I raised an eyebrow. “Taking advantage, are we?”
“Hell no. We were relaxed. Not drunk. I don’t sleep with drunk women because trust me, that’s a whole different world of trouble when you wake up the next morning.”
“This story is leading to all sorts of romantic places.”
He grinned. “In my mind, you grabbed me and planted that first kiss on my very unsuspecting lips. A hot kiss too.”
I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks were flaming. “Of course, that’s how it would work in your head.”
Bauer licked his lower lip. “You tasted like cherries. After that, I was all but whipped. I was yours to command, and I’ve never looked back.”
Turning my face back to the window, I tried some deep breathing exercises at the thought of maintaining that particular fa?ade for even one single day. My heart was racing terribly. “I can’t imagine Richard Harper will be interrogating us.”
He laughed. “Polite conversation is not an interrogation.”
“It sure feels like it,” I muttered under my breath.
Oh, he heard me, and he thought that was hilarious. “You know, I like it when you’re just being Claire.”
No, no I would not feel a flush of warm, gooey happiness at that statement. When you were a twin, particularly an identical twin, there was a strange emotional tangle that went along with it. Inevitably, you’re linked with that person for the rest of your life. In a lot of people’s eyes, you come as a package deal. Friends in high school and even early college when we lived in the dorms were shocked if only one of us showed up to an event.
Claire and Lia.
Lia and Claire.
People taking a second to make sure they knew which twin they were talking to. Like we weren’t completely different underneath the surface of our skin. Half the time, I wasn’t even sure they cared if they knew which one was which.
For some reason, sitting in that car, following my brain along that path, made me think of something Brooke said to us about a year before she left.
We were driving to Logan’s house. It was hard to remember the details now, but she wanted to go do something, so she was dropping us off at his house so he could watch us. Lia and I were bickering in the back seat, and because she couldn’t hear her music over the noise we were making, she yelled back at us to pipe down.
Because she was incapable of keeping her mouth shut, Lia sweetly asked which one needed to be quiet.
“Like it matters,” Brooke snapped. “I can’t even tell which of you sounds worse right now, or who’s more annoying. Which is the same as every other day, I guess.”
She’d gotten her wish because it shut us up in different ways. I’d felt like she’d punched me in the stomach. Lia’s face went smooth instantly, but I’d felt her anger. I’d felt it humming under my skin.
Childhood wounds went deep, even if you didn’t think about them all the time.
“You okay?” Bauer asked. “You went scary quiet on me there.”
It was perceptive of him, and it made me give him a curious glance. I’d been quiet most of the trip, but even him, this man who didn’t really know me, was able to tell the difference in my silence.
I gave him a small smile. “Just thinking about emotional trauma from childhood, if you must know.”
He groaned, leaning forward to turn the music up. “Nope. Not going there, princess. We haven’t been fake dating long enough.”
After an hour and a half of him trying to engage me in conversation, that was the thing that did the trick. I turned in my seat to appraise his facial expression.
“Come on, I’ll share mine if you share yours.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“We have an hour left,” I said. “What else should we talk about?”
“Literally anything.” He changed lanes after a quick glance at his blind spot. “I’d talk politics. Religion. Women I’ve slept with in the past because I’ve never done the dating thing. Let’s hit one of those for fun.”
My head tilted. “How old were you when your dad married Adele?”
Bauer blew out a hard breath. “Remember that one time my high school girlfriend cheated on me? With my best friend? Let’s recap that in detail instead.”
A smile twitched at the edges of my mouth, but I tamped it down. Being charmed by his reticence to talk about his family’s obvious dysfunction would do me no good. Even if he was all but admitting he was a man-ho.
“You’re gonna make a great kid shrink someday, princess,” he said. “Badgering these poor children into sharing.”
“You’re very skilled at deflection, Bauer.”
He sent me a crooked grin. “I’m skilled at a lot of things, trust me. Not talking about my family isn’t even at the top of the list.”
Rolling my eyes at the innuendo, I turned back to the window. Seattle was beautiful, but as we drove farther north, the views seemed to increase in grandeur. “No wonder you love it up here,” I told him. “It’s amazing.”
Not that my comment necessitated a response, but Bauer didn’t say anything right away. Then he let out a slow exhale, the kind you’d make after a good yoga stretch or when you slip into a bathtub full of hot water and it hits your skin for the first time.
It was the kind of sigh that said my soul is at ease.
“The mountains are the one place where I don’t feel stuck in a cage.”
Before I could comment on that, the soothing voice on his phone told us to take the exit. There were buildings off in the distance, the Vancouver skyline visible even from where we were heading off toward the water to where Richard had told us to go.
“When did your parents drive up?”
He glanced at his phone screen, and I thought I saw guilt in his eyes. “They, uh, they flew with Richard on his private plane a little bit ago.”
My eyebrows slid up on my forehead. “And how come we didn’t do that? We could’ve gotten there in, like, thirty minutes.”
“Beeecause I didn’t want to be trapped in a flying metal tube with my dad and Adele just yet.” Bauer gave me an indulgent grin. “I needed time with my girl before our sleepover tonight.”
I pointed a finger at him. “I told you separate rooms.”
“And if I have any control over that, your wish is my command.” He pointed a finger of his own. “But you know as well as I that if you protest too much, it’ll look weird.”
With a groan, I dropped my head back on the seat. “This is so stupid. Can’t we just tell Richard about the mix-up?”
“Yes, sure we can.” Bauer gave me a look. “I’m sure he’d love handing Adele a check after he finds out we all lied to him, knowing exactly who he was.”
“Eventually, they’ll have to.”
“Why?”
“W-well,” I stammered, “if he’s a major benefactor of the center, won’t he come visit?”
“Sure. Does your sister visit the center often?”
I frowned, which made him laugh.
“Lying isn’t fun, Bauer. I don’t enjoy it. I feel like a fake and a phony and like we’re duping this nice man.”
“All you’re doing is answering to a different name,” he pointed out. “When you talked to him for the first time, were you pretending to be Lia?”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.