Falling for the Wrong Twin (12 page)

His mouth curved into a smile. It was slow and seductive and in completely contrast to the dark intensity in his eyes. She started to lean away from him. It wasn’t a conscious thought, just an instinctive backing away, but before she’d moved an inch, he caught her and held her still. They were across the table from each other, but he grabbed her forearm and held her immobile.

She swallowed and looked at him. “Mike?”

“Rick has the charisma I don’t. So he’s always had the girls, practically from the cradle. And yeah, I spent high school enjoying his left overs. Identical twins, after all. And frankly, I was the better lover.”

She swallowed, startled by the raw nature of his words. He spoke low, but his words were clear. They also vibrated with an honesty that shamed her. She’d pushed him to this confession, after all. And now that it was here, she felt mean for making him reveal something that was so clearly personal to him.

Except, of course, what he said wasn’t all that personal. Which is why she didn’t stop him from talking. In fact, she even arched a brow at him, silently challenging him to continue.

“Love ‘em, leave ‘em, share ‘em, tease ‘em. We did it all. We were boys and dumb as shit.”

“Until?” she whispered.

“Until one of the girls took it too seriously. She had this habit of pretending something so hard that she believed it. She would build her wishes into a huge fantasy that just wasn’t real.”

“Sometimes make-believe is the only way to get by.”

“She started saying bizarre things to me. Just weird stuff that didn’t match with reality. I started to avoid her, but she didn’t go away. And then finally, I just told her the truth. I didn’t love her and we would never get married. The end.”

“She hurt herself?”

He nodded. “It’s not like a stable girl would let us treat her that way. This girl had no self-respect, no support system, and no health insurance.” He winced when he said that last part, and she shuddered in instinctive reaction. She knew exactly how expensive health care could be. After all, she’d paid every dime of her mother’s treatment and it had taken years even with insurance coverage.

“What happened?”

He looked away. “She took a bunch of pills. Her brother found her. I found out only because he was on the football team with me.”

She rested her free hand on top of his. “That must have been awful.”

He nodded. “I…well, I was saving up for a car. I gave her everything I had, and it didn’t even cover the emergency room visit.”

She bit her lip. “But she’s okay?”

He nodded. “I think so. She dropped out of high school for a bit, but I heard later that she’d gone on to college. Nursing, I think.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You think?”

He flashed her an annoyed look. “I know. She finished high school on a GED and then went on to nursing. A few years back, I got invited to her wedding. And now according to her facebook page, they’ve got a baby boy.”

“So you kept track.”

“It was my fault she was derailed in the first place.”

She laughed. “Ego-maniac much?”

He jolted. She felt it through his hand. “What?”

“You said it yourself, she had no self esteem and no support network. Everyone has fantasies, Mike. And I know about running to dreams just to get through your day. But she had to be really far gone to create such a disconnect between her imagination and reality. You might have been the straw that tipped her over the edge, but you definitely weren’t the whole picture.”

He pulled back from her, the break in contact almost a physical blow. “That’s bad enough.”

“Maybe. But you paid for your sins, and my guess is you’ve never treated a girl so shabbily again.” She made the next logical leap. “Can your brother say the same?”

His face carefully blanked. “You’d have to ask him that. But he did work all summer to help pay her bills.”

She acknowledged his brother’s efforts with a nod, but she could see the worry in Mike’s eyes. “But you don’t think he’s changed. Not at a fundamental level. You think he’s still a big player gambling with other people’s hearts.”

His lips tightened. “As I said, you’d have to ask him.” Then abruptly he leaned forward. “My turn. Who done you wrong? Or were you doing the hurting?”

She leaned back and put on her most coy look. “What do you think? A hot Latina chicka like me? Nobody does me wrong.”

His eyebrows raised, and he didn’t look convinced. “What happened, Anna?”

She frowned. “Nothing happened.” Ever. Really. Her love life had been spectacularly dull. That happens when you waitress sixty hours a week while still going to school. No time for anything else.

“Hmmm,” he said. Then he paused as their dinners were being served. He had lasagna, just like Aunt Tilde had predicted. She’d gone for the catch of the day. Meanwhile, he flashed her a grin. “I’ll bet you my dessert that I can guess what happened to all those Latina-loving boyfriends who could have been banging down your door but weren’t.”

“First, I’m getting my own dessert. Why would I want yours?”

He snorted. “Because women always want a bite. And you don’t get one unless I’m wrong.”

Well, he had a point there. She did like tasting everyone’s food. She told herself it was part of her job as a party planner, but the truth was she just liked tasting a little bit of everything. Just to see what it’s like.

“Second,” she continued as if he hadn’t scored a hit, “what makes you think I didn’t have boys banging on my door?”

“I’m sure you had some, just not as many as your hot looks should have brought in.”

He was uncomfortably close to the truth. There had been boys who were attracted to her. Just none that stuck around.

“Okay, I’ll bite--”

“Or
not
bite,” he teased.

She nodded. “Or not bite, though how we’re going to know what’s true is beyond me.”

“No, it’s easy. First you were probably beautiful in high school, just like you are now. That would have intimidated a lot of the male population right there.”

She flushed and she fumbled a bit with her fork. It wasn’t that he called her beautiful, but the way he did it. Lots of men threw compliments her way, especially when they were drunk and she was working some event. But none of them said it as a matter of course, as if it were an established fact, the way Mike did. He might have been telling her a math fact for all the inflection he had.

“Wow,” she drawled. “You were right. Rick did get all the charisma.”

He paused for a moment, then shrugged. “You are beautiful and you’re not even trying right now. Not really. God, put you in a gold gown with some cleavage and…” He reached for a glass of water. “Well, most men would die happy just to spend an evening with you.”

She stared at him, stunned speechless for a moment. Then a thought came to her, one that snuck in and made her skin burn even hotter. “You were reading my blog.”

He smiled. “I tried to read your blog. Got stopped cold at the picture of you in that gown.”

She had gone all out for that event. “That was a fun night. I worked three months to get that band. You wouldn’t believe what the lead singer--”

“I think most guys just aren’t smart enough for you. In high school or in college.”

She blinked then frowned at him. “You don’t want to hear about the lead singer, do you?”

“Maybe another time. Or…never. I’m more interested in you than in another one of your distractingly charming tales.”

“It is a charming tale. He demanded a bowl of pink jelly beans. Just pink. Weirdest prima-donna request I’ve ever had.”

“Huh. That is weird. So am I right? Are guys just too stupid for you?”

“Of course not,” she snapped back. “It’s not like I’m a mathlete or something. Lots of guys are smart.”

“Has anyone been able to tell when you’re lying?” he asked.

She swallowed. “My mother.”

“Anyone else.”

No. Damn it, no one but him.

He grinned when she didn’t answer. “I rest my case. You dumped them when they couldn’t call you on your bull shit.”

“Hey!” She stabbed a bite of fish and waved it at him. “I don’t spout bullshit, and even if I did, the guys who date me like me for who I am.”

He arched a brow. “Really? Did you ever let anyone close enough to see who you really are? Because so far today, I’ve been regaled with anecdotes and celebrity gossip. I’ve been grilled about my childhood trauma. And in all that, you haven’t given up one personal detail.”

“Not true! You know lots of things about me.”

“Mother, college degree, business profile. Nothing I couldn’t have figured out in ten minutes of internet searches.” He leaned forward. “Come on, Anna. Tell me something real. A bite of my dessert is at stake.”

She huffed out a breath then decided to reveal something personal but not
too
personal. “There was a guy in college who I liked a lot.”

“He wasn’t into gorgeous and super-confident women?”

She paused a moment. Mike saw her as super-confident? Wow, did she have him snowed. The only reason her business was such a success was because she triple checked
everything
. She was too afraid she’d miss something.

“Um, no, that’s not it. Turns out he was Jennifer Lopez’s biggest fan.”

“Ah, and so
you
were the celebrity look-alike this time.” He cocked a brow at her. “Sucks, doesn’t it? To not be appreciated for yourself.”

She nodded. It had. “I tried to make it work. I really did. But we really started to fall apart when he tried to make me into a singer.”

“You don’t sing?”

“Not in public. Not anymore.”

“Ah. Traumatic karaoke night?”

She nodded. “Stage fright, big time. I’d told him I was related to Jennifer and that we used to sing duets together.” At least now when she told that fantasy, she kept it to being distantly related and at the same parties together once upon a time. But in college, she hadn’t realized her childhood pretend tales would be taken so literally. So when she stepped out on stage, it all came crashing down. “I couldn’t get out a note. It was humiliating.”

He frowned. “Not a note? Really? Somehow you strike me as someone who would have brazened it through anyway.”

She huffed out a breath. “Do you have to be such a stickler for everything? Why can’t you let me remember the event the way I want it to be?”

He smiled, the expression sympathetic even though he punctured the image with his next words. “Because the truth matters to me. Not your made up wishes. I want to know the real you. And if you’re honest, you’ll admit that you need someone who isn’t snowed by your razzle-dazzle.”

She stared at him a moment, feeling a quiver of panic that could have easily been excitement. Damn it, he was right. He challenged her every step of the way, and she liked it. But she’d be damned if she admitted it right now. “I’m really not that honest,” she said.

“Sure you are,” he challenged. “Tell me what really happened.”

She didn’t want to, but he was so damned easy to talk to that the words just came out of her. He made her feel safe enough with the truth that she said it all before she could stop herself. “Fine. The real me did brazen it through and I was awful. It would have been better if I’d swallowed my tongue or passed out or just been so frozen that nothing happened. It would have been
much
better.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. So what did college guy do?”

“Told me that it was okay. That I just had to look like Jennifer. I didn’t have to sing anymore.”

“Ouch. Did you dump him right then and there?”

She shrugged. “Next morning. I was too humiliated to do it that night.”

“Only a night to get your equilibrium back? You are strong.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “It was another week of self-doubt and angst, but by the time he called the next Friday, I’d found myself again. I dumped him on the phone and then enrolled in bartending school.”

He blinked. “You went from being dumped to bartending?”

“I saw how much that bar guy made on drunk bad singers. Hell, I drank half a bottle of tequila trying to erase the humiliation. So if I wasn’t going to make it in the entertainment field, I figured I might as well learn how to bartend.”

“And with your waitressing background and organizational skills, you had a ready made business when you graduated.” He smiled. “Nice way to turn lemons into lemonade. Though my guess is you’ve been doing that all your life.”

“My mom did it. I just learned from her.”

“And who’s there to catch you now? Who celebrates your achievements? Holds your hand when it goes badly? Who is there for you now?”

She swallowed and clenched her teeth against the lie that was about to trip off her tongue. Not because she wanted to lie, but because she didn’t have a convincing enough one that he wouldn’t spot. Finally, she settled for a version of the truth.

“I do have friends, Mike. Lots of them.”

“But no one special?”

“They’re all special!” And they were. But they were employees or friends with their own lives. She was lonely, damn it, but she would not say that. It would sound too pathetic in front of the most exciting man she’d met in years. So she shoved a bite of fish in her mouth rather than talk..

“Look, I’m not trying to make you upset, Anna. Really I’m not.”

She glared at him, then realized the stupidity of that. After all, she’d started it by pushing into his sibling issues. “It’s okay. You’re just giving as good as you got.” She looked down at her food and was startled when he touched her hand. Damn it, there he was touching her again, making everything inside her yearn for him. How the hell had she ever thought him grumpy? One caress, one sympathetic sound, and she melted.

“Okay,” she said softly. “So life has been kind of lonely lately.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me too, though God knows I’m surrounded by relatives every damned second of the day.”

She looked up, pretending she didn’t realize that she was entwining her fingers with him. “Too much family? I can’t even imagine that.”

“I’m in Peoria, they’re in Kansas City and St. Louis. I want to help, but I’ve got a full time job and they’re so far away. I’ve managed it so far, but I’ve blown through all my vacation. I just can’t be everything they need.” He squeezed her fingers as if he were tightening his hold on a lifeline. But then a second later, he relaxed, his fingers gentling into an easy hold. “I want to be, but I just can’t.”