Body Double

by Alane Hudson

  “Actually, I do,” Andrea said, thinking that a perfect segue into her confession.

  The waitress arrived just then with their meals. Andrea seethed in frustration and anxiety while she waited for the food to be put down and for the waitress to ask if they needed anything else.

  “Am I taking someone’s seat?” Blake asked, looking around.

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll have to call my mom and tell her Sarah’s backed out. She’ll be crushed.” He rubbed his brow.

  “She knows about the marriage arrangement, doesn’t she?”

  Blake shook his head. “My mom fell into a deep depression after my dad died. When Harold—Sarah’s dad—came to her with a proposal involving a new technology he’d recently bought, it put a sparkle back in her eye and brought her out of her funk. See? There I go unloading on you again. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’m a good listener.”

  “Well, this technology means a lot to her. It was something my dad dreamed of doing before he died, and so she’s driven to see his vision to fruition. This is the happiest I’ve seen her in four years. I’m afraid of what’ll happen to her if the business deal with Harold falls through. I let her believe that Sarah and I are madly in love. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have partnered with him.”

  Something told Andrea there was more to the story that he wasn’t telling. Though she was curious, it wasn’t her business, and she wasn’t the prying sort. “It sounds like your mom needs to find a new business partner.”

  Blake exhaled hard. He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “If only she could. I don’t trust Harold Gentry, but no one else has anything like this technology. You know how you can meet someone and just know there’s something shady about them?”

  The same way she could meet a man and know she could fall in love with him. Andrea took a drink to soothe her parched mouth. “Why can’t your mom buy the technology outright?”

  “He wants a partnership with her so he can get more shares of her stock and eventually edge me out and take over Clarity Telecom. He’s got four offers on the table, and if she backs out of the arrangement, he’d sell it to one of her competitors out of spite, even if it meant making less money.”

  “I see. He sounds like a real charmer. So if you don’t get Sarah to the church on time, your mom’s plans go down the tubes.”

  “Yep. I’d do anything for my mom.”

  “Even marry a woman you don’t love?”

  Blake coughed into his napkin. “What makes you think I don’t love her?”

  So he did love her. “I—I don’t think that, actually. You seem quite smitten.”

  His gaze glided away and settled on his water glass. “I care for her. I respect her. I’m committed to going through with the wedding, apparently a lot more than she is.” He snapped his eyes up and stared at Andrea so intensely, she thought his eyelashes were going to catch fire. “No,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. He returned his attention to his meal.

  “No, what?”

  “Nothing. The notion is too crazy to consider.”

  Andrea’s heartbeat quickened. Was he thinking what she thought he was thinking? “What notion would that be?”

  He chewed slowly while he gazed deeply into her eyes. When at last his Adam’s apple bobbed and he washed his food down with a few gulps of water, he leaned forward. In a low voice, he said, “I was just thinking that if I mistook you for Sarah, so might everyone else, especially with a veil covering your face.”

  Her tongue felt like a rubber nub inside a cave of paper. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered, her voice failing her. Tell him. Tell him now.

  “You’re right. I’m not. It was the crazy notion of a desperate man. Forgive me for even bringing it up. I’m not usually prone to schemes. It’s just that... you could pass for her.”

  There was no better time to broach the subject of Sarah’s plan. Andrea took a deep breath. “I have a confession to make. Don’t be mad, okay?”

  “What confession?”

  “It’s no coincidence I’m here right now,” she said softly. “I’m a social worker. I met Sarah yesterday when I went to The Lighthouse to interview for a job.” She didn’t know him well enough to be able to tell whether he was bemused or angry. He knitted his brow but said nothing. “She came up with an idea remarkably similar to the one on the tip of your tongue, except that she was perfectly serious. She gave me limited power of attorney for a period of three weeks, authorizing me to act on her behalf as your fiancée, including the power to sign her name on your marriage license and take the vow to become your wife.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “That’s what I thought, but I have the papers to prove it.”

  “Show me.”

  Andrea dug into her purse for the envelope containing the legal documents she and Sarah had signed. He scanned them quickly and handed them back. “She’s paying you?”

  “A million dollars if I see it through. Our agreement states that I act as her proxy in the marriage until after the honeymoon. By then, the business deal between her father and your mother should be in the works.”

  “Wait. You’re saying Sarah’s willing to marry me after all?”

  Andrea nodded. “It’ll be her name on the marriage license. She’ll be your wife. I’m just her—”

  “Proxy. I get it, but why? Why would she send you instead of marrying me herself?”

  “For one thing, she had an opportunity to save a group of girls from becoming human trafficking victims.” Andrea described Sarah’s mission in Colombia and the time line that prevented her from both saving the girls and attending her wedding. “She needed to be in two places at once, and so she’s paying me to be her body double.”

  “Body double? Like in the movies?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I don’t get a say in this?”

  “Of course you do. That’s why I’m not wearing Sarah’s ring. If you’re on board, we proceed with the wedding as planned, and I’ll stand in for Sarah. If you’re not, then you should postpone the wedding until she gets back.”

  He nodded slowly as if taking it all in. “I take it her father isn’t supposed to find out who’s under the veil.”

  “Right. Charlotte and Tracy know, and now you. That’s it. The marriage will be legitimate, so it’s not fraud.”

  Blake pursed his lips thoughtfully. “What’s the other thing?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “You said for one thing she’s going to Colombia to save some girls from becoming victims. What’s the other thing?”

  Andrea silently chastened herself for the blunder. “She entrusted me with confidential information. I can’t tell you.”

  He studied her for a moment. His eyes bore into her, and she felt suddenly like her feet were miles away from the rest of her body. “Are you saying that the reason for missing her own wedding is of no concern to her husband?”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds silly. You have to promise to keep her confidence.”

  “If we’re going to be married, you have to start trusting me.” He winked at her with a secretive smile that made her insides flutter.

  Did that mean he was okay with the idea? Andrea licked her lips. She did not want to be the one to deliver this news, but Sarah had left her no choice. She leaned forward, and he leaned in to hear her. “Sarah’s gay.”

  He sat up straight. “What?” His brows hung low and those hazel eyes that had been so calm and kind a moment ago now darkened. The muscles in his jaw and neck bunched, and his face reddened. Was she about to see a repeat of whatever happened on Sunday?

  Andrea leaned back in her chair, ready to push away from the table if he exploded. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. Sarah said she meant to, but time got away from her.”

  He leaned toward her again and said in a seething tone, “You’re telling me I’m engaged to marry a lesbian in four days?”
r />   With her lips pressed together in sympathy and understanding, Andrea nodded. “I’m really sorry.”

  Blake stood. “I need a minute. Would you excuse me?” He threw his napkin onto the table and stormed off toward the restrooms.

  Andrea had nothing but sympathy for him. How pissed would she have been to marry a man and find out he was gay? Sarah was wrong to withhold that information from him, and even more wrong to leave it up to Andrea, a stranger, to tell him. If he came back out and said he was canceling the wedding, she wouldn’t be surprised, nor would she blame him.

  But he didn’t. He came out about five minutes later looking more relaxed, almost resigned. He took his seat and laid the napkin back in his lap, taking undue care with it. “Sorry. I just needed to get my head around that.”

  “I understand,” she said, relieved and impressed with his ability to calm himself so quickly. “How long have you known her?”

  For a long moment, he sat quietly, elbows on the table and his head drooped between his forearms while his hands grasped fistfuls of his hair. At last, he looked up at Andrea with bloodshot eyes. “Four months. We’ve been engaged for three.”

  “And you never, ah, suspected?” Surely Sarah had given him some clues.

  He shook his head, hanging it in resignation. “In hindsight, yeah, I guess I can see it. She’s been kind and sweet but never intimate. Whenever she let me kiss her... Never mind. Suffice it to say, she has no passion for me. All this time, I thought she had a boyfriend she hadn’t broken up with yet and that once we were married, she would open up to me. Now I find out she thinks I’m an ogre.”

  “She doesn’t think that. Being a lesbian isn’t synonymous with being a misandrist.”

  “I know that, but my lesbian fiancée sent her double to pose as herself at our wedding and on our honeymoon, presumably so she won’t have to suffer the horror of making love with me, and I’m not supposed to take offense?”

  That was quite a leap for him to make, but given what Sarah had told her, not far from the truth. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, but I sympathize. If you want to cancel the wedding, I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t cancel it. I can’t.”

  “Then if I could make a suggestion: try to work out some kind of compromise with Sarah when you both get back home.”

  “Compromise? Like we’ll only make love when she wants to? Or we’ll only cuddle if she can get past my grotesque male form?” He stabbed at a few lettuce leaves with his fork.

  “Not grotesque at all,” Andrea said to herself.

  Blake grimaced at her. “Glad to hear it.”

  She gasped. “Did I say that out loud?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  Warmth spread across her face. “I just meant homosexual women don’t necessarily find the male form grotesque, and a heterosexual woman certainly does not.”

  “And?” One dark eyebrow went up in a remarkable imitation of The Rock.

  “And what?” Andrea licked her lips. It now felt warm in the restaurant, and she took a few swallows of water.

  He cocked his head and studied her. “You find me irresistible,” he marveled as if discovering a long-lost truth.

  She cleared her throat. “I find you passably attractive.”

  Blake found a smile under his melancholy. “We’ll see about that. How much did you say she’s paying you for this?”

  “A million dollars,” Andrea said. Thinking about actually getting that kind of money was like thinking about buying the winning lottery ticket. It was a dream, practically unreachable. All she could do was go ahead with the plan and see what happened.

  His gaze dropped to her lips and paused there before returning to her eyes. “That’s a lot of trouble for a million dollars. How about a million from Sarah and, say, five million from me?”

  “What?”

  “I’m the beneficiary of the agreement between you and Sarah. Don’t you think I should ante in too?”

  “You don’t—” She realized her volume was rising, and she leaned forward to whisper, “You don’t think five million dollars is going to buy you a whore, do you?”

  “No! God, no.” He blushed from his neck to his forehead. “I would never presume... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply I was buying your presence in my bed. I just think a million isn’t enough. I’m offering you what I think is fair, given what you have to go through.”

  “Oh. Well, a million dollars might be pocket change to you, but it’s a lot of money to me.”

  “It’s a lot of money to me too. Sarah’s going to be getting a hell of a lot more than that without even showing up, and I’d rather not postpone the wedding. You’re digging us both out of a tight situation, and you deserve fair compensation for it.” He flashed a brilliant smile at her. “So what do you say? Will you marry me, Andrea?”

  With her blood rushing through her body in fear, excitement, and relief, Andrea took his offered hand, so large and warm. She could barely breathe. Her last chance to get out of this had passed. There was no backing out now. “Yes, I will.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and, while gazing deeply into her eyes, placed a soft kiss on its back.

  A warm thrill ran up her spine. She was starting to have very inappropriate thoughts about another woman’s fiancé.

  Gazing into Andrea’s beautiful blue eyes across the dining table, Blake tried to wrap his head around the entire situation. He was marrying Sarah but not Sarah. A sense of disappointment dragged every beat of his heart down to his gut, though his curiosity about Andrea made the proposition feel less insulting. What really got under his skin was Sarah’s reason for not being at the wedding herself. He was about to marry a lesbian, for crying out loud.

  He’d never kidded himself about the nature of their relationship. Like everyone else, he’d always planned to marry for love. He might not have been marrying Sarah for love, but he respected her, he enjoyed her Southern charm, her humor, and he was intensely attracted to her. He’d convinced himself that, in time, they’d grow to love each other. Now, he knew that was unlikely. She might love him like a brother, but he wanted more than to be tolerated in her bed. Like any other man, Blake wanted to be wanted.

  Judging from the look in Andrea’s eyes, from the way her breath caught in her throat when he touched her hand, she had that missing piece—the attraction to him that Sarah plainly didn’t have. There was no denying the feeling was mutual. Not only was she as pretty as Sarah, she had an innocent sensuality about her that stirred him down to the deepest reaches of his manhood. Her mannerisms and posture were less confident than Sarah’s, but the way she held her head tilted to one side with her face directed downward while looking up at him, the way she held one shoulder slightly higher than the other turned his insides to mush. Those sultry, blue eyes were absolutely mesmerizing. Something told him that agreeing to Sarah’s little scheme was going to be the end of him, and he had never looked more forward to anything in his life.

  “Thank you for dinner, Blake,” she said in a voice that was like silk to his ears. “Are you sure I can’t leave the tip?”

  “I put it on the card.” He walked her out to her car—or rather, Sarah’s car. “Are you staying at Sarah’s place?”

  “Yes, she asked me to. That is, if I remember how to get there. Otherwise, I might drive around looking for it until I run out of gas and sleep in her car.”

  He watched while she fished the keys out of her purse, admiring every movement of her delicate hands, the shape of her mouth, and the shine of her hair in the moonlight. Resisting the urge to touch her made his hands tremble. “I’ll lead you over. Just follow me.”

  “Thanks for offering, but I need to run home to grab some personal effects first. I’ll use the GPS if I get lost.” She clicked the key fob and opened the driver side door.

  Blake pulled out his cell phone. “Let me get your phone number. We’ll probably be talking quite a bit in the
next few days.” They exchanged contact information. “I put you in my phone as Sarah G, in case anyone sees the caller ID before I answer. You know I’m going to have to call you Sarah in front of other people, right?”

  “I know,” she said, leaning against the car.

  “What time shall I pick you up tomorrow?” he asked.

  She blinked up at him, her eyes sparkling under the parking lot lamps. “For...?”

  God, he wanted to kiss her. The need ached in his jaw. “We have an appointment with Scotty, the wedding planner.” Blake checked the appointment scheduler on his phone, mentally dismissing everything that didn’t involve his wedding, everything that would keep him away from this dazzling woman. He would cancel his nine o’clock appointment with the Realtor or get his general manager to handle it. “It’s at eleven. It’ll be a good chance for you to practice being Sarah. We should probably go over a few details before we meet him.”

  “Good idea. I have an eye doctor’s appointment at nine-thirty, though, to get green contact lenses. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, unless they’re running late. My regular doctor faxed over my prescription, and they assured me they have the lenses in stock. I also have an appointment to get the dress fitted later.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Blake said, putting his phone back into his rear pocket.

  She smiled, so sweet and sexy. “All right.”

  He gazed longingly at her lips. “You look like Sarah until you smile.”

  “What’s wrong with my smile?” she asked, alarm tensing her voice and her features.

  “Absolutely nothing. It’s a mixture of sexy and sweet that rings every bell in my body.”

  “Oh.” She licked her lips.

  Whether she did it out of nervousness or to entice him, he couldn’t tell, but it ignited his desire into a roaring blaze. He gazed at her lips shining moistly in the light, luring him with promises of their softness. How was he going to go on his honeymoon with this woman and not touch her? Hell, how was he going to make it to Saturday?