“Are you kidding?” he asked with a low laugh. “When you’re at work, you butt into my life every damn day of the week.”
“Oh, you mean when you’re in your office, all pouting and edgy and barking at the rest of us?”
“Excuse me.
Pouting?”
“That’s right. Pouting like a woman over your deep, dark secrets.”
He choked on that, then went silent a moment. “I have no secrets.”
“Uh-huh, and you’re an open book.”
Now he let out a low huff of frustrated air, which disturbed the hair on her temple and a whole bunch of things inside her.
Too many things.
Damn it. She couldn’t keep it together with him here. “You’re hurting me.”
At that, he pulled back so fast her head spun. Her relief was short-lived, however, because then his hands were on her waist, gently but inexorably turning her to face him.
So she played chicken and closed her eyes.
“Maddie. Look at me.”
No, thanks. Because she could stand here, just like this, close to him without being too close, being able to smell him but not see him, for a good long time.
Forever, maybe, except then her body gave her away by swaying toward him.
Traitorous body.
“Maddie, goddamnit.”
She sighed and opened her eyes.
His held hers and wouldn’t let go. “I know you want me gone so you can take care of this ‘misunderstanding.’”
“It
is
a misunderstanding.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. But as your husband, I’m equipped to help.”
“Why? Because you have a penis?” She struggled for patience and decided she needed a moment to cool off. Giving him a little push to clear her path, she walked away.
Walked away and rubbed at the spot in the center of her chest that ached like a son of a bitch because she needed one last lie. The king of lies, she thought as she climbed the stairs. Something that would make him think he was helping and get him the hell out of here.
Leena hadn’t wanted to leave her sister alone with the tall, dark, and absolutely attitude-ridden Brody, nor did she want to step up and say so.
She wasn’t good at stepping up, especially to men. One look at her life would tell anyone that. She hadn’t stepped up to Rick, and he’d single-handedly ruined her life. She hadn’t stepped up when Manny had wanted her and she hadn’t wanted him. She hadn’t stepped up when she’d become attracted to one of the men she’d helped Rick rip off, leaving that man, Ben Kingman, in possession of one gorgeous and very fake diamond ring, which was all her fault…
God. Sometimes, she really hated herself.
She paused to listen to how her sister was faring with her boss and heard Maddie say “Don’t make me kick your ass out of here.”
See? Maddie didn’t let anyone push her around; she took care of herself.
How Leena envied that because she wasn’t any better at taking care of herself than she was at standing up for herself. Actually, she wasn’t good at much, really, except for creating truly original, one of a kind, beautiful jewelry on spec for whoever happened to have money in their pocket to pay Rick for such things.
Yeah, she was good all right. Real good.
Not that she was proud…
Of course, the swindles had all occurred against her will and with the threat of all sorts of Sopranolike violence if she didn’t keep her trap shut, but she doubted the law would see things her way. If Rick was ever even caught.
Rick had promised her he wouldn’t be. And that going to jail was nothing compared to what he’d do to her if she ever turned him in. For herself, she didn’t care.
Okay, she cared.
But for Maddie…tough, resilient, brave Maddie who’d gotten away on her own, who’d done so before she’d had anything to be ashamed of, who’d managed to make a life for herself, which she deserved…
Leena couldn’t, wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.
But you already have, just by coming here…
Ashamed, she closed her eyes. She’d screwed up again. Always…
Giving her sister some privacy, she moved out the back door and stood on the deck, then reached into her pocket for a cigarette before remembering she’d given up all the things that were bad for her. Wishing she’d left herself that one vice, she wandered into the woods, eyeing the towering pines, the wildflowers swaying in the breeze, everything so beautiful and in its place.
She’d never found her place. She’d never belonged.
And hell, if that wasn’t an overly dramatic, self-pitying thought, when she’d given up both dramatic and self-pitying thoughts along with the cigarettes.
Damn it.
Out here in no-man’s-land, she didn’t hear any voices, raised or otherwise, which meant Maddie had either kicked some Brody ass or she’d gotten rid of him. She still couldn’t believe that Maddie would actually work for someone like him, someone so…nerve-wrackingly big and bad and…undeniably sexy.
If one was into nerve-wrackingly big and bad and undeniably sexy.
Personally, she was not. Nor had she expected Maddie to be. But it’d been a long time since Maddie and Leena had been together. Things had changed.
A lot of things. With a sigh, she went back inside, where it was quiet, very, very quiet. “Maddie?”
“Up here.”
Leena found her in the master bedroom, looking through the small, intricately carved wooden box that had belonged to their mother.
That surprised her. Maddie wasn’t sentimental; neither of them were.
They’d never really been given a chance to be.
Maybe Leena wasn’t the only one feeling a little pessimistic about their future. “Where’s Brody?”
“Hopefully thinking about leaving soon.”
“Hopefully?”
“Don’t worry. He’s not a problem. I’ll figure it out.”
“You could just tell him the truth.”
“No, I can’t,” Maddie said. “That would leave a loose string, someone who knows.”
“You said you trust him.”
Maddie stared at her. “Well. That’s a new word for you. Trust.”
Leena lifted a shoulder. “I just think that it seems like maybe…maybe there’s something more between you two than just work.”
“If there is, it no longer matters.”
Because of The Plan.
Guilt stabbed at her, hard. “Maddie—”
“Forget him a minute.” Maddie pressed a photo into her hand. “This is what I wanted to show you.”
Leena looked down at the old picture of the two of them in the Halloween costumes, missing their front teeth and pretending to be superheroes, and along with the guilt came a new and completely unexpected surge of emotion.
Love.
“We were both strong then,” Maddie reminded her. “We can both be strong again.”
Leena lifted her gaze from the picture and looked at Maddie. In her sister’s eyes was more of that love, and that swamped her, too. Her heart couldn’t take any more, but she could admit this. “Yes. You’re right.”
A smile crossed Maddie’s mouth. “I like the sound of that.”
“But Maddie? I’m still going to go say good-bye to Ben—”
“Leena—”
“No, listen. Please. You have to understand. For years, I’ve gone about my life with my eyes closed, letting Rick rule my whole world. But I can’t keep pretending not to see what’s going on around me anymore. I have to change. And to do that, I have to face what I’ve done.” She took Maddie’s hand. “I have to try to make it right.”
“By admitting your part in criminal activity to Ben, a man who can use that admission to press charges against you?”
“By not being shallow. By growing a backbone.”
“Okay, give me a minute.” Maddie pressed her fingers to her mouth. “I admire the thought, but Jesus, Leena—”
“I know, but I have to right that wrong if I’m going to go on. I have to, or I
can’t
go on.”
Maddie stared at her, both deeply impressed and deeply terrified. “I want to pull the older twin card here and say fine, but you’re not going alone. No way in hell.”
Leena’s eyes were filled with an admirable steely determination. “I know I’m doing the right thing. And you’re only four minutes older.”
“Five minutes.”
Leena smiled. “Older sister or not, I’m doing this. And then we can put The Plan into motion. The Vanishing Off The Face Of The Earth Plan.”
In that moment, Maddie realized something a little shocking—all this time she’d thought of herself as the stronger of the two of them, but that wasn’t actually true.
Leena was the stronger.
Because unlike herself, Leena was going to actually have her good-bye.
Don’t worry so much,” Leena said softly. “It’s time for me to take care of myself.”
“Fine. But I’ve got your back.”
Ten years of karate classes and other various self-defense classes would have both of their backs, as well as the gun in her underwear drawer and the knife she always had strapped to her thigh because it never hurt to be prepared.
“You’re always going to try to take care of me, aren’t you?” Leena asked.
Maddie hesitated. “I guess I am.” She waited for Leena to object, but her sister surprised her.
“I’m glad,” Leena said and hugged her hard. “To The Plan then.”
“To The Plan.”
B
rody heard the soft murmur of the sisters talking upstairs. He’d watched Maddie walk away from him, moving with sheer, dazzling attitude and grace, like a dancer in motion, even with the one shoulder that she couldn’t quite square and the one arm that didn’t quite flow like the other.
A fact that just about ripped out his fucking heart, but that was another issue. As was the fact that he’d caught her looking at him with such a sense of loss that she was scaring the crap out of him.
Why did she feel like she was losing him when he was right here?
He didn’t know, but he was on a mission to figure it out. To further that, he opened the front door, paused for effect, and then without stepping outside, flicked his wrist and let the door slam shut, practically hearing Maddie’s sigh of relief from upstairs.
And then he walked through the living room, heading straight for the desk he’d eyed when he’d first entered the place. Maddie wasn’t forthcoming with answers. No problem. He’d find them for himself.
It was the husbandly thing to do.
Maddie would be furious, but he didn’t care. Having a woman be furious at him wasn’t anything new, nor was having one ask him to leave her presence. His own mother hadn’t known what to do with him and had washed her hands of him at a young age, not that he blamed her—he’d been more than a handful.
Later, when he’d discovered women, they’d always been drawn to him until they realized his priorities, which were planes, flying, more planes, food, roof over his head, planes…and lastly, any possible relationship.
Yeah, he’d been asked to go away a lot. But he wasn’t going this time. No way, no how. The threat from the man on the phone had been real, and directed at Maddie.
The top of the desk was neat as a pin, without so much as a stapler or paper clip or spare piece of paper. The drawers were locked. He did feel a brief stab of conscience as he broke into the thing, but it was very brief. When he opened the top two drawers, he wasn’t surprised to find nothing but office supplies, all neat and unused.
The third drawer held the jackpot. A laptop. He booted it up and was momentarily stymied at the required password when he heard her footsteps behind him.
“
Are you kidding me?
”
Swiveling in the desk chair, he took in the woman standing in the doorway. She had auburn hair, but she no longer wore a sports bra and sweats. They’d been replaced with a white miniskirt, and he did mean mini, with a lacy baby blue number on top that showed off the class A curves she was packing. There was a narrow strip of smooth, sleek abs showing at her belly button, and the sexy twinkling jeweled piercing there, which made him want to fall to his knees and worship the spot with his mouth.
Oh, and the boots didn’t hurt. His first thought was to strip her out of the lace and mini and leave just the boots.
Yeah,
there
was an image. But which twin? He wanted to say Maddie…“You’re not triplets, right?”
She put one hand on her hip in a stance that was self-explanatory. Pissed off female alert. Whether she didn’t use both hands because she’d been shot on the job,
his
job, or because she didn’t want to expend any more energy than necessary, he had no idea.
“So you’re still here,” she said.
Okay, she looked like Maddie and sounded like Maddie…but did she
taste
like Maddie? He squelched that inappropriate thought the best he could, which wasn’t very well. “I can’t leave.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Yeah. That one.”
Looking sizzling hot, she blew out another breath. “You’re more stubborn than my sister.”
Yes. Yes, he sure as hell was. She was speaking quietly, so quietly he practically had to cup his ear to hear her.
Very un-Maddielike.
Maddie wanted him gone. Enough to have her sister to pretend—again—to be her while she escaped?
Probably.
Standing, he went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing but forest. “You could have avoided me coming here.” He turned back to her. “You know that, right?”
She arched a questioning brow. “Are you fishing for a hint to which twin you’ve got?”
He decided to plead the Fifth on that one.
“We’re completely identical, you know. Except for only one of us having a small birthmark on the back of the right thigh.”
A most interesting image, one he tried to forget as he eyed her body, trying to tell if she was favoring her arm. “I know another difference.”
And Maddie did, too. At least the real Maddie did.
“What’s that?”
“The tattoo.” And if she’d just turn around and bend over, her skirt was low enough on her hips that it might reveal enough of her heart-stopping ass to show at least some of the highly stylized inked Chinese symbol she had there, the one that translated to Dream Big.
She’d never said, but he had a feeling that once upon a time, dreaming big had been all she’d had, something he most definitely empathized with.