Masks (7 page)

They both loved science fiction, though Chloe preferred to read it and Mark liked his in cheesy, summer blockbuster movies. They both loved jazz and both hated Thai food. Neither one of them could dance worth a damn, as Mark put it, but Chloe had almost persuaded him to take a salsa class with her to learn. He was a night owl and she was up with the sun, but they were both “cat” people. They both loved to play games, though Chloe was better at cards and Mark preferred chess. He admitted to having a large collection of chess technique books at home and was already talking about teaching her to play.

Chloe couldn’t remember when she’d ever been this happy. When was the last time she’d had a first date that turned out half as well? Only it wasn’t really a first date—eventually she knew she’d have to tell Mark the truth about herself but she wasn’t worried about it. For once she had taken a chance and made a connection on her own without Zoe’s interference or help. She could just imagine the look on her twin’s face when she told her that her “business transaction” had turned into a romantic interlude after all.

“Hey, did you hear me?” Mark looked down at her, grinning charmingly. Already Chloe found she barely noticed the scars on the left side of his face. They were just part of him, like his slightly hairy chest and his amazing blue eyes.

“Mmm?” she said, smiling back at him.

He laughed. “I guess you didn’t. I said, I’m hungry. Let’s go see what your crazy sister has to eat in this place.”

His words were like a cold splash of ice water down the back of her neck. Chloe sat up abruptly and pushed back from him. “
What
did you say?”

He looked at her strangely. “I said, let’s see what Zoe has to eat in this place, okay?”

“You…you know about Zoe? You know I’m not her…I mean, that she’s not me…I mean—”

“Of course I know,” he cut her off. “She’s the one that set this whole thing up, how could I not know?”

Chloe felt like someone had suddenly sucked all the oxygen out of the room. So this was why things had gone so well. It was her sister setting her up on a date all over again. Only this time she hadn’t taken any chances on Chloe screwing it up. She’d probably told Mark everything—how shy Chloe was, how socially inept. She probably told him to take the upper hand right from the start.
And all those rules she told me…
Chloe shook her head. The rules had been because Zoe knew her twin sister couldn’t help but screw up. The rules were meant to be broken.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Chloe? You okay?” Mark was looking at her, a line of worry forming between his brows but all Chloe could see was that she’d been set up,
again
, by her sister.

“Chloe?” he said again and it finally registered with her that this wasn’t the first time he’d said her name. Why hadn’t she realized the first time she heard it that he was in on the horrible joke Zoe had played on her?
Because you were out of your mind with lust at the time
, she berated herself. Well, this was what she got for following her heart and breaking the rules.

She untangled herself from his arms and stood to collect the leather skirt and bustier, wondering how she was going to squeeze herself back into it. The boots she would carry, she’d be damned if she put them on again when she could barely walk in the damn things…

“Chloe, hey, Chloe! What’s wrong with you?” Marked grabbed her by the upper arm and spun her around to face him.

“What’s wrong?” Chloe felt like crying and screaming at the same time. “What’s wrong is that is was all a setup—right from the start,” she snapped at him, pulling away from the hand on her arm. “What did Zoe tell you anyway? That I was a spinster schoolteacher that needed some attention? That I was so shy I couldn’t connect with any guy on my own? Maybe she even paid you to service me—knowing Zoe, I wouldn’t put it past her.” She finished getting into the leather gear, leaving the feathered mask on the black carpet and headed for the door.

“It wasn’t like that at all! Sweetheart, if you’d just let me explain…” Mark wrapped himself in a sheet and followed her to the door, trying to talk. But all Chloe heard was betrayal of the worst kind.

“Chloe, please,” he was beginning again as she slammed the door in his face. Then she got into her sister’s expensive car and put the pedal to the metal. She unrolled the windows as she drove well over the speed limit, letting the cold evening air dry her tears.

She hoped she never saw him again.

* * * * *

“Chloe? Chloe, I know you’re in there, you can’t hide forever, you know.”

Chloe hit the volume button on her remote, trying to drown out the sound of her sister’s voice. It had been two weeks since what she had begun to think of as “the dominatrix disaster” and she was pretty much determined never to speak to her twin again.

“Chloe? At least answer my phone calls, even if you don’t want to talk face-to-face!” Zoe was still pounding on the front door.

Her cell phone started ringing and Chloe shut it off without even looking at the caller ID. Face-to-face, ha—that was a laugh. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw her sister’s face—saw the way Zoe had made her up to look just like she did so that she could borrow her sister’s life for one night. One night of passion, one night of excitement, one night of breaking all the rules. One night of heartbreak.

The worst part was that she knew, in a way, that her sister was right. There was no way she could have acted the way she did without the clothes and the mask. But while Zoe had only intended for her to have a fling, Chloe knew she was incapable of separating love and sex the way her twin could. She had given more than her body that night two weeks ago—she had given her heart and now it was breaking with the knowledge that instead of a genuine connection, she and Mark had only shared a single night of great sex, never to be repeated.

“Chloe, I’m not giving up on you! You’re acting like an
idiot
.” Zoe’s voice was so loud she had to turn up the TV again. Chloe concentrated hard on the screen. It was one of those reality shows where the contestants had to eat live bugs and jump from helicopters into speedboats to win thousands of dollars.

Chloe had a lot of sympathy for the people on the screen—her stomach felt as though she’d just eaten about a pound of writhing, crawling bugs and her heart felt like it had been dropped from an eighty-story skyscraper to splat on the concrete below.

Trying to tune out her sister’s voice, she wondered why they didn’t make a show where you had to dress up like a call girl and risk your heart instead of your life. In her opinion it would have been a lot more interesting—not to mention more relevant to her situation.

“Chloe! I just wanted you to have a good time for once. I knew Mark was a nice guy and that he wouldn’t hurt you. You were never in any danger.”

Except in danger of losing her heart. Chloe gave up on the reality show and went upstairs to bed. She put a pillow over her head and tried not to wish for a warm, broad chest to rest her head on and strong arms to hold her tight.

No matter how real that night had seemed, it was only a fantasy and she knew she should just forget it. Mark had probably moved on to something and someone else by now. He had been doing a favor for Zoe, that was all. A favor that just happened to include making the girl he was supposed to be showing a good time fall in love with him.

Stop being so stupid
, Chloe told herself.
It was just one night and you barely got to know him at all. It was just that the sex was best you’d ever had. You’ll get over it.

But as she drifted off to sleep with Zoe still knocking on her front door, she couldn’t help wondering if she ever would.

Chapter Four

“Miss Chloe, there’s a funny man outside in the hall.” Michelle Weaver’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she pointed to the classroom door and tugged at her teacher’s sleeve.

“Michelle, I don’t want to hear any more stories.” Chloe heard the weariness in her own voice and tried to soften her tone. She didn’t want to take out her personal pain on the kids in her class. “Listen,” she said more gently to the little girl. “Just go have a seat and finish your spelling test, all right?”

“But he said he wants to talk to you!”

“I’m sure he does.” Chloe patted her on the head. Michelle had been known to make up all kinds of things to avoid tests, including talking giraffes and purple unicorns, all of which desperately needed Chloe’s attention. Actually a “funny man” was a pretty tame creation for a child which Chloe was sure was going to grow up to be a writer of fantastic fiction some day.

“Go sit down and finish your test,” she told Michelle again. “And no more water or bathroom breaks until you do. You’re distracting the rest of the class.”

Michelle sighed audibly, causing snickers from her seated classmates. “All right, but he gots a funny face and about a bizillion roses and he said he wants to talk to you!”

“What?” Chloe felt her heart skip a beat, but she told herself firmly that she was just being foolish. It was just Michelle’s overactive imagination trying to get her out of a test again—wasn’t it? Her mind started working overtime. Should she go outside and check just to be sure? But she didn’t like to leave her class alone, even for a moment. The amount of trouble they could get into the minute her back was turned was staggering—teaching was not for the faint of heart.

Looking around she saw that Lisette Gonzales, one of her more mature students, was already finished with her test and looking bored. With lips that felt numb and cold, she called Lisette forward and gave her the coveted job of classroom monitor for five minutes. The little girl sat proudly behind the teacher’s desk at the head of the class and Chloe walked on legs that felt like rubber out of her classroom and into the hall.

“Hi.” Mark looked just as she remembered him—well, except for the black leather mask, of course. He was indeed holding, as Michelle had reported, about a bizillion long-stemmed red roses.

“Hi.” Chloe felt like someone had reached into her chest and squeezed her heart. She didn’t know what to say. Emotions swamped her at the sight of him—anger, need, desire, lust, pain… She decided to go with anger—it was definitely the least pathetic one of the bunch.

“I don’t know why you’re here, but I really can’t talk to you right now.” She used her coolest voice, hoping he would get the point. “I can’t leave my class alone.”

“Don’t worry about that, I’ve got it covered.” The voice came from right behind her. Chloe jumped in fright and turned around just in time to see her twin, dressed in a brown dress and sensible black heels identical to her own with her hair in a tight twist at the back of her neck, entering Chloe’s first grade classroom.

“Zoe,
no
,” she hissed, horrified.

“Don’t worry.” Her twin’s green eyes sparkled. “I’m good at making people mind, remember? Besides, I owe you a favor.” The door snicked closed and Zoe’s voice could be heard saying, “Pencils down, class, and pass your papers forward.”

“Well, I guess that takes care of that.” Mark grinned at her and Chloe had a brief moment of blinding panic when she realized she was alone in the hall with the man she’d had extremely kinky sex with only two and a half weeks ago.

“Listen, I really can’t—”

“Just give me five minutes,” he said, thrusting the roses at her. “Five minutes is all I ask and then I’ll leave you alone forever—if you want me to.” His deep blue eyes pleaded with her and Chloe found herself melting despite her inner resolve to be angry.

“All right,” she said, taking the huge bunch of roses which were wrapped in crinkling green tissue paper. “But we can’t talk out here.” She looked around and spotted an empty classroom down the hall. “Here,” she said, leading him inside it and shutting the door. “But make it quick—I can’t leave my class alone with Zoe for too long, no matter how good she is at ‘making people mind’.” Then she blushed, realizing what she’d just said.

“You weren’t half bad at it yourself if I recall correctly.” Mark grinned and moved a little closer. His dangerous, spicy scent filled her head just as it had that night in Zoe’s “office” and Chloe felt herself blushing harder than ever. Still, she was determined not to let him get the upper hand this time.

“Is that why you took control so quickly? Because I was doing such a great job? Or was it just that Zoe told you what a shy little wallflower I am and the only way you’d ever get anywhere with me was if you took matters into your own hands?” She was trying to sound snarky but the words came out wounded instead.

“Chloe, please, let me explain. It wasn’t like that.” Mark’s deep voice was pleading and he stepped forward and put one large hand over hers. Chloe felt her pulse skyrocket at his touch but she refused to show it.