Lie For You

by Pippa Summers

  ‘So I made it my business to start collecting interviews both past and present, first comparing the two of you, and any before-and-after shots and interviews I could find. I would sit there for hours, listening to your voice, looking at your face, until I was sure that you were not Sasha. That you were Lisette and had taken your sister’s place. It became an obsession, I’m not sure why. Maybe I felt I owed it to that dead woman, the one whose confession I’d heard in the rain that night. Maybe I didn’t want Sasha to die unheard and unmourned.’

  I heard that statement as an accusation and flinched.

  ‘Sasha is mourned,’ I told him, my voice edged with pain. ‘I mourn her. She was my twin. Nobody could mourn her more.’ Breathing fast and shallow, I patted my wet face with a large towel, hiding from the mirror in its soft, white folds. ‘But that wasn’t why I did it. Please don’t think that. I just didn’t want her to die.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear that I’d survived while she died.’ My voice sounded muffled in the depths of the towel. ‘I couldn’t cope with the idea that Sasha was gone. So my brain dealt with it the only way it knew how. By becoming her.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he repeated.

  In the end though, becoming Sasha had not been enough. The universe had found me out. I couldn’t hide from her death forever.

  Any more than I could stay in this bathroom forever.

  ‘The word ‘cible’ was on that photograph wall in your house. You said it means ‘target’ in French. But you never explained why. Did you think I was a target for someone? Or that Sasha had been?’

  ‘I believed so at first. That someone had either tampered with your car that night, or terrified your sister into taking her own life at the wheel. Only later did I realise that was a distraction.’ He paused. ‘Though in a way, you have become a target. For Damian. Don’t you agree? He’s always had you in his sights. First it was Sasha, even before the hit-and-run. Afterwards though, I suspect he started blackmailing her. Forcing her to sleep with him so he’d keep quiet about what she’d done.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, sure of that too.

  ‘And later, after the accident here in Paris, not realizing you were Lisette, I imagine he tried to take up where he’d left off as soon as you were out of hospital. Did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Except you weren’t your sister. So you rejected him. And I think he’s been building up to forcing you back into his bed again ever since. With all the power and influence over your career that such a close relationship would bring.’

  ‘Don’t,’ I said hoarsely.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of what Damian had done to Sasha, imposing himself on her, manipulating my sister in her fear and distress …

  I threw the towel aside, and opened the door. I didn’t care that I had no make-up on or that my hair was in disarray again. This was who I was.

  He turned, searching my face.

  ‘So,’ I said, my voice unsteady, clogged with tears, ‘you know the truth. I’m Lisette, not Sasha. What happens now?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jean-Luc took a step back, his air cautious. Maybe he was not sure how stable I was, I realized with a shock. But in fact, I hadn’t felt so calm in a long, long time.

  I had released Sasha at last. Let my sister go …

  It was time to be myself again.

  ‘That depends on you,’ he said, watching me with concern. ‘First, you need to get your lawyers involved. And a psychiatrist who can confirm what happened to you after the crash. It’s more common than you might think, especially in twins like you and Sasha who’ve lived particularly close lives. Otherwise, you may end up going to prison for your sister. Not merely living her life but taking her punishment too.’ He paused, studying me. ‘You don’t deserve that, Lisette. I haven’t known you long, but I know that much. You tried to bring Sasha back, but it’s time to give up the struggle. To become Lisette again.’

  I exhaled, and rubbed my fists across my damp eyes, wiping away the tears I’d shed for my dead sister, for myself, for the five years wasted …

  Then I nodded. ‘I’m ready.’

  He hesitated. ‘To take the blame for Sasha’s mistakes? To go to prison?’ His dark brows arched, demanding my intentions.

  ‘To be Lisette.’

  ‘Good.’ At last, a slow, reluctant half-smile crept across his face. ‘Because I hadn’t been looking forward to visiting you in prison.’

  I was surprised to see that smile, then realized I had been holding myself so tensely for so long, steeling myself against some anticipated emotional blow, I had almost forgotten that humour could be possible.

  ‘But you might have visited me?’ I asked, daring to tease him in return.

  ‘Only if I absolutely had to.’

  ‘In order to suggest an escape plan, for instance.’

  Again, his brows rose, that half-smile broadening slightly. ‘Now, why would I help you escape?’

  ‘Because the judge might give me a long sentence … and you’d miss me.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Our eyes met and held for a few breathless seconds. Then I lowered my gaze from his, my throat tightening compulsively.

  He cleared his throat.

  I hugged my arms about myself. ‘It’s late. I should probably get some sleep. I forgot to check. Are we still okay for borrowing your private plane tomorrow?’ I was rambling, not looking at him, suddenly very aware of the scant nature of my silk dressing-gown, and his gaze on my bare legs. ‘I was going to go back home to my flat and sleep for a week. But I suppose I’d better not waste any time in telling the police the truth.’ My gaze fluttered to his suddenly, a terrible fear occurring to me. ‘What if they don’t believe me? What if they say I’m trying to wriggle out of a manslaughter charge?’

  ‘I already thought of that. My lawyer suggested you should visit your childhood dentist and ask for your records and Sasha’s. Then you can have a new examination of your teeth done, for comparison with your earliest records. And hers, of course. That should be pretty conclusive proof that you’re Lisette, not Sasha.’

  ‘That’s brilliant.’

  He shrugged. ‘She’s a good lawyer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded and moved at last, heading for the door to the suite. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to get some sleep.’ He turned at the door. ‘Look, Sa – ’ He grimaced. ‘Sorry, I mean, Lisette …’ His gaze rose to mine, and the intensity left my mouth dry with longing. ‘I know you’ll be busy for a few weeks. There’ll be a lot to cope with. Maybe some serious legal issues. But will you let me contact you after that? Give you a ring, maybe?’ His gaze was riveted on my face, no doubt seeing the sudden blush in my cheeks. ‘I’d like to see you again. That is, if you’d like to see me.’

  I had followed him to the door and stood there now, awkward as a kid, my heart thudding violently under my rib cage.

  I didn’t want him to go.

  But he had kissed me before as Sasha. And I had responded as Sasha might have done, urging him on, all passion and heat.

  What would I do as Lisette if he kissed me again?

  Would I push him away?

  And would a man like Jean-Luc Ressier even want to kiss me again once I was fully back to being quiet, sensible Lisette? Once he saw me without the silk and the make-up, without the diamond bracelet, all these insanely expensive trappings of stardom and show business.

  There was only one way to find out, I thought, shocking myself.

  ‘I … I would like that, yes.’

  There was that half-smile again. ‘You look so beautiful right now. Do you realise that? There was a wildness about you as Sasha, a brittle edge that never quite matched the look in your eyes. Now that’s gone, you’re so calm and centred. Almost serene, in fact.’ Jean-Luc stepped closer, and put a hand under my chin, tilting my head back. His gaze dropped to my mouth. ‘Beautiful … ’

  I stood on tiptoe to kiss hi
m, too impatient to wait a moment longer.

  Our lips met, and he groaned.

  ‘Lisette,’ he muttered against my mouth, ‘I can tell you’re going to drive me absolutely crazy. Are you sure about this?’

  ‘Good God, how much more encouragement do you need?’

  His eyes flared with surprised laughter and heat, and he wrapped me hungrily in his arms, kissing me back.

  Another shock.

  In the pre-accident days, I would never have behaved like this.

  Or would I?

  Perhaps it had been Sasha’s influence, her constant example of what could go wrong between the sexes, that had inhibited me from taking risks. Perhaps without Sasha in my life, I might have been more daring and open to love.

  Now that I knew the truth of who I was, and had started to adjust to that reality, I had also become aware of a blurring of the edges between the old me and the new me. It was as though I’d taken on some of Sasha’s boldness and life force during my time in her shoes, while not losing any of my old reserve and compassion. But was this the right moment to be setting a spark to the unspoken fire between us? It seemed dangerous, when so much was unresolved, my future still shadowy and unclear …

  I would always miss my sister Sasha, and mourn the tragic and unnecessary nature of her passing. But that didn’t mean I had to live the rest of my life as one half of an empty space. Now when I had so much love and joy to give.

  ‘Jean-Luc,’ I whispered as he pressed his mouth against my throat, his hot kisses leaving me trembling and off-balance. ‘Make love to me tonight. Please don’t make me wait. I don’t think I could bear it.’

  He sucked in a shaky breath, then shrugged out of his jacket and threw it aside. Scooping me up in his arms, Jean-Luc carried me through to the bedroom. I leant back and linked my arms about his strong throat, staring up at him as though memorizing every hard line of his face, the short dark lashes that hid the expression in his eyes, the mouth that had just been kissing me so passionately.

  He laid me on the bed so gently, it felt like I was floating, until suddenly I felt the cool of the silky coverlet on my bare calves and feet. Then his body covered mine, our mouths meeting again with a shock like electricity. My lips sealed over his in a long, drugging kiss that left me nearly insane, everything inside me jangling and on a sexual high. His hands found the belt to my dressing gown and undid it, pushing the two halves aside to reveal bare breasts and plain white panties, my casual wear, perfect for relaxing – and apparently for inflaming his desire too. He groaned again and bent his head, his mouth finding my breast, sucking on my nipple while I gasped, my vision spinning.

  ‘Please,’ I said hoarsely, not really sure what I was asking, but needing to say something. ‘Please.’

  He said nothing but slipped two fingers under my panties, drawing them down to find me wet and shamelessly ready. But then, I felt as though I’d been ready for this since the very first moment I walked out of the airport and saw him in his three-piece suit, dark glasses on, so cool and sexy, my senses went crazy right there. Only I was knocked back by that strange and disturbing familiarity I’d felt, part of me instinctively aware what he represented … The truth of who I really was, deep-down, under the daringly-cut clothes and high heels of my Sasha façade. So I’d kept Jean-Luc at a distance, alarmed whenever he looked at me too closely.

  Now though, I wanted him so close, there would be no space between us, nothing to show where I ended and he began.

  ‘Yes,’ I gasped as his fingers found me.

  I knew it was madness. Too soon, too sudden. Yet, at the same time, it was a moment five years in the making. Our eyes meeting over Sasha’s unconscious body, the rain in his eyes, streaming down his face, soaking his clothes, and the sound of sirens above the storm, the city lights all around us. Death and life clashing in the same instant. My sister would have understood. I was not sure I did. But I could feel it pulsing inside me, a wild churning river of desire, near molten where our bodies touched. Mortality, forcing us away from the past and back into real life, into this moment …

  I stroked my tongue into his mouth, speared him with the tip, played against his tongue and teeth, then sucked gently on his lower lip. He tasted delicious. Then my body arched, hips rubbing and rocking against him, not a stitch on me now, naked and without disguise.

  He groaned and buried his head between my breasts. ‘Jesus, Lisette. What the hell are you doing to me?’

  ‘If you don’t know, I’m sure I don’t either.’

  He laughed.

  Feverish and gasping, I wriggled back an inch, dragging the damn T-shirt out of his waistband, desperate to feel his skin against mine.

  He helped me, our movements hurried, clumsy. Finally, he was free, and pulling off his jeans too, kicking them across the room.

  ‘Come here,’ he said in a thick voice, his words slurred with pleasure and need, heat radiating off him as our naked bodies met and wrapped about each other. ‘I didn’t bring any condoms. I didn’t expect … Do you have anything?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said, staring at me with dark, tormented eyes.

  Abruptly, I remembered Missie’s ‘emergency kit,’ a waterproof cosmetics bag she insisted on bringing with us everywhere. It held items for every kind of emergency. Tampons, plasters, needle and thread, antiseptic cream, pills of various descriptions, and a packet of condoms.

  ‘Wait.’

  I scrabbled off the bed and threw open the partially packed suitcase, rummaging about until I found the small floral emergency kit bag, and then liberated the never-used packet of three condoms.

  ‘Missie thinks of everything,’ I whispered, throwing them to him on the bed.

  Jean-Luc caught the box one-handed, his smile brief but fervent.

  ‘God bless Missie,’ he said, and tore the packet open.

  We made love with a fierce, breathless abandon that I could not seem to control, greedily rising above him at first, and then letting him roll me onto my back. It was like we knew each other’s moves before they even happened, anticipating each other’s needs and rushing to meet them, again and again.

  Afterwards, we lay together in quiet satisfaction, our bodies warm and close, his lips on my skin, my hand playing with his short dark hair, listening to the sounds of the city waking up as light dawned through my bedroom window.

  ‘I want to come with you to England,’ he said.

  I turned my head to look at him, stunned.

  ‘But what about Zena?’

  ‘She can come too, if the doctors agree it’s safe. With Mimi and Dupont to look after her.’ His smile was lazy. ‘Zena’s always wanted to visit London.’

  ‘Mimi?’

  ‘You don’t like her?’

  ‘I think she doesn’t like me.’

  He shrugged. ‘She’ll get over it. I’ve never been interested in the girl or given her the slightest encouragement. Whatever her own feelings may be.’ He looked at me directly. ‘If it helps, I believe Mimi’s planning to move on soon. She’s heading to university in Marseille at the end of the summer, to retrain as a doctor.’

  I lay still, thinking about that. It seemed fair enough.

  But something still bugged me.

  ‘Look, I don’t need you to protect me,’ I said at last. ‘I’m a big girl. I know it will be hard, going back home to the UK, admitting what happened. That I’m really Lisette.’ I felt tense just saying those words, which worried me. ‘But I have to do this on my own.’

  ‘I know you do.’

  ‘So you’re coming with me, but you won’t interfere?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Jean-Luc propped himself up on one elbow and kissed me on the lips, his profile illuminated by the orange glow of sunrise. ‘But I’ll be on hand, if you need someone.’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘To hold you and kiss you,’ he said softly, and met my uncertain gaze. ‘And tell you everything will be okay.’

  ‘Even if it wo
n’t?’

  He smiled at that, a hint of sadness in his face. ‘Especially then.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Curiously enough, Missie, the person whose response I had most feared, seemed unsurprised by the revelation that I was actually Lisette, and that Sasha was the one who had died in the car crash, and the accusations against Sasha over this hit-and-run.

  I called her to the hotel suite early the next morning, after Jean-Luc had returned home to pack a bag and mobilise Zena and her team, and sat down with her over a pot of steaming coffee.

  ‘Huh,’ she said after I’d finished the whole story, and blew a bubble with the gum she was chewing. ‘I thought it might be something like that. Either that, or the accident had affected your brain.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Missie shrugged. ‘You were too well-behaved, darling. Sasha was always mad, mad, mad. Especially after a big concert. She loved to party. But you … You would come back after a concert and go to bed.’ She shook her head, continuing to chew her gum thoughtfully. ‘Sasha was more rock’n’roll.’

  I checked back through my memories and made an odd discovery. On taking over Sasha’s identity, I had actually started to remember my dead sister as Lisette, but transposing Sasha’s innate wildness onto the new ‘Lisette’ in my head. A constructed sister, made out of the worst of both of us. No wonder it felt like my brain had crashed when Jean-Luc revealed the truth. It must have been like a computer with corrupted data being re-set to the factory default. Only I could remember the ‘Sasha’ I had been, the way it had felt to inhabit her skin, and still had access to those falsified memories.

  I had never felt so conflicted before in my life. A difficult choice had been given to me, to consciously remain as Sasha or revert to my true self as Lisette, while still retaining everything I had used to make me seem like Sasha to the outside world.