Dirty Scandal

by Amelia Wilde

  Back at the tattoo.

  Then she reaches out with one finger and traces the E hidden in the design with her fingernail.

  “E. For Elijah.”

  Her voice is soft, but it carries a punch of disappointment that almost brings me to my knees.

  Then she jerks back, putting several feet between us, her eyes horrified again.

  “Why?”

  I’m back in that bedroom again, kneeling by my brother’s lifeless body, consumed with the knowledge that I will live the rest of my days with my father’s disapproval. Every time he looks at me, he will wish my brother was still alive. He would rather have his infectious energy in his life than my unassuming presence. And so, before I dial 9-1-1, before I summon the police, before I break down in front of them, screaming, sobbing, pleading—I take my brother’s wallet from his pocket, and I replace it with my own.

  “I couldn’t—I couldn’t face it,” I say, my voice strangled from the pain. “He was my father’s favorite. I couldn’t be the one to keep living with that. So when the cops came—my dad was out of the country, he didn’t even show up for another twenty-four hours—I said I was him. It was easy to switch our I.D.s. We’d never been fingerprinted. We were identical twins. No one could ever tell us apart. Nobody ever—nobody ever questioned me.”

  “What the fuck,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “Who are you?”

  The question hangs in the air between us, and I give her the only answer I can think to give.

  “Elijah Pierce.”

  She puts both of her hands up, palms toward me, and lets out a sharp breath. “I don’t even want to know why. I don’t even want to know.”

  Then she reaches behind her, snatches her phone from the chair, and looks at me one last time.

  “We’re over…Elijah.”

  Quinn shoves past me and hurries out into the dark hallway.

  There is a faint rustling as she collects her clothes, and then I hear her running footsteps as she makes her way to the bedroom door and flees.

  She’s gone from this part of my life.

  Forever.

  37

  Quinn

  Oh, my God.

  Oh, my God.

  Oh my God.

  What happened?

  Mind reeling, I run back to Christian’s bedroom and scoop up my clothes and shoes into my arms. My heart is in my throat and my breath ragged, and not in a fun, sexy way, but in a terrified, get-me-away-from-this-psycho way.

  Who have I been sleeping with?

  Not Christian Pierce.

  His reactions keep tumbling over and over in my mind, all of them suddenly clicking into place like a child’s puzzle, so easy once you have all the pieces.

  Holy shit.

  I knew there were things he didn’t like to talk about, his brother being first on the list. I knew that certain things people said set him off, even if they seemed innocuous. I never imagined that he was hiding something of this magnitude.

  You did imagine it.

  The elevator seems to be descending in slow motion to the lobby. I’m so panicked that I don’t care about my outfit—being dressed in Christian’s too-large lounge clothes is the least of my worries right now.

  The voice in the back of my mind is right.

  There was a moment, back in the car, when I thought there was something beneath the surface of Christian’s mood, his movements, his expressions, but it was so fleeting that I forgot about it until right now.

  I cannot forget what I saw in the journal.

  I will never be able to forgive what Christian told me he had done.

  No—that’s not right. If he wants to do some fucked-up shit like pretend to be his dead twin brother for ten years, that’s his business. But keeping it from me? Keeping secrets from the woman you’re supposed to love? And not any secret, but this secret?

  How could he tell you?

  There’s no time to think about this right now, no time to process it.

  The elevator dings that it has arrived at the ground floor and the doors slide open. For an instant, I’m seized by a wild fear that Christian has somehow beaten me down here and is waiting for me in the lobby, and my legs freeze up.

  Go!

  Sucking in a deep breath, I force myself to move.

  As soon as I’m outside the elevator, I lock my gaze on the front doors, too petrified to look left or right, too terrified to see if he’s following me.

  Don’t be such a pansy, Quinn, I think to myself, and as I jog toward the entrance in my bare feet, I whip my head around.

  The rest of the lobby is empty, silent, except for, “Ma’am?”

  The doorman’s voice rings out and echoes against the wall, the sound bombarding my ears.

  “What?” I shout, my voice too loud, my eyes wild, as I spin around to face him. Where can I go? I can’t stay here.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No. I need to go. I need to go.”

  “Would you like for me to call you a cab?”

  I scan the lobby one more time, then glance out the glass doors at the front of the building. No cabs are waiting—not a surprise this late at night. I make a split-second decision. The doorman at a building like this will be able to get someone here faster than I can on my own.

  “Call a cab and tell them to get here as soon as they can. I’ll be waiting outside.”

  “You’re more than welcome to wait in here.”

  I clench my teeth. “Please call. I’ll be outside.”

  He nods calmly in the face of my desperation, then picks up the phone. I don’t wait to hear what he says. I move, press my hands against the smooth metal strip in the center of the door to push it open, and walk out into the summer heat.

  My first instinct is to run, but now that I’m outside, cars trundling slowly by on the streets, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. Instead, I walk calmly away from the doors and press my back up against the warm stone wall of the building.

  My hands are shaking, and my grip on the disorganized collection of clothes and purse in my hands is so tight my knuckles are white. It takes a conscious effort to relax, but as soon as I do, my teeth start chattering, even though the air is thick with humid heat rising from the pavement.

  I want to call Carolyn, anyone, but my phone is buried somewhere in my clothes, and I know digging for it now will cause the whole thing to fall all over the sidewalk. Not worth the risk, especially if Christian comes out after me.

  The thought sends a new spike of adrenaline streaking through my veins.

  Am I making myself a sitting duck, standing out here alone like this?

  Is it any worse than walking through the streets of New York in the middle of the night, looking bedraggled and paranoid?

  If Christian—Elijah?—would lie about who he is, what else would he lie about?

  I don’t know anything about what happened ten years ago.

  A fresh horror dawns. What if he didn’t steal his brother’s identity when his twin died of an overdose? What if he murdered him?

  The bile rises in my throat, and I swallow hard, willing myself not to throw up.

  There are too many questions, not enough answers, and a raw, searing pain. I was taken for a fool.

  Again.

  Somehow, this is far worse than what Derek did to me. How much worse, I’m still not sure.

  Have I been secretly dating a murderer?

  What do I do now?

  Not only dating and having the best sex of my life with him, I remind myself with a churning gut. Working for him. Working with him. Making him seem so trustworthy, so responsible…

  It’s the early hours of Friday morning right now. I have about five hours before I need to be back in the HRM offices. I’m drawing a complete blank on whether I have any meetings scheduled with Christian today—I can’t think of him by any other name, I can’t right now. How can I sit across from him in a meeting? A cold sweat trickles down the back of my neck even though it’s hotte
r than sin out here.

  I’ll call in sick. That’s what I’ll do.

  A yellow cab turns the corner. I peer through the windshield, another sickening anxiety gripping me—what if it’s the same driver from the airport? I don’t think I’ll be able to take it.

  But it’s not him.

  It’s a young man with dark hair and he appears reserved and quiet, and relief sweeps over me as I slide across the cracked leather seat and pull the door closed behind me.

  Clearing my throat, I rattle off my address.

  As he pulls the car away from the curb, I crane my neck to look behind us, half expecting to see Christian run out onto the sidewalk.

  For a moment, I’m disappointed.

  “Jesus Christ,” I whisper to myself, sinking back into the seat as the cab carries me forward into the first part of my escape from the man I thought I loved.

  38

  Christian

  The thing about your worst nightmares?

  They always come true.

  39

  Quinn

  It’s easy to sound sick on the phone when I call the HRM offices and leave a message that I won’t be in. It’s like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck. My stomach hasn’t unknotted itself since I left Christian’s apartment, and my mind is scattered in pieces, not to mention my heart.

  Carolyn knocks on my bedroom door Friday morning on her way out to the boutique. “Hey,” she calls out softly. “Can I come in?”

  I grumble something unintelligible from beneath my cocoon of covers. The door swings open, and seconds later the bed dips as Carolyn’s weight presses down on the mattress.

  “Are you the only one?”

  I poke my head out from underneath the comforter. What the hell is she talking about?

  “The only one what?”

  My roommate gestures at my state of being. “This looks like a pretty nasty bug. Is it taking over the office, or are you the only one who got it? I think the subways are giant germ incubators.”

  I roll away from her with a groan.

  She was asleep when I came back last night, so I didn’t have to tell her what happened.

  I could lie about it, but that would make me a massive hypocrite.

  My stomach turns over. I can’t tell her the whole truth.

  I don’t think I can say those words out loud.

  Part of me wants to, but speaking them out loud to her might cause me to actually vomit all over the sheets…and Carolyn.

  “It’s not a bug.”

  I feel Carolyn’s movement rather than see it—the straightening of her back. “Q, did something happen at work?”

  “Not at work, no.” In spite of myself, a painful lump rises in my throat, and tears prick at the corner of my eyes, threatening to spill out and down my cheeks. Without turning to face her, I choke out what little of the truth I can manage. “Christian and I—we’re over.”

  “Oh, no,” she says, and I can hear the sympathy in her voice. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. I thought—” Her sentence trails off, and she reaches out to pat my shoulder. “I know how excited you were to be with him. That’s awful.”

  Pressing my lips into a thin line, I swallow the tightness in my throat and roll over onto my back. “It’s probably for the best.”

  Carolyn’s face is a mask of concern. “Do you want me to stay with you today? We could go shopping, have lunch—take your mind off things.”

  I shake my head. “It’s pathetic, I know, but I think I need a day to…process everything.”

  That couldn’t be more true.

  “Okay,” she says, standing up. “If you get hungry, order from wherever you want. It’s on me. I’ve got running tabs everywhere in the city.” I give her a small smile. Carolyn is a good friend. If nothing else, I have that. “And there’s ice cream in the freezer. Help yourself.”

  “I will.”

  Carolyn wags a finger at me. “You’re not spending the entire weekend in bed, though. Not even over a guy like Christian Pierce. We’re going to have fun. At least, I’m going to have fun. All you have to do is come with me.”

  It makes me laugh, and my heart lightens a little. “It’s a deal.

  I spend the rest of the day parked on the couch. At first my heart is numb and then it’s throbbing, alternating every minute.

  I don’t know what to think.

  My initial terror has subsided, at least a little. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but if Christian was some kind of serial murderer and had it in for me, I’d be dead by now.

  On top of that, a suspicious death like that would have been investigated. Especially for someone like him. If there had been any hint of foul play, Carolyn would have told me about it. There’s no way she would have let me get involved with a potentially dangerous person, even if they had been friends since they were in boarding school.

  There’s no way she would remain friends with a murderer. I’m sure of that.

  It still doesn’t explain why he stole his brother’s identity.

  Even if he did it in a moment of grief—why keep up the facade for another ten years?

  Something else is going on with him.

  I don’t want anything to do with it.

  That’s a lie.

  My heart collapses again, and tears come to my eyes. The awful truth is that I miss Christian. I felt alive when I was with him, complete in a way that I hadn’t since I found out what Derek was doing.

  That whole thing threw me for a loop.

  I didn’t deserve to be cheated on. I was attentive and funny and supportive and all the things a fiancée is supposed to be.

  “Ugh,” I groan to the empty room. That’s not the point. Derek should have been honest, even if he wasn’t happy with the way I was.

  Christian should have been honest, too.

  But it’s not only me he’s been lying to.

  That’s the scariest part about this. He’s been fooling everyone—his father, his friends—for a decade, and for what?

  I can’t figure it out.

  I want to pick up my phone right now and call him, demanding to know why the hell he did what he did. He could have at least told me, a woman he claimed to love. A woman he claimed to love after ten years of refusing to date anyone seriously.

  What would you have done then?

  Exactly what you did.

  Jesus, the truth hurts.

  There’s no good way to admit to another person that you’ve been living a lie for ten years. When you lie about something that fundamental it colors everything else. What wouldn’t he lie about if he would lie about his own identity?

  Did he love me?

  A sob catches in my throat. I can’t be certain, but I felt it, and I thought it was real.

  I know with certainty it was—it is—real for me.

  Can I help it that part of me wants him back?

  40

  Christian

  “Mr. Pierce?”

  I’m rousing from the black, peaceful depths of alcohol-induced sleep, and the voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater.

  No. I don’t want to wake up.

  All I want is to go back in time, destroy that journal, and keep Quinn in bed with me all night, for the rest of my life.

  I bury my head back under the pillow and squeeze my eyes shut.

  The knock comes again.

  “Mr. Pierce?”

  With an exasperated sigh, I throw the covers off my body and lurch to the side, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and planting my feet on the floor.

  That was a mistake.

  My stomach lurches with the movement, and now that I’m upright, the full extent of my hangover is readily apparent.

  I bury my face in my hands, my palms meeting the rough stubble there.

  I haven’t shaved since last Thursday.

  I feel like shit.

  The air in the room is stale and close, and the drinking and lack of showering hasn’t done anything to impro
ve it.

  Another knock at my bedroom door.

  “Mr. Pierce…” It’s Sarah, my city housekeeper. Her voice sounds concerned, urgent.

  “One second,” I snap back, my tone harsh, and then I stand up, my legs wobbling underneath me.

  Somewhere in this mess is a t-shirt. I find it crumpled near the head of the bed and put it on, not bothering to cover my boxers with pants. It’s Sarah out there, not the Queen of England.

  By the time I get to the door that leads to the rest of the penthouse, my head feels like there are jagged spikes being driven into it from every angle.

  This is not a very promising start to the day.

  Whatever day it is.

  Yanking the door open, I reveal myself—and am instantly blinded by the light streaming in from the hallway.

  “Shit,” I cry, throwing a hand up over my eyes. “Can you turn that off?”

  There are muted footsteps as Sarah retreats down the hall, and then I hear the click of the switch being flipped. Behind my palm, the hallway darkens. I lower my hand and watch Sarah come back down the hallway, her round frame broken up by a crisp white apron.

  She tilts her head back to look at my face, then purses her lips.

  “You need to get out of that bedroom, Mr. Pierce.”

  I roll my eyes, a movement I regret immediately. It throws me off-balance and sends another bolt of pain through my head. “Go away, Sarah.”

  Sarah has raised six children, so she’s not about to take my foul attitude at face value. Her no-bullshit demeanor is why I hired her to come around three days a week.

  “Unlikely,” she replies, pushing her way past me and into the bedroom. Seconds later, the space is flooded with sunlight as she snaps open the shades and flicks on a lamp in the corner. “This room is filthy, and you’ve been wallowing in it for two days.”

  “How do you know?”

  She gives me a look like I’m an idiot, then begins picking up the clothes strewn across the carpet. “I came Friday. Do you remember?”

  I narrow my eyes, trying to recall any detail about Friday. What comes to mind is Quinn.