back. “He can adapt.”
“What does he do for date night—take you to glamorous places? Sweep you off your feet?” Our giggles reminded me of years ago, conspiring about boyfriends. “Do you sneak into the movies? Drink out of the same cup?”
“We go jogging on the island. Then he works out on the rings while I, uh, watch. And we… do things. Against a pommel horse.”
“Oh, girl.” I laughed delightedly at her blush. “I won’t ask.”
“Good, because I won’t tell.”
“But you hum when you’re cooking for him.” At her puzzled glance, I shrugged. “Just a random flash in my mind. You look marvelous,” I added, admiring the wind-swept tangle of her hair.
“You look a little tired,” she countered, pulling back to study my face. “But I see something more, a spark that wasn’t there before.”
“It’s called pain.” Lifting my shoulders, I pretended to wince. “Had a rough night in a car all by myself.”
The low rumble of male voices followed us into the house, and I couldn’t help but admire the group of gorgeous men, each different but equally compelling. Garrett and Connor, breathtaking and at ease, while Max wore his expected black suit. As head of security for Blackthorn, formality was his preference, and I wondered if Maxton Wells ever relaxed. What I didn’t wonder about was their conversation, because I guessed it would involve me.
I wandered into the kitchen and looked around. I’d made breakfast hours before, setting out bowls of vanilla yogurt and fresh blueberries, my usual routine which Garrett could either take or leave.
He’d eaten quickly, then left me alone. Spent time on the phone, talking to Ethan at the bar. Then to Wade, the man who was down in L.A. Somehow, hearing Garrett as he worked made everything real. Chaotic questions ran through my mind. What I was doing, and how this would end.
Luna came up behind and rubbed her hand against my back. “How bad does it hurt?”
“Like I fell down a drunken rabbit hole,” I admitted. “Every muscle hurts. I’m surviving on caffeine and painkillers.”
“Why don’t I call Angie Taylor and see if she’ll fit you in?”
The idea of a massage was appealing, but seeing Angie would remind me of the way she touched Garrett. That intimate connection hurt with its own kind of pain. I looked away. “Give it a day, Loony. See if the pain fades on its own.”
“Don’t be stubborn,” Luna chided. “If your muscles hurt, do something about it.”
“I will,” I promised. “And I need your advice.”
My twin tipped her head toward the men, then smiled. “Let’s grab some coffee—we can talk on the deck. The day’s too nice to waste.”
Moments later, we were through the French doors and leaning against the deck’s railing. Closing my eyes, I tipped my face, absorbing the energy from the breeze. After a storm, the air held an elusive freshness nothing else could duplicate.
In the distance, I heard the faint but excited voice from a radio announcer. A baseball game, I realized. On the beach below, I heard a dog barking. I opened my eyes and watched as the black lab raced into the surf, chasing a ball, then paddled happily back to shore. Families gathered, mothers sitting on blankets, watching children digging in the sand. Couples walking hand-in-hand.
“This is perfect,” Luna murmured.
“You’re used to perfect,” I observed dryly, because she was married to Connor, a mega-mogul billionaire who used a private jet and owned houses scattered around the world.
“Maybe.” She brushed at her cheek. “But some days I miss this view, the difference in the air. That sounds more nostalgic than accurate, but I’ve always felt it, how, once the storm blows through, you have this clean slate.”
“Nostalgia,” I teased. “But it’s a lovely dream.”
“Is it?” She looked at me. “Last year, Connor stood in this exact spot and stared at the horizon. I remember the loneliness. He said ‘tell me to leave and I’ll walk away.’ And I’d never met a man who could fight so hard for what he wanted, and then just… stop.”
“What did you do?”
She cupped the mug with both hands, leaned one hip against the railing. “I wouldn’t let him off the hook. He wanted me to make the choice. Take the easy way out, but that only postpones the pain.”
“I’m not postponing anything.” The horizon drew me and I stared, the way Connor must have stared. “I’ve spent my working life acting, living vicariously through the roles I play.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Sunny.”
“Isn’t there?” I exhaled wearily. “I’m the girl who shows up as someone else, a fantasy in a script, and I believed in who I was until Brand ripped it all away. Now I’m drowning in another cliché—the one where you wake up and realize you don’t know who you are, so you travel the world trying to find what fills the hollowness.”
“And in the end, you find it close to home?”
I frowned. “Coming home was never in the picture. When we were kids, I hated everything here, the smell, the isolation, and it’s tiresome, believing I’ll find what I missed because I’ve changed enough to see it.” My grip tightened, and hot coffee sloshed on my hand. “I never expected to see Garrett again.”
“I wondered if it was a good idea. Connor thought it was, and Garrett can protect you.” Luna studied my face while I wiped the liquid from my hand. “Fifteen years ago, you had this… instant combustion. I’d watch him stare at you, and you’d look up, hold his gaze. Everyone saw it. The attraction was obvious, and the suspense. Will they or won’t they. I never understood why he wouldn’t make the move.”
“His step-father died that summer, right before his senior year. Oscar Botero. Oz.” The throb in my throat was fleeting. “His fishing trawler capsized, the Ibiza Trident, and with the different last name, I never made the connection.”
“I remember reading about that accident.” Luna chewed on her lower lip, suddenly uncomfortable. “It explains a lot.”
“I know he was your client,” I said to ease her mind. “He mentioned it last night when he brought me chamomile tea.”
“Ah, yes.” Her throaty laugh made me jealous. “He hated the tea the way Connor did. I should add whiskey and see if that makes any difference.”
“Or just go with the whiskey.”
Luna pursed her lips thoughtfully. “You’re conflicted about Garrett, aren’t you?”
“I’m… lost.” Honesty made my voice husky. “Fifteen years ago, I thought my heart would break because a boy wouldn’t look at me. Now a man looks at me, and it’s the same way, like I’m breaking, but for different reasons.”
“The emotional connection is still there?”
I tipped my head to stare at the sky. “We had sex. It was impulsive, wonderful, and it wasn’t supposed to mean anything.”
“But it did?”
“I… don’t allow intimacy. Physical I can deal with, Loony, but I’m screwed up. He… got to me and I don’t know how to stop it. How I feel.”
“You can’t stop love because it comes at the wrong time.”
“I don’t love him. It’s been
years and I barely know him now.”
My twin stared at me. “What was your first thought when the car stopped spinning?”
I bent my head, breathing in until the breeze caught my hair.
“Garrett,” I said as I brushed the strands from my face. “He was there, in my mind, smiling, as if our connection amazed him as much as it did me.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
I watched the gulls with their wings outstretched, hovering above the wet sand, searching for the sand dollars tumbling with the waves, rolling end to end, stirred up by the earlier storm.
“It tells me that the world is upside down right now. I don’t want a relationship when I don’t trust myself. You know my old patterns. I only want what I can’t have, and what if I only wanted Garrett in high school because he didn’t want me? What if I’m doing the same thing now? Because—it’s like he walks up to this line but won’t cross, and I don’t want to be standing there, on the other side, using someone else’s choice to hide from life.” I sighed. “I’m trying to change who I am, Loony. I don’t want to be that person again.”
“I can’t tell you Garrett’s story,” Luna said as she placed her hand on my arm. “But everyone has wounds. And, sometimes, we realize instinctively what we need to heal. But we fight so hard against it. Out of fear that we won’t heal, even if we take the risk. Or—if we don’t risk—we’ll lose even more.”
“I can’t lose what I don’t have.”
“Oh, Sunny.” Luna brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “Love doesn’t announce itself with a brass band. It creeps up, sneaky until it’s too late to walk away. I didn’t want to love Conner, but I couldn’t stop myself, and it didn’t matter what he did, or how hard I resisted. I couldn’t walk away, and it’s the same with you, sweetheart. Garrett was there, first in your mind, and you reached for him when you were too frightened to deny the truth. Trust that instinct.”
“You’ve always been a rock for me,” I told her. “But I can’t trust the way you do.”
“Well… don’t overthink things,” she advised. “You’ll figure it out.”
With the breeze kicking up, we both returned inside and found the men engrossed in conversation. Loony and I cooked dinner. We gathered around the table, laughed well into the night.
Then Connor kissed Luna on the forehead, told her it was time to leave. They’d be staying in a hotel at the north end of Newport. Max would stay in the house across the street with the Millennium security team. Garrett set the alarm system before he left, and I walked upstairs, determined to regain control.
But the edginess hung on well after the evening ended, and I took another long, scented bath. Pulled on a soft cotton tee and flannel pajama bottoms, then wandered into the room Garrett had used. I wanted to strip the sheets, to rid myself of his presence.
Instead, I curled up in the bed and fell asleep holding the pillow that still carried his scent.
◆◆◆
The following week fell into a routine. Luna came in the morning, and over coffee, we’d decide what to do. Hours disappeared as we wandered through artisan shops, or the grocery stores after planning the dinners. We tried jogging once, then spent the next day with Angie Taylor, as she eased the stiff muscles and caught us up on the gossip.
Wherever we went, the security team followed. At the old harbor, we bought gelato and spent time with Missy. She asked for cookies, so the kitchen filled with music and the homey smell of brown sugar and chocolate.
Since I hadn’t seen Marsh all week, Luna and I stood on his front porch with cookies in hand. I’d been too rude when Wentz came, and thought I should make a peace offering. But he never answered the door, so we left the covered plate where he’d find it when he got home.
There were evenings when Luna came on her own. Connor was with Garrett and Max, she said, sharing whiskey and lies at the bar. We had girl time, filled with laughing and talking about the books our father had written.
When we were in the fifth grade and still living in California, having two famous authors in the family made us mini-celebrities. Luna’s teacher read the report she’d written on Liam St. Clair, out loud and in front of the entire class. I’d written a report on William St. Clair, which my teacher did not read out loud. Instead, she sent me to the principal’s office where I found both my father and mother waiting, and we endured a lecture on what the principal called “carnality in front of children” while my father looked amused and my mother seemed embarrassed, until she snapped something about “read the reviews.”
After that, our father’s books were off limits, and we laughed about it now, how, even at that age, we’d each chosen a direction. Luna’s report had been about the emotions she admired in our grandfather’s work. I’d been more direct with “my daddy writes about bad men and naked women,” having read a few pages of my father’s latest thriller, where, in the opening scene he said a man stripped a woman naked with his gaze, destroying all her pretense. I wasn’t sure what pretense meant but I darn sure knew naked, and I felt so adult and daring, and then icky, imagining how my father knew what a naked woman looked like—which made sitting around the dinner table too awkward to enjoy the food.
I hadn’t wanted those evenings to end. I felt like Luna was anchoring me, reminding me of who I was, and when, one evening, we got around to talking about Elle and the script that had driven me from the house, we sat in chairs as if I was her client, drinking chamomile tea as we talked about the version of events that upset me.
The script was not reality. It was fiction. A fabrication to hurt me, because I wasn’t that person, and I hadn’t done the things depicted. Then we talked about the thin line between regret and guilt. How one person does something. Another reacts, then a third. Maybe a fourth, and something bad happens. But events can seem connected, even though they’re not cause and effect, and it can be hard to see the difference.
“If you’d known Michael had a wife,” Luna pointed out calmly. “You wouldn’t have had the affair. He kept the secret to benefit his career, and he’s the one who hurt Elle. You can regret the unintended consequence, but guilt requires an overt act. That wasn’t you, Sunny.”
“I’m guilty for hurting you.” My apology was long overdue. “Last year, what I said during that television interview. And after, when those insults were trending on social media. I should have stepped up. Made it clear I never believed those things, never said them.”
“When we feel angry, hurt, it’s easy to lose sight of who we are. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt that way.”
She sipped the tea while my foot jerked, and the shoe nearly fell to the floor. “I’m scared, Loony. I hate admitting it, that someone wants to hurt me. Thinking about Elle, it’s easy to believe I deserve it.”
“No.” Her voice turned sharp. “You do not deserve any form of harm, emotional, physical, financial, and if this is Brand, or his jilted lovers, they don’t get to act outraged or waltz through life blaming others for their behavior.”
“I’m selfish—”
“Damn it, Sunny.” Luna rarely got angry. “A selfish person doesn’t feel responsibility, or empathy for someone else’s pain. Selfish is exactly what the word implies—a person concerned only with himself. Don’t take Brand’s selfishness on as your own. Or Michael’s, where Elle is concerned.”
“I’m trying.” My pulse fluttered. “And I hate this, wanting to lean on Garrett. I promised myself I wouldn’t rely on a man to fix me. Take away my problems. That’s giving up responsibility when I need to know I’m stronger. That I’m okay on my own.”
She studied me over the rim of her tea. “What can I do to help you?”
“Nothing.” I sipped the chamomile, needing the beaded heat on my lips. “You can’t always be the caretaker. I have to figure this out on my own, since I’m the one who involved Garrett.”
“Connor and I involved him, too.”
“Because you were trying to help. But he shouldn’t have to
clean up my messes.” My inhale was deep enough to make me grip the tea. “When the accident happened—I still thought I could handle it. Then Garrett was… so angry. It made me realize my actions put me in every situation, no one else. And it’s hard to face that, you know? After Brand, and Michael—I chose to believe their lies because it was easier than taking responsibility. I could be this Karen, entitled and demanding, without ever having to commit.”
“Now you’re ridiculous, Sunny,” Luna chastised.
“Am I?” I held her gaze. “Isn’t what I’m doing cowardice? I don’t know how to find love the way you found it with Connor. And even if I did, I’d sabotage myself.” Embarrassment had me looking away. “Garrett does these… things, so completely unexpected, and I want to trust him. Part of me does, but the other part is afraid to face the disappointment if I fail again.”
“What you’re feeling, Sunny,” she said gently. “It means you’re coming to terms with Elle. Michael’s lies. And Brand, doing what he did.” Luna leaned forward to put her hand on my knee. “The point is—what you’re afraid of might not be what you think it is. For the first time in your life, you’re realizing what it means to love someone, unconditionally. You’re willing to sacrifice for that person even if it means walking away. And that scares you.”
I stared toward the windows where the light looked bruised. “I shouldn’t have dumped all this on you.”
“I’m your twin,” she said dryly. “I already knew most of it. We have this—” She made a circular movement with her hand. “Weird connection. It’s how you drive me so crazy.”
My smile trembled. “I do not.”
“You do. And maybe you can’t see it now,” she added, “but I think coming here was good for you. You’re starting to ask the right questions. And I think you’ll find the right answers.”
Our tea had grown cold. The Jag’s engine purred, and Connor stood at the door, ready to take Luna home.
In the dark, I stood at the window with my arms wrapped around my waist. Watching as the lights flicked on in the house next door.