Page 88 of Guilty as Sin
“You always say that.” Lily had her shoes off, was on the bed, urging Paige back into it. “And it never—”
“Yes, it is,” Paige said. “It was bad last night. Ask Jace. It’s better now. Come sit,” she told him, and he did. He was now officially a man in bed with beautiful blonde identical twins. It wasn’t much like he’d have imagined it.
Paige eyed Lily. “You say I look terrible. How do you thinkyoulook?”
Lily gasped. “I look like you.Exactlylike you. That’s what Jace said! And I didn’t say you looked—”
“Yes, you did. Or you thought it.” Paige turned to Jace. “Really? Because those are my—”
“Your clothes,” Lily said. “That’s whatIsaid. I don’t think he cares. Really. He doesn’t. OK. Now tell. About the meeting. About Brett Hunter. Everything. If you can.”
It was interesting, was what it was. As a twin observation, it was downright fascinating, and maybe a bit eerie, too. Finishing each others’ sentences, seeming to finish each others’ thoughts. They went through the meeting, through Hunter’s proposal, through Hailey and the broken window and Jace’s stalker, with minimal input needed from him. It was that mirror image in the training room again, and it wasn’t. It was two halves, and it was two wholes.
Lily exclaimed, nodded, frowned, and laughed, as animated as Paige was careful, and Paige? She wasn’t quite as careful now. She was all the way herself.
After a bit, Jace went downstairs and made tea, found a tray—flowered, of course—and brought it up, and the women on the bed barely noticed he’d been gone. Except that Lily must have realized, because she’d changed into a nightdress and dressing gown in his absence, and had found some sort of soft jacket-thing for Paige as well. Lily was curled up on the end of the bed again, though, one hand on Paige’s calf as if she had to be touching her twin. With the baseball cap off, her plaits undone, and in a soft blue dressing gown, the resemblance was more uncanny than ever.
Paige broke off from a description of Jace’s stalker’s fiction efforts—a description that, to be honest, Jace could have done without—and told him, “Thanks for the tea. We should talk about what to do next. How I can keep on being Lily until we match again. Where it’s safest for me to do that. I should have talked about it with you already. I should have made a plan.”
He said, “I have some ideas about that, but it’s nearly two. I’m thinking they’ll keep until morning. Meanwhile, I have a plan, no worries. I’m sleeping on the couch tonight and keeping Tobias beside me as well in case there’s any fallout from our escapade. In the morning, we’ll do something else, and we’ll publicize it.”
Paige said, “But what about your house? You didn’t get it alarmed yet.”
“I told you,” he said. “My house will keep. I’ve got what I need.”
Lily hopped up and said, “The couch folds out. I’ll help you do it, and get you some sheets, too. And thank you. Paige…”
“I already said ‘thank you,’” she said. “You don’t have to remind me.”
She was closing down. Jace could see it, but he couldn’t see why. Why now? The reason was there, hovering just out of reach. He just couldn’t quite grab it. “I didn’t ask you to sleep with me,” he told her. “I said I was sleeping downstairs, and I am. Nothing more than that, but it isn’t negotiable.”
Lily said, “Paige. Sweetie, wait.” She saw it as well, then.
Jace told Paige, “Talk to your sister.Bewith your sister. Be whatever you want. I’m going to sleep.”
“And you won’t…” Paige said, then stopped.
Oh,he thought, and then,Really?There was a woman throwing up barriers, and then there was this. He said, “Ah. The penny’s dropped. You’re saying I’m working from my lizard brain here. That it was all about you before, but now that I’ve seen you with your sister, it isn’t.” He took in a slow breath, let it out again, and stood up. “You’ve had a head knock, it’s the middle of the night, and you’re feeling more emotional than you’re comfortable with. That’s why I’m going to turn around and go downstairs and let you think again before you say any more. I don’t need to fold the bed out, Lily. Couch is good.”
Lily was staring at her like she was crazy. Paige knew she wasn’t. “Don’t patronize me,” she told Jace. “I wasmarried.Believe me, he let me know. But he didn’t have to. I’ve heard it all my life. So has Lily. She just doesn’t like to think about it.”
“Which is another topic for tomorrow,” Jace said. “For today, that is. I’m going to take a wild guess that your ex showed you his ugliest side at a time when it hurt the most to hear it. That he told you he’d always thought about being with both of you, and how every man you’d ever know would think about it, too. Planting that seed for later, because hurting you now wasn’t enough. And that identical or not, your sister was hotter than you could ever hope to be, and every man you’d ever know would also think he had the wrong twin. And now you’ve shown me too much, been too vulnerable. You’re sitting on a bed with your sister, both of you in your pretty nightdresses, so I must be thinking about that. I’m thinking something, yeah. I’m thinking you should ask yourself—why is it occurring to you now?”
Lily made a protesting motion with one hand like she wanted to shut this out. Lily never wanted to believe the hard things. Paige knew that they were worse if you didn’t face them. And that the more you wanted something, the more that realization hurt when it finally came.
“Yes,” she said. Lily looked like she wanted to say,Why?Paigehadsaid it, so she had to live with it. “Identical twins are hot. I get it. It’s not a tricky concept to grasp. I probably shouldn’t have said it. You’re right about that. But I did.” She was trembling a little, because shewastoo tired. Too stressed. Too… everything. She’d let herself get too comfortable with him, and it… Anyway. What was he, a mind reader?
“And yet,” Jace said, “no. The thought occurred to me, and I let it go.” He offered up the rueful smile that deepened those lines around his eyes and reminded you how much life he’d seen. “Like a butterfly, you could say. Touching down on that flower and flying away again.”
“Oh,” Lily said, “that’s beautiful.”
“He’s a writer,” Paige said. She told Jace. “I’ve read your books, though. I don’t remember any butterflies.”
He wasn’t smiling now. “Because there weren’t any. Because I thought that up just for you. Am I going to be insulting your sister if I say that I know which one you are, and I’ve always known, even when I didn’t? That I’d be willing to bet I’ll always know?”
“It’s easy to see which one I am,” Paige said. “I’m the beaten-up one.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said. “You are. Should I make my push for Lily now, or wait until you’re actually out of the room? You do realize that I see what you’re doing here.”
