Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  Meanwhile, Paige was pulling off her shoes and saying, “You’re obviously Rafe. Wow. Jace didn’t tell me you looked that much like a werewolf. I love your movies, by the way. If he hadn’t told me what a great guy you are, though, I’d be heading out the door again. How can you be that good-looking and still be scary?” She smiled, stuck out her hand, and said, “In other words—Hi. I’m Paige. I guess you’ve already met Lily.”

  “You staying, bro?” Jace asked, getting out of his own wet jacket, shoes, and socks at last.

  Jace and Paige were crazy. When Lily had asked this morning, “Do you actually like running in the rain?” Jace had answered, “After some of the places I’ve spent my time, being wet is nothing but a good thing.”

  Why was she thinking about that? Because she was still trying to calm down, and she already knew the answer to Jace’s question. Yes, Rafe was staying. Unfortunately.

  She wanted to run away, but that wasn’t an option. Not anymore.

  She had to stop rubbing Tobias at some point, so she headed over to the laundry closet off the kitchen, tossed the towel into the washer, and told Paige, who’d followed her, “Bring out yours and Jace’s running stuff once you change, and I’ll do the wash. I have a few things to throw in anyway.”

  Paige pulled her shirt over her head, which left her in her jogging bra and tights, and handed it over along with her wet socks. “Tell Jace I got in the shower, and to hurry up, or the hot water will be gone.” She headed off, pulling the elastic out of her ponytail. “But—hey.” She turned back. “You’re still going to meet that guy tonight, right?”

  “No.” Lily tossed in some detergent and started to sort the laundry in the hamper. “Change of plan.”

  Paige sighed. “I knew it. Why?” She searched Lily’s face, and Lily wished she wouldn’t. “You liked him. There really are a few good guys out there, and you tune into people better than anybody I’ve ever known. All right, you were too trusting before, but you’re done with that. So why not give it a shot?”

  Jace came around the corner, followed by Rafe, who didn’t look enthusiastic. Surprise. Jace took in Paige’s outfit, said, “Whoa, baby,” grabbed her around the waist, and started hauling her off. “Shower.”

  She said, “Watch the hands, buddy. I’m armed. Or I will be,” and he laughed. “Wait,” she said, putting both hands on his forearm and giving him a shove. “Hang on. Lily says she’s not going out after all. She’s chickening out. Tell her she’s awesome and that the guy’s going to think it’s his lucky day.”

  “You’re awesome, Lily,” Jace said, “and he’ll think it’s his lucky day. But seriously—yeah. You are, and he will. In fact—here’s a professional male secret. You could be a little intimidating for a fella, just like your sister. Give the poor bloke a shot, if you liked him that much, as long as it’s in a public place. He’s probably having a cup of coffee he doesn’t need right now, looking at his watch, telling himself it’s not cool to care that much whether you show up, and caring anyway.”

  “You know what?” Lily said. “I’m pretty sure he’s not. Besides, I came to visit Paige, not to go out with some guy who’s probably a con artist. Actually—I’m sure he was a con artist. Trying too hard, when I look back over it, like he’s…” She cleared her throat in a ladylike fashion. “Compensating for something. He’s probably like the used-car salesman in that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, pretending he’s an international spy to get women. When, really, he’s as far from being a spy as you are from being a car salesman.”

  “Really?” Paige said. “That’s not what you said this morning. Oh. Wait. No. Do not sacrifice yourself to hang around with me. Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t need your moral support. Yeah, meeting Rafe is intimidating and all, but Jace isn’t going to dump me because I’m not hot enough for the werewolf. He’s resigned himself.”

  Rafe still hadn’t said anything. He was leaning up against a cabinet, and Lily couldn’t read him at all. He’d wiped his face blank.

  Paige was studying Lily too closely again. “I’m right, aren’t I? Jace, tell her she’s being an idiot. I’m taking my shower. And would you stop doing our laundry?” She grabbed a pair of black boxer briefs out of Lily’s hand and tossed them into the washer. “This is your vacation, and Jace might not appreciate you washing his underwear anyway. I’ve tried to explain to him about the twin thing, but he doesn’t really get it.”

  She took off, and Jace said, “You should go out, Lily, if you want to. He’d be a lucky man, and I reckon he knows it,” and followed her. Which left Lily with Rafe.

  She kept sorting laundry. She didn’t care what Paige said, she needed something to do with her hands. Without looking at Rafe, she said, “I’ll show you where the bathroom is. You’re sleeping in the loft, at least until tomorrow when I leave. About all that’s up there is a bed. Too bad. If you think I’m moving out for you, you can think again. I’m not even washing my sheets for you. If you want them clean, you can wash them yourself.”

  Finally, she shut the door of the machine, punched the buttons to turn it on, and turned to face him. He was still soaking wet, and that annoyed her almost as much as seeing how much like the werewolf he looked in a canvas jacket over a black-and-green plaid flannel shirt, gray canvas work pants, and all that casually too-long hair and scruff. Exactly the kind of shirt she’d imagined wearing last night over absolutely nothing else. When she’d been lying in bed, and he’d been murmuring sweet things to her over the phone, going to work on her hopeful, stupid, battered heart. She told him, “You could use your time to work on your plan to—what? Pay Paige off? Yeah, good luck with that. She’ll probably shoot you. Or Jace will. And has anybody pointed out—” She was getting that red mist again. He didn’t even look like he cared. “That you’re an asshole?” She’d never called anybody that. It didn’t exactly make her feel better, but it sure didn’t make her feel worse. “I thought I’d met somebody special,” she said, hearing her voice break and hating it. “I thought I’d met somebody real. Congratulations. I’m sure that Oscar is coming your way, because you’re one hell of an actor.”

  He still hadn’t moved. He asked, “Are you done?”

  “No. Yes.” She went to shove her hair back, realized it was in a knot, and got even madder. That he’d made her feel like she had to button up, had to put on armor.

  Forget that. She yanked out the elastic, shook her hair out, and said, “My sister loves your brother. I’m not telling either of them about this and messing that up. If you’ve got any sense, you’ll do the same thing. Because you know what? If you force Jace to make a choice, he might not choose you. My sister is awesome. She’s brave, she’s smart, she’s funny, and she’s a good person. She’s a hero. The real kind, not the kind in a comic book. She’ll put her life on the line for people she doesn’t even know, because that’s what she promised to do. She’s paid every kind of dues there are, and she doesn’t deserve this. Leave her alone.”

  Rafe had always been cool. It was his thing. He wasn’t cool now.

  He said, “Right. I jumped to a conclusion. You look just like her. And you gave me a fake name.”

  “Of course I look like her. We’re identical twins. That’s what it means. Don’t tell me Jace never told you Paige had a twin. She said you were close.”

  “We are. He did, once. I just remembered that. It’s not like he went into depth about it. We don’t have long, intimate chats on the phone. We’re blokes. We’re Aussies.” He shook his head. “Never mind. Besides, he said Paige’s sister was far away. Just a few weeks ago, he said that. You live in Montana. How was I meant to know you’d be here? And by the way—‘compensating for something?’ Cheers for that.”

  “You’re welcome. And the problem is that you didn’t mean to fool me, just whoever that woman was out with you last night, thinking she’d found a good guy? Until you let her down. Let me guess. Off you’d go, telling her she was special. Except she’d never hear from you again. You’d have left her wonderi
ng if it was because she wasn’t good enough, if she wasn’t…” She took a breath, then said it. “Exciting enough. If all she was—was too trusting. Too soft. Too stupid.”

  “I was going to tell you.” Perhaps the six lamest words in the English language, and they didn’t sound any better right now.

  “Uh-huh. When would that have been, exactly?” Her arms were crossed over her chest, and her hair was falling halfway down her back, the same way he’d imagined it doing last night. The same way her twin’s had, except not. How could they look exactly alike, and so different? His actor’s brain answered that. Body language. Tone of voice. He’d thought Lily couldn’t be a cop, and he’d been right. Paige, though? Definitely. Lily was a deer. A doe. Gentle, graceful, and wary. Paige was made of sterner stuff.

  “I was going to tell you tonight,” he said. “Before…” He broke off, scratched his nose, and tried to think how to put it.

  “Before what?”

  “Right,” he said, giving it up. She knew before what. “You can think I’m a bastard. Fair enough. But it could be that it’s not easy to know why a woman’s with you, once she knows who you are, when you’re me. That’s my excuse. What’s yours? Who was Lindsay, and when were you planning to tell me? Maybe I thought I’d met somebody special, too. Did you think about that?”

  Her arms were still crossed, but something shifted in her face.

  Wonderful. He’d stepped on the wounded bird again.

  “It’s not an…equal deal,” she finally said. “I was just trying to be a little different for a night. More adventurous. Braver. You were trying to fool me about who you were. Not the same.”

  “If it helps,” he said, forgetting about winning this, like a man who’d never learned anything about women, like a man who was still a fool, “you were brave, and you were strong, too. The way you said goodbye to me, because it wasn’t right for you—that was strong.”

  Some of the air seemed to go out of her. Not relief. Resignation. “The problem with that is,” she said, “that you still came here to hurt my sister. And all right,” she hurried on when he would have spoken, “maybe you won’t be doing it now. Paying her off, or whatever stupid idea you had, like you can buy and sell somebody’s heart. Save yourself the trouble. Her heart isn’t for sale. It doesn’t matter even if you drop it, though, because I won’t believe you anymore. I know better.”

  “You don’t know better,” he said. “You don’t know me. Or you do. Maybe my eye color was different. Maybe I changed my accent. Maybe I changed my name. I didn’t change who I was inside.”

  “You don’t even know who you are inside,” she said, and it was a slap in the face. Another slap. Worse this time, because it wasn’t coming from pride and power. It was coming from defeat. “I know actors. They don’t have a center. When you drill down, there’s nothing there. When you look into their eyes, there’s nobody home.”

  The words were hard, cold stones dropping straight down to lodge in the pit of his stomach. Down to zero. “That’s rubbish,” he tried to say.

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m going to tell you one more thing, and then I’m going to show you where to put your things and pretend all of this is fine, because I love my sister and she deserves all the happiness she can get. My name used to be Lily Carrera. I used to live in New York. Also in Malibu.”

  “As in…” he said slowly. He didn’t have a good feeling.

  “You’ve got it. As in Antonio Carrera. Who does have one of those gold statues on his mantel. I’m the bitch ex-wife who used him, broke his heart, and took him to the cleaners. Recognize me now?”

  For once, Lily hadn’t backed down, and she hadn’t shut her mouth. She certainly hadn’t been nice. So why didn’t she feel triumphant? Why did she just feel…terrible?

  Because Rafe had an expression on his face at last, and it was shock, and maybe something more. Maybe hurt.

  He’d opened his mouth to say something, though she doubted he knew what, when Jace came around the corner, his short, wet hair sticking up some. The flannel shirt he was tucking into his jeans was the real Montana deal, which made Lily recognize the thing that had nagged at her all night. The reason for her jokes about the Diamond Sales level.

  She obviously still had no judgment when it came to men, but she knew plenty about clothes. Jace was Boot Barn. Rafe was Hugo Boss. If he’d been a cowboy last night, it had been the rhinestone kind, and she should have known it. His hair might be long, but it was perfectly cut. To cite only one example.

  Jace said, “Hey, bro. Let me show you where to put your kit and get changed. Haven’t you learned to come in out of the rain? Did you get stupid over there in North Africa? The desert can do that to you.”

  “Not my best couple days,” Rafe said. “Wrong moves all over the shop. But hang on. Lily was just telling me that she used to be married to Antonio Carrrera.”

  If Jace looked surprised, it was no wonder, seeing as how Lily had never mentioned it in front of him. It was a subject she didn’t bring up if she could help it. He said, “Yeah, mate, she was. Real wanker, from what Paige says. Sorry, Lily.”

  Paige came into the room fast, the way Paige always did, with her collar turned up in a not-on-purpose way and her hair not one bit blown dry, like she’d never heard the phrase, “Take a minute in front of the mirror first” in her life, and said, “Paige says what? Rafe, you should change your clothes.”

  “Cup of tea,” Jace announced, and started to fill the electric kettle at the sink. “We’re talking about Antonio Carrera.”

  “Why?” Paige asked, with the quick glance at her twin that Lily could have predicted. “I could go the rest of my life without hearing about the vampire from Venice. I still say you should have let me beat him up, Lily. I could’ve taken him. Pussy.”

  Lily tried to concentrate on what was coming next, but it was driving her crazy. She said, “Wait,” straightened Paige’s collar, tucked in the tag at the back of her shirt, and felt a tiny bit better.

  Rafe scratched his perfect cheek. “He’s in the new film.”

  “You’re joking,” Jace said.

  “Nah. He’s new. That Scorpio fella.” Rafe waved one of those beautiful hands, which were attached to the rest of his beautiful self. Tools of the trade. “Moroccan. Playboy billionaire. Inventor of heretofore unimagined weaponry. Torn between good and evil. Antihero. Et cetera. Very big in the Urban Decay world just now, and this film’s an ensemble piece. Hence the Tunisian location, which is meant to be Morocco.”

  “Ah,” Jace said. “I’m not up on my superheroes.” Lily knew why. Because it was stupid. Also absolutely fake, from the bloodless deaths to the superhuman strength, not to mention the painful struggles of conscience followed by the triumph of nobility.

  “Typecasting,” Paige said, which had been pretty much the word in Lily’s mind. “Spoiler: I know which side he ends up on.” She reached around Jace and started splashing boiling water into mugs.

  Jace stepped back a prudent pace, but when she set the kettle down again, he said. “Put the bag in first. Haven’t I taught you anything, woman?” And dropped teabags carefully into the mugs, taking care that the paper tab didn’t fall in. Another thing Paige never bothered about.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Paige said. “It’s ten seconds’ difference. How much does the water drop from boiling point in ten seconds?”

  “It does matter,” Jace grumbled. “Destroys the bloom.”

  In Lily’s marriage, she would have apologized at that point. Paige, of course, did nothing of the sort. “We’ll do a blind taste test sometime,” she said. “Twenty bucks says you can’t tell the difference.”

  “I’d take you up on that,” Jace said, “except that it isn’t fair to rob you.”

  “Ha,” Paige said, then opened the fridge, took out the milk, and made some faint “Bok-bok-bok” cackling noises, which made Jace laugh instead of infuriating him.

  All of which was exactly why Lily’s visit wasn’t turning out s
o great, even without this latest…wrinkle. She told Rafe, “I’ll show you the loft,” then walked out of the kitchen without checking that he was following.

  She believed that there were good men in the world. Just not the ones attracted to her.

  When she’d pulled out sheets and towels from the linen cupboard, handed them to Rafe, and pointed him towards the ladder, though, he said, “Right. I made a mistake. Obviously, I didn’t know about you. I don’t remember meeting you at any, ah…anywhere.”

  “Because I was the cold socialite leading her separate life,” she said, keeping her own voice as low as he had. “One of the ladies who lunch, dividing my time between the gym and the spa, pretending that my little hobby of a shop mattered. A gold-digger who couldn’t even be bothered to go to the Oscars on the night her husband won. Bathroom’s across the hall.” She had to look at him. No running away. Not anymore. Face it, dammit. “What else?”

  A faint twitch in his hard cheek, but all he said was, “I’ll take this up there, then.”

  She folded her arms. “What else? You owe me the courtesy of telling me what’s out there. What did he say? I know he said something, if he was on location with you for weeks.”

  “Why would you want to know?” When she just stared at him, he said, “What you already knew, more or less.”

  She kept staring, and his eyes slid away. She swallowed down the pain and asked again. “What else? What don’t you want to tell me?”

  One second. Two. Finally, he said, “You got him to marry you because you were pregnant, and his family wanted him to have kids. And then you had an abortion.”

  Her mouth opened, then snapped shut. She managed to say, over the blockage in her throat, “All right, then. All right.” After that, she headed into her own bedroom, shut the door, stared into the mirror blindly, and started to put up her hair again with shaking hands.