Identity Crisis

by Grace Marshall

  At the tiny desk squished in the corner of her studio apartment, she opened her laptop. With a few clicks, she pulled up an old photo album, one that no one else would ever be able to find if they just happened to be browsing her files. She understood about alter egos far better than Garrett Thorne could imagine. She understood about secret identities, about people who didn’t exist anywhere in the real world, about people who existed only in her head. There had been so many. Most didn’t really have names unless they needed to, and most were gone the next morning, the next week or two at the latest. She pulled up the picture she was looking for, feeling her skin prickle as she viewed it after all this time. It was taken by the man she’d been with that night, a man who had grabbed her phone away and started snapping photos of her. It was later that she’d learned his name. Too late. She hated photos of herself. She tried to get him to stop, but it was only on her phone so it really didn’t matter. She could delete them later. She didn’t know why she never did.

  She studied the photo for a long time, as though she could undo it if she stared long enough, as though she could make that night and everything that happened after disappear. Of course, she couldn’t. The picture she could delete, but the scars were permanent. Even she wouldn’t recognize herself if she hadn’t known it was her in the photo. Her hair was black, cut into a bob that just brushed the bottoms of her ears. It was short enough to show the temporary tattoo of a flock of delicately drawn birds ascending over one shoulder and up the pale column of her neck to disappear into the black nest of her hair. The outfit she wore was blood red and strapless, short and form-fitting; the black boots rose halfway up her thighs.

  The man had called her the Bird Woman. He hadn’t known her as anything else. He hadn’t known anything about her. At least not until later, when her world fell apart.

  She shivered and pulled a sweat jacket from the back of the chair onto her shoulders. After that, Kendra had moved back home to Portland, back home to the arms of her friends, back to where she could heal. Whatever the hell that meant.

  The Bird Woman had been the last of the strangers who had lived their short lives out in her body. Until now, at least.

  For the tenth time she went to the closet and pulled out the emerald green gown she’d bought for Tess Delaney’s debut. It was off the shoulder, cut low across the collar bones to show plenty of cleavage. It made her look like a princess at court. Kendra was hardly the princess type, but she figured Tess Delaney, if she’d existed in the real world, probably would be. And, in truth, the dress looked like it was made for her.

  She studied her reflection in the mirror and ran a hand through her hair. She’d been blonde since she’d returned to Portland. That was her true color. But that was Kendra Davis. She really couldn’t picture Tess Delaney as a blonde, nor did she want her to be. She would take care of that Friday morning. She wouldn’t have to cut it much. She figured Tess was the sort who wore her hair long.

  She walked back into the darkened main room of the studio half wishing she’d asked Harris to come over for pizza and a movie marathon, but it was a work night, and Harris needed more sleep than she did. Still, he would have dropped everything to come and be with her if she needed him. So would Dee. But there was nothing wrong with her, not really, just a bit of not-so-happy nostalgia. And tomorrow, when she became Tess Delaney, it would be a part of her job, and that would make it easier. She would never go back to the dark places that had pulled her in those years in California. Everyone had their dark places, and being Tess Delaney was anything but a dark place. The woman was bright and optimistic and hopeful and full of happy-ever-after good cheer. And that was something Kendra would be glad to have. Though it certainly didn’t seem like Garrett Thorne had a lot of it, unless she was badly misjudging, and that wasn’t very likely.

  There had been more email exchanges, each one with Kay Lake sounding totally in control of the situation, but as the time drew nearer Garrett found himself less and less sure. Sometimes he tried to blame it all on Kendra Davis. How could he trust such a volatile, unpredictable woman? How had he ever allowed himself to be talked into such insanity? At other times he reminded himself that it had, ultimately, been his idea, that he had been the one who refused to out Tess Delaney. And yet he doubted himself. Could he really pull it off? Could he really go to the Golden Kiss Awards with Kendra Davis on his arm, with her projecting out to the world her version of Tess Delaney? How could her version be anything close to how Tess really was?

  Tess Delaney wasn’t real, he reminded himself for the thousandth time. Kendra could play the role any way she wanted to and it wouldn’t matter. That thought only served to make him more nervous.

  By Thursday night he was a basket case. A glance at the clock on the nightstand informed him that it was almost three in the morning. He’d only been in bed an hour. Up until then there was no reason to even attempt sleep. The beer he’d drank to make himself sleepy had only made him have to pee, and now he lay awake, every muscle tense, staring at the ceiling. He grabbed his BlackBerry from the nightstand and texted with shaky fingers.

  Are you awake?

  He regretted it the moment he’d done it, but there was no taking it back. God, Kendra would probably not even see it until the morning, then she’d think he was the neurotic mess he actually was. So much for good role playing. His BlackBerry rang in the darkness, causing him to jump.

  ‘Garrett, are you all right?’ Kendra spoke without greeting, and the concern he imagined he heard in her voice made him instantly feel a little better, if a little silly.

  ‘Fine.’ He could feel the embarrassed heat rising up his throat. ‘Can’t sleep. Nervous, I guess.’

  ‘There’s no reason to be.’ Her voice was softer than he remembered it, warmer. ‘I promise it’ll be OK.’

  ‘Why aren’t you asleep?’ he shot back, trying to sound a little less neurotic. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘I don’t need much sleep,’ she said, with a chuckle that sounded a little rough, as though maybe she had been sleeping, or at least she should have been.

  Or maybe it was her bedroom voice. Suddenly, his body was at full attention. He took a deep breath and hoped she wouldn’t hear his heart, which was now juddering in his throat. ‘Me neither. I usually write best after dark. But these days the writing hasn’t been going too well.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. If you don’t mind my asking, as a fan I mean, what’s Tess writing these days?’

  It pleased him more than he cared to admit that she was his fan … Tess’s fan. He felt himself smiling hard. ‘Imagine Dallas does 50 Shades of Grey with a hint of Jane Eyre and a dash of Bridget Jones’s Diary thrown in for good measure.’

  Her laugh was warm and thick and he held the BlackBerry closer as though he could feel it if he tried hard enough. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Actually, I was kidding, but my publisher loved the idea.’

  Dear God, did she actually giggle? The sound was musical and suddenly it was hard for him to imagine the woman on the other end of the phone had ever slapped him or tried to drown him. ‘No wonder you’re … I mean, Tess is having trouble with it.’ Then she added, ‘Life is stranger than fiction, Garrett. You do realize you’re living out a Tess Delaney plot even as we speak, don’t you?’

  ‘I had thought about it, yes,’ he said, curling himself around a pillow, imagining that it was her scooped into his arms against his body. ‘But then I was afraid you might resort to further violence if I mentioned it to you.’

  This time her laughter was explosive, and he found himself laughing too, feeling like the darkness had somehow been pushed back.

  ‘Oh, come on, Garrett,’ she said, ‘Aster Martin clocked Daniel Varner good in Too Much Moonlight and Al Tristan ended up wearing a whole bowl of rum punch courtesy of delicate little Heather Jackson in Appealing to Heather. I would think you’d be truly inspired by now.’

  ‘You know what happens next in both of those novels?’ he sa
id, gripping the device tightly to his ear.

  ‘Of course I know. Angry sex. Tess Delaney writes brilliant angry sex. The inspiration is certainly there. But you’re … I mean, Tess is the writer. I’m just the lowly PR person.’ Her voice felt suddenly closer. ‘You need to get some rest, Garrett. It would hardly do for you to be falling asleep all over your lovely date’s shoulder tomorrow night, now would it?’

  Chapter Eight

  Strangely enough, Garrett had slept after Kendra called him, and that without phone sex … Though he wouldn’t have minded. It had been almost noon when he was startled awake by the buzz of his BlackBerry. He grabbed it up breathlessly, hoping it was Kendra. It was Don.

  ‘I hear everything is ready for tonight. My plane just got in and I’m waiting for luggage. Kay assures me that you don’t need me to come and hold your hand. She sounds amazing.’

  ‘Jesus, Don, please tell me you two didn’t discuss holding my hand.’ Garrett rolled over on his back and threw his arm across his face.

  ‘Relax, Garrett. You know I’m just concerned. Seems like the Ryde Agency has everything under control, though. Makes me a little bit nervous for my job, actually. I’m told all I have to do is show up and you’ll be there with the lovely Tess Delaney on your arm.’

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. Strangely enough he found himself writing down some ideas for a novel roughly based on his experience with Kendra. She was right. It was the dream story and it wouldn’t be that difficult to twist and turn it just enough to make sure their own identities were protected. Maybe Tess would even put a foreword in the novel to the effect that some of it was autobiographical. That would be the perfect way to thumb his nose at his publisher. After the dust was all settled, after the award ceremony was over, who cared if Tess let it slip that maybe, just maybe it wasn’t really her at the ceremony.

  In spite of the hours he’d spent writing, he made sure to give himself plenty of time to get ready. If he had to be the no-account woman magnet of a Thorne brother, he wanted to make sure he did his best to look the part. OK, if he were honest, he also wanted to impress Kendra Davis, and he had the distinct impression she wasn’t all that easy to impress. He’d certainly not done a great job of it so far.

  He was ready 30 minutes early and, to keep from giving in to the nerves threatening to run amuck in the pit of his stomach, he settled back into writing a synopsis for the story of Tess’s cover-up. He had just gotten to their steamy kiss in the foyer when the doorbell rang. His heart jumped. This was it. This was where he placed the past ten years of his life into the hands of a woman who didn’t like him. But, he reminded himself, she did like Tess Delaney. She liked her a lot. He’d have to trust that would be enough. He swallowed his nerves, straightened his bowtie and went to the door.

  The woman on the porch left him breathless. Her rich russet hair was piled on top of her head in careless but outrageously sexy curls, curls that looked as though she might have had a romp in the sheets just before she remembered she had a party to go to and then she’d had to hurry to get ready. However, the rest of her looked polished to a delicious emerald shine. The dress sheathed her like a second skin, the split high up the right side allowed her long delicious thigh to play peek-a-boo from beneath when she walked. The shoes and the jewelry were gold; the necklace sparkled with a filigreed heart resting between her breasts.

  At last he found his voice. ‘Your hair,’ he managed, ‘it’s …’

  ‘Red, I know. Didn’t you envision Tess as a redhead? I could never have imagined her as anything else. But don’t worry, I can be blonde again as soon as it’s all right with Tess.’

  It was only when she offered him a smile and nodded to the limo that he realized he’d been staring, just standing there staring. He pulled the door to and locked it, then offered her his arm, which she took. And did she actually look up at him admiringly? Well, she was pretending to be Tess Delaney after all, wasn’t she?

  To Garrett’s surprise, they’d made it to their table almost unnoticed. He figured that was because no one knew what Tess Delaney looked like, and no one honestly expected her to show up. Don was already there with some woman whose name Garrett promptly forgot after their introduction. He could barely remember his own, as focused on just getting through the evening as he was.

  At the table closest to them sat the obnoxious critic, Barker Blessing. Garrett hadn’t thought to warn Kendra about the womanizing bastard, but then how could he have known? In his white tux and black bowtie, with his air-brushed hair, the man might have passed for an older version of James Bond, with a slightly slimy edge to him. Blessing’s striking good looks were quickly eclipsed when he opened his mouth and graced everyone with a vocabulary that mostly involved the words “me”, “my”, and “I”. Add to that the fact the man had the unpleasant habit of talking with his hands in the presence of good-looking women, hands that usually arrived uninvited on the more personal parts of female anatomy, and Blessing was best avoided whenever possible. Garrett could only imagine the explosion if the groping Barker Blessing’s hands invaded the volatile Kendra Davis’s personal space. He’d have to make sure that didn’t happen.

  The second Garrett pulled out the chair for Kendra, Blessing was on his feet. ‘You must be the lovely, and very secretive, Tess Delaney,’ he announced loudly, bending over her hand to press a sloppy kiss across her knuckles. ‘At long last we meet.’

  And that was it. The room erupted in a strobe of camera flashes as Kendra said something polite and then turned her attention to Don, who was also offering her his hand. It was clear he was very pleased with Kendra’s version of Tess Delaney. Before Don got his greetings out, there was a Dictaphone thrust in Kendra’s face.

  ‘Ms. Delaney, can you tell us why you chose this night to make your first public appearance after ten years of enthralling the world with your novels?’ the young female reporter asked.

  Garrett bristled and was about to push his way in between Kendra and the reporter to protect her, but her hold on his arm became a vice grip, while the rest of her remained as calm and serene as a sunset over a summer ocean. ‘Why, Ms. Flannery –’ She called the reporter by name, which seemed to be a total, if delightful surprise to the woman. ‘I would have thought that would be obvious. I could hardly resist being here for the Golden Kiss Awards, not when I’ve had the honor of being nominated. It’s every romance writer’s dream to be in this place with these people, you know.’ She gave her a smile that had the reporter blushing like an adolescent. Oh, she was good. Behind them, Blessing was taking notes fast and furiously on his iPhone. Three other reporters asked her questions in rapid succession and she answered them just as easily.

  Then the intrepid Ms. Flannery butted in again. ‘Ms. Delaney, I see that you’re here with Garrett Thorne. Are you two an item?’

  Garrett truly had to refrain from dragging her away from the reporter. But Kendra was already as close to digging claws into his arm as she could possibly be without drawing blood. She gave him an adoring glance that softened his mood considerably, then smiled back at the woman. ‘Ms. Flannery, I never kiss and tell. I save that for my novels.’

  Before anyone could ask more awkward questions, the press returned to their seats and everyone settled as the ceremony began.

  In all honesty, Garrett paid little attention to anything other than the woman sitting next to him. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, but it felt like all eyes were on her. On the one hand he could certainly understand why that should be, but on the other the longer they sat there under the curious gaze of everyone anxious for their first look at Tess Delaney, the more they risked being found out. He didn’t like the way Don was looking at Kendra. He sure as hell didn’t like the way Barker Blessing was looking at her, like she was dessert. God, he wished he’d warned her about the creep beforehand.

  The entertainment was endless. Someone sang, there was some ballroom dancing, a comedian. Someone else sang. Everyone clapped politely and ate their dinner as
it was served up in courses. The final announcement of the winner of the Golden Kiss Award would be given just before dessert was served.

  Garrett barely touched his wine. He barely touched his food. All he wanted was to get Kendra and himself and Tess out of this place as soon as possible before the vultures could descend again. It was Kendra curling her fingers around his that drew his attention back to the present as some man on stage crooned a medley of love songs. She leaned close to him. ‘You’re supposed to be enjoying yourself. You’re the date of the most mysterious, most exciting woman in the whole room. This is Tess’s moment.’ She moved her hand down to rest on his thigh. If she hadn’t had his full attention before, she did now. ‘Kiss me on the ear,’ she whispered. ‘And slip your arm around me. You’re supposed to be into me, remember?’

  Doing as she asked was no hardship, and it helped take his mind off the position in which they now found themselves. The fact that doing so not only made her smile, but made her blush and giggle softly went a long way to focus him on things far removed from what was happening onstage. He could feel Blessing’s gaze boring into the back of his head, but that didn’t matter quite so much as he dropped a kiss on Kendra’s ear, then another on the glorious expanse of her neck laid bare by the off-the-shoulder dress.