Page 14 of Tempting as Sin
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 foolme,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 wondering 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 wereyouplanning to tellme?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.Anotherslap. 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. Whodoeshave 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.”
