Taken Identity

by Raven McAllan

  How can someone else be me? She mulled over the question in her mind. Same name and age? Well, okay, that was a big coincidence, but not impossible. After all, there had been two Caitlin Smiths in her class at junior school, both with blonde hair, and with birthdays a few days apart. However, same career? Obviously not, as Gray had said, the books she had shown him had been claimed by the other Julia. Now she wished she had agreed to have her photo on the fly cover. However, when they had first been published, she hadn’t been sure enough of her ability to be so open about it. Hindsight was a wonderful thing.

  Therefore, the loaded question was, what the hell was going on and how was it going to be sorted out? She wandered into the shower and turned the spray onto full—and chilly. Maybe that would shake her up and hopefully, Gray Reynard would have some answers when they met later.

  * * * *

  Well, he did and he didn’t, Jules thought later, as she sat at an oval table in a bland conference room, and checked out the furnishings.

  Once she’d collected everything she’d thought she might need, she’d packed a bag the size of a small suitcase and driven the few miles to Gray’s hotel. The hotel might be palatial, exclusive and expensive with a reputation second to none in Scotland, but Jules decided its conference rooms were a distinct let down. Obviously, multimillion pound deals didn’t need frills.

  Gray and a small, nondescript man, whom Gray had introduced to her as, “Sean, the investigator who turned you up,” sat across the table from her. Those answers they did have raised more questions.

  Sean apologized to her for his mistake, but justified it by all the things he had found that led him to her. Typical man, an excuse for everything. And they say it’s the woman who always has a headache. Well true enough, he is giving me one, but still.

  She let him hang himself in silence then let out all her pent-up frustrations on one long breath. After listening to him, Jules didn’t know whether to be impressed or dismayed. Probably a bit of both. They weren’t easy to get her head around.

  “So,” she said slowly, but forcefully. “You screwed it up.”

  Sean winced and Gray looked amused.

  “Well, not in so many words,” Sean said.

  “No? How many words would you like me to use? I can doubtlessly knock a couple off. Fucked up. Is that better?”

  “Jules, let him off. He knows he’s made a mess of things,” Gray said.

  Sean probably wisely, kept his mouth shut.

  “Spoilsport.” Nevertheless, Gray had defused her temper. “Now let me see if I’ve got all this stuff straight. Okay?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Right. First.” Jules held up one finger. “Gray met and then married someone called Julia Frances Frayne. How long ago?”

  “Two years, three months ago. I’d known her for about nine months then.”

  “Hmm.” Jules dug into her capacious bag and brought out a series of notebooks.

  “Diaries,” she said, in answer to their unspoken questions. Really, men were so predictable in their responses. A raised eyebrow, and a disbelieving look at anything they wouldn’t have thought of. “I’m one of those weird women who write things down in a book, not just on my iPhone or laptop. So, when are we looking at? Yup, here we are, just over three years ago. Month?”

  “July, when we met, May of the following year when we married. November when she buggered off,” Gray said succinctly.

  “Well, that’s concise.” He was, she realized, getting less pedantic in his speech the longer they were together. “Therefore, she must have decided to be me sometime before that. I wonder how far back I need to go. D’you know anything that would help?”

  “The one thing I have noticed is that I haven’t found any trace of her before I found you. Not that that’s a lot of help,” Sean said.

  “As a matter of great interest, how did you find me all of a sudden? I mean, if you’ve been hunting Julia Frayne since she left Gray, why has it taken you this long? I’m on Google.” Their attitude annoyed her. How up yourself do you sound now, Jules? “And Frayne isn’t that common a name. I’m the only one in the local phone book.”

  Gray looked somewhat embarrassed. “Yes, well, er… Oh shit. I—we haven’t been looking that long. I mean, for God’s sake, how do you admit the woman you thought was madly in love with you has made a right idiot of you, left you and taken the family jewels?”

  Jules and Sean burst out laughing.

  “What?” Gray must have realized what he’d said because he colored and gave a short, self-conscious laugh. “Yeah, well, the way I felt when I found out, you could have said she had. Put me off women for a long time, I can tell you—with the exception of one fiasco I am not going to discuss. Talk about being taken for a ride, twice. However, I have learned my lesson well. No more, never again.” He sat back, folded his arms over his chest and swung his chair on two legs. The action tightened his muscles and drew attention to his body.

  “Ah, bless. Build a bridge,” Jules said. Shit I wish I could block out the image of what I think he’d look like naked. It made her mouth dry and her pussy wet. “Hell, where do I start?”

  “Pardon?”

  Back to the lava freezing, then. Boy could I warm him up given the chance. Argh no, he’s married, married and not for me—not even if I do have the right name.

  “Pardon what?” If he could be short and shirty, then so could she. Probably better, and able to keep it up for longer. Not for nothing had she learned to hold her own against her brother. However, she’d be magnanimous. This time. “I’m sorry. What are you asking my pardon for?”

  “Build a bridge.”

  “Oh, that.” Jules laughed. “Build a bridge. Get over it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s happened. End of. If anyone should be feeling sorry, it’s me. There’s someone out there using me as them. Getting up to God knows what. Now that is something to worry about. Okay your jewels—all of them—are precious, but presumably, one lot is insured, and the other lot is now in full working order?”

  She could see Gray trying hard not to laugh again. “Perhaps you’d like to try them out?”

  “Mmm.” She tilted her head to one side, pursed her lips and tapped them with her index finger. “Who knows? Perhaps I would, sometime. When your wife isn’t your wife and isn’t me.”

  She’d forgotten Sean. When she remembered his presence, she saw him watching the byplay with interest, until he cleared his throat. Gray snorted.

  “Dilemmas, eh?”

  “Er, before all this bridge and jewelry lark, you said ‘where do I start?’” Sean ignored Gray and spoke directly to Jules. “So, start what?”

  “Well, I was trying to be logical. Don’t laugh, you oaf,” she said to Gray, who still sniggered, “or I’ll stop before I do.”

  She ignored the muttered, “Oh, that would be a pity.” Gray, she was fast realizing, was nothing like the upper class Rah she had first thought him.

  “I thought perhaps we could get an idea of when she became me and might find a clue in my diaries,” Jules explained her thought process. “Long shot, but hey, we’ve bugger all else to go on.”

  “It’s not a bad bugger all though. Good thinking.”

  She didn’t know who was more surprised, her or Gray, when he pulled her out of her chair and took hold of her shoulders before kissing her hard on the lips. The tingle went all the way down to her—well, she thought hazily as she opened her mouth and took his tongue inside to let it swirl and circle her own—to everywhere, and especially to her pussy. Her thighs were damp, and she daren’t check to see if her arousal showed in the material that covered her mound. It took all her small supply of control not to moan and pull him back in for round two, as he slowly ended the kiss and moved backwards to lean against the table. He seemed as dazed as she was.

  “PDAs,” Jules said shakily, “are so not on.”

  Gray’s voice was as unsteady as hers. “Not public. But if I decreed we did it in public, believe me, w
e would.”

  She didn’t doubt it for one moment.

  He ran his hand over his head, something Jules noticed he did when his emotions were aroused.

  She dared not check to see if it was only his emotion that was aroused. “Sean’s here.”

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” the other man said laughingly. “I didn’t look.”

  “Yeah, right. And I’m Victoria Beckham. Anyway, for God’s sake, let’s try to sort some of this out. Before it says on the front page of Hello that I’m lap dancing in Las Vegas or giving birth on a camel. Apart from the fact neither appeals to me, it would give the parents a heart attack.” She could tell by Gray’s face he hadn’t considered the fact that other people could be affected by the situation.

  “Yup.” She interpreted his expression correctly. “Mum, Dad, brother. To say nothing of assorted aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, acquaintances, all who could suddenly see I’d been somewhere—well, thought I was somewhere—and I was ignoring them.”

  “But if they saw Julia… I mean, shit, what shall I call her? Her, they’d know she wasn’t you.”

  “True. However, what you don’t seem to realize is that they don’t have to see me. Just see my name. Oh, for God’s sake, I’m Jules. You just keep on calling her Julia. I’ll think of her as that bloody bitch!”

  “Fair enough. So, what have you got?”

  She pulled a thick A4 pad out of her cavernous shoulder bag.

  Gray stared at the bag as she rummaged in its depths. “Bloody hell, that’s big enough to hide an elephant.”

  “What? Oh, the bag. Well, it’s a girl thing. We either carry a tiny clutch like I had last night, which holds the bare necessities or a bag like this, which carries the essentials. Simple.”

  “If you say so. C’mon, let’s sit back down.”

  He resumed his seat, and Jules followed suit.

  “Right, we’re in your hands.”

  She could almost see the thought And I really wish I was in your hands, literally, in a speech bubble above her head. She ignored Sean’s snigger.

  “You said she told you she was a children’s author. Yes?”

  Gray nodded.

  “So, she couldn’t have borrowed me until after my first book was published. So that narrows it down slightly.” She paused for effect. “To the last eight years.”

  “What?”

  “I had my first book published on my twenty-first birthday. So eight and a bit years.”

  Gray groaned. “Talk about needles and haystacks. It’s impossible.”

  Sean spoke up. “No, it’s not. Long, drawn out, slow, but not impossible. Okay, I’m going now, to see what information I can discover. Try to find out if, and when, somebody applied for a passport and where. D’you know when you got yours, Jules?”

  In reply, she took her passport out of the bag and handed it to him. “Some people do have more than one, don’t they? In case they are flying to counties that don’t want you to have been to a certain other country. Or have dual nationality? I only have the one though and it was issued in Glasgow.”

  Sean nodded as he wrote down the details. “Yeah, but it’s a start. Because if I do turn up another, it’s not yours.”

  “And then what?”

  “Buggered if I know. But at least we’ll have an idea when all this started.”

  “Not necessarily. Just when she decided she needed a passport. Oh, and I’ve had another thought. What about her married name? I mean Julia Frances Reynard. Would she not have bank accounts, or a passport, in that? What are you two looking like that for?” She had seen a glance pass from Sean to Gray, who shook his head.

  “She said she preferred to keep her…well your, maiden name, and as for the passport?” He turned to Sean.

  “Might not have a legal passport. Someone may have got hold of yours and used the info to fake one for her,” Sean said gruffly. “So, when you’re rereading your misspent twenties, see if you can remember misplacing it for a time. Even a few hours would be enough.”

  “Sh…” Her voice trailed off. Oh, shit. Is it that easy to steal me? I’m shaking. What else might I have done? Keep calm, Jules. Hold it together. “Oh. Right. Okay. Whew! I couldn’t half do with a drink. Bloody hell, Gray. This is turning me into an alcoholic.”

  “Not quite. It is midday now.”

  “Oh, well, that’s all right then,” Jules retorted sarcastically. She hardly noticed that with a swift wave of his hand, Sean had quietly left the room. “It’s midday, so bring on the gin! If I drink now, I’ll sleep for the afternoon. So maybe it should be bring on the drink. I didn’t get the best night’s sleep of my life last night.”

  Gray went toward the phone. “I’ll ring for some.”

  Jules stopped him with a look. “Coffee please, and lots of it.”

  He went to the insulated pot that had been left on a side table, poured two cups and handed one to her. “Same as last night? Just milk?”

  “Mm, thanks.” She took a gulp. “So, do we work backwards from when you met her or forwards from when I had my first book published?”

  Gray looked at the foot-high pile of diaries and notebooks on the table and groaned. “Are you sure you want me to read all about what you had for dinner, or where you went shopping?”

  Jules laughed, the first genuine laugh she’d given—apart, she thought, from that thing about Gray’s jewels—since he’d appeared on her doorstep.

  “Think positive,” she advised him. “You might get the diary where I’ve written about making love on a pool table or having sex with David Beckham in a swimming pool.”

  The look on his face was priceless. She wished she could capture it and sell it. She’d make millions.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Well, not David Beckham, sadly. As for the pool table? You’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Give me a diary,” he said fervently. “I need pointers.”

  He doesn’t, she thought. He really doesn’t.

  “Backwards,” Jules decided. “You work through them from when you met her. If anything stands out or seems weird—and pool tables do not come under the heading of weird—make a note of it. I’ll start from my book being published and go forward. How does that sound?”

  “Long. But yes, I guess it’s all we can do.”

  Well, not all, she thought. I can think of several other things we could do. But they won’t help us read these diaries. As Gray laughed, the tone deep and sexy, she wondered if he had read her mind. But no, he had just read an entry in her most recent diary. Written the day before.

  “‘A drop-dead gorgeous, play-your-cards-right-and-you-can-have-me man appeared on my doorstep. I thought all my birthdays had come at once, before I realized he was a real up-his-own-ass type asshole’,” he read her words aloud. “‘Pity, because I could do with a really good—’”

  “Enough!” Jules’ cheeks burned and were no doubt scarlet. “Shit, shit, shit! I forgot I’d written yesterday. But why the hell have you got it? You should be reading three years ago.” Mortified, she realized she’d picked up her current diary when she took all the others from her bag. “Think I’ll have that back, please.”

  “Hold on.” Gray kept his right hand firmly on the diary, holding it in place while he wrote something under her entry, then handed it back.

  “Thank you so much. Oh.” She read what he’d written and her cheeks grew even hotter. Any time, but I think I’ll make you beg for it. On your knees.

  “Oh, um, yes, er.”

  “Yes?” He stared at her so hard that she wondered if she had a spot on her nose.

  “Just shut up, Gray.”

  His eyes narrowed and it reminded her of something her best friend Jenny had once said. “A man who narrows his eyes is always in charge.” At the time she hadn’t pushed Jen to explain herself, as Jen had gone red and hastily changed the subject. That was before Jules’ one and only foray into the world of BDSM. It had been an eye opener and made her realize what she was. A sub. O
r was it only to that person?

  As she’d never repeated the process, she had no idea.

  But Jen’s husband Rick, and Gray, did both have that certain aura of control around them, and after reading some of the books she’d enjoyed, Jules rather thought they both fitted the descriptions of a Dom and dominance perfectly.

  “Please. I’m hot and bothered enough, and do not even say it. Yeah, I know, you could make me even hotter… Oh, bugger it. I’ve done it again. My feet are in my mouth as much as yours are. In your mouth, I mean, not mine and… Fu— Stop this right now.”

  Gray lay half out of his chair and laughed so hard tears streamed down his face.

  “Who said what?” He rolled his eyes and a second later Jules was in the same state.

  “Oh, God,” she said, when she could speak coherently. “I needed that. No more, though. No innuendos, no double speak. Nothing. We need to work.” She grabbed a notepad and pencil.

  “Jules.”

  She looked up from the note she’d been scribbling.

  “You’re left-handed, like me.”

  She stared at him. It was nothing to get excited about. A lot of people were. There was none of the stigma attached to it these days like there had been years ago. She wasn’t considered a witch, just corrie-fisted, as they called it in Scotland.

  “So? According to a teacher of mine, the brainiest people are left-handed. I believed him until I realized he was left-handed as well, but hey, I can live in hope,” she said.

  “Yes, but you’re left-handed.”

  “We’ve just agreed on that, Gray.” Why was he getting so excited about it? Did he think it meant she was double-jointed or something, as well?

  He was having trouble formulating his words. Jules waited impatiently.

  “She wasn’t. Julia wasn’t.”