The Color of Hope (The Color of Heaven Series) (14 page)

“Good night,” I said, moving past them to go to bed.

“I’ll be in soon, babe,” Rick replied, but it was five in the morning before he slipped into bed beside me.

“You’re beginning to sound crazy,” Rick said when I stepped out of the shower to get ready for breakfast. “Nothing’s going on. What...? I’m not allowed to stay up and watch TV now?”

“There’s a TV in here,” I argued, gesturing toward it.

“I wasn’t tired,” he explained. “I wanted to stay up.”

Surely my blood pressure was burning a hole in the roof. I wanted to biff a pillow at him.

“She’s your twin sister,” he said in disbelief. “How can you even
think
what you’re thinking?”

“Just get up,” I said, brushing my wet hair. “We’re supposed to meet Adam in twenty minutes.”

Rick groaned in complaint, and tossed the covers aside.

I managed to keep a smile on my face most of the day, but on the inside I was quietly fuming over how Rick seemed to be ignoring me. He talked and laughed with the others, but the wedge between was as obvious to me as the flashing neon lights on the strip.

We went to
Cirque Du Soleil
that night, then returned to the Palms to gamble in the casino again. Nadia stuck close to me, which took some of the edge off, and I made an effort to give each of them the benefit of the doubt and consider the possibility that the problem was with me, not them. Maybe I just needed to lighten up and have a good time.

While Adam and Rick played poker, Nadia, Becky and I did well at the craps table. People began to cheer for us, but before long, our luck took a turn for the worse, so we decided to quit while we were still ahead.

I gathered up our chips. “You guys go find a seat in the bar,” I said. “I’ll take these to the cashier’s cage. And text the guys. Tell them where we are.”

A short while later, I found Becky in the Scarlet Lounge with a glass of white wine on the table in front of her. She was reading emails on her phone.

I sat down in the facing chair. “Where’s Nadia?”

“She went to the washroom.”

I ordered a glass of wine and checked my emails as well.

When Nadia didn’t come back after about fifteen minutes, I said, “Do you think she went to find the guys?”

“Maybe.”

I texted her: Are you coming back?

Adam walked in and sat down. “I heard you guys won big at the craps table,” he said.

“We won two hundred dollars!” Becky proudly told him.

“Does that mean you’re buying?”

“Sure. Let’s get the waiter over here.” She waved a hand to flag him down.

“Where’s Rick?” I asked Adam.

“I think he went to the washroom.”

“When was that?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” Adam said.

Alarm bells were going off in my head, but I tried to keep cool. “I’ll be right back.” Grabbing my purse, I rose from my chair.

I walked out of the bar and checked the ladies washroom on the casino floor. There was no sign of Nadia inside so I took a quick stroll through the slot machine aisles and searched around the gaming tables. By this time, I had tight knots in my stomach. I hated feeling suspicious, but I couldn’t help myself.

I walked across the sky tube to the tower where our penthouse was located, reached the lobby and pressed the button on the elevator. It was quieter there, away from the sounds of the casino. Impatiently, I tapped my foot on the floor.

Then the elevator chimed, the doors slid open, and I stood motionless, staring. Rick was inside the elevator, stepping away from Nadia after kissing her up against the side wall. With a smile on his face, he turned to get off, but stopped dead when he met my shocked gaze.

“
O
H
,
MY
G
OD
,” Nadia said with horror as she covered her mouth with both hands.

Rick looked down at the floor. “Shit.”

The elevator door started to close, but he held it back and quickly got off. Nadia followed him.

“Diana, I’m so sorry,” she said.

I shook my head at her. “Don’t.” Then I turned and started walking away, back across the sky tube to the casino.

“Diana wait!” Rick shouted.

My stomach churned with sickening rage as I entered the noisy casino. I wanted to hit something.

I knew Rick had followed me, and when he grabbed hold of my arm, I whirled around and shook myself out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me!”

Nadia caught up with us.

“You know as well as I do,” he said, “that we’ve been having problems for a while.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked. “Is that supposed to excuse what I just saw?”

“You’re too uptight,” he argued. “All you want is a ring on your finger and a white dress and a wedding cake. I don’t want any of that!”

“That’s not true.”

He lowered his voice and spoke close in my ear. “Remember the beach? You didn’t want to make love because it didn’t fit into your grand master plan for the night. Nadia’s not like that. She would have made love on the beach.”

Nadia grabbed his arm. “Rick,
stop
!” Her eyes shot to mine. Her cheeks were flame red, her eyes full of angst. “I’m so sorry, Diana. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Well, it did,” I replied. “And you can’t take it back.”

I started back to the bar to find Becky and Adam, but Nadia followed.

“Please, Diana, let me explain.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “I don’t even want to look at you. Don’t follow me.”

I returned to the Scarlet Lounge where Becky and Adam were talking. Becky glanced up at me. “Oh my God, what happened?”

She knew me well. “I need to get out of here,” I said. “Can we go?”

“Of course.” She and Adam stood up. We left our drinks behind.

Nadia

I
T WAS THE
understatement of the decade to say that I had never been so down on myself.

Diana wouldn’t answer my calls or texts, and we had no idea what happened to her after our blowout in the casino.

Rick and I spent the night in the penthouse alone. He slept in his room and I slept in mine, while we waited for Diana to return. She never did. It wasn’t until the next day, when we were checking out, that her brother Adam finally took pity on us and responded to a text. He told us that she and Becky had gone to a different hotel, but they’d hopped on a flight out of Vegas early that morning. They were already on their way home to Bar Harbor.

“Ask him when she’s coming back,” I said to Rick, while we stood at the hotel reservation desk with our luggage.

Rick texted the question to Adam.

He got back to us almost immediately.

She hasn’t decided.


He sent us no more information.

During the three-hour drive back to LA, Rick and I spent the first hour arguing over what had happened. Mostly we blamed each other.

“We had too much to drink, that’s all,” he said.

“That’s all?” I replied. “Seriously? Is that what you really think?” When he didn’t accept responsibility, I laid into him, hard. “You’ve been flirting me for weeks. Even Diana could see it.”

“Hey, it’s not like you weren’t doing your part!” he argued. “You always look at me like I’m your knight in shining armor. Ever since that night I punched out your loser boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” I said with disgust. “And yes, I was grateful for what you did, but I never wanted this
to happen. Jesus, she’s my twin sister.” I touched my hands to my cheeks. “Oh God, how could we have done that?”

He said nothing for a long moment, then to my surprise, he reached over and touched my knee, rubbed it reassuringly. I looked down at his hand, stared at it, befuddled, then frowned at him.

“I’m sorry,” he gently said. “You’re right. This is really messed up. It shouldn’t have happened.”

I was still angry with him. Nothing was going to change that, because even if the fault was ours to share equally, I blamed him for being so incredibly attractive.

“You said terrible, hurtful things to her last night,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he admitted, returning both hands to the wheel, “but every bit of it was true.” He glanced at me. “Don’t pretend she didn’t talk to you about our relationship. I know she told you everything. She talked to you more than she talked to me.” He shook his head. “All she wanted to do was get married. She was really smothering. I could barely breathe, so last night I finally just snapped. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about it anymore.”

I rested my elbow on the door and cupped my forehead in a hand. The world outside the window sped by in a blur and I was reminded of that day long ago when my mother told me to find myself a rich man. “Love just ain’t enough,” she had said.

Those words seemed so empty now.

“And don’t deny your part in this,” Rick said. “It wasn’t all me. You were giving off plenty of signals.”

My self-loathing escalated to a new level, because he was right. I was attracted to him, and wildly so. I’d been in awe of him from the first moment he walked into the reception area at work. I nearly fell out of my chair that morning, and had to fan myself after he left.

I never told Diana that, of course, but whenever Rick looked at me, I melted. Each time he spoke to me, the pull grew stronger. I just didn’t dare admit it to myself.

Last night, in the elevator, the willpower I’d been clinging to finally gave way. All he had to do was look at me with those mesmerizing blue eyes, and all the sparks that had been flashing between us for weeks suddenly burst into flame. I wanted him so badly – physically – that I just couldn’t say no.

And the kiss had been electric. My whole body surrendered. When the elevator doors opened, I was in a dazed stupor. I could barely comprehend what was happening.

Turning my head to look at Rick, I took a deep breath to try and settle my nerves and think rationally. “So what are you going to do about Diana?”

“I’ll apologize for what happened,” he said, “because I owe her that. But otherwise, we’re done. I don’t want what she wants. It’s best if she moves on.”

His decision seemed so final. He sounded callous.

And where did that leave
me?
I wondered
.
What was I going to do?

I had betrayed my twin. Was it even possible to fix what I had broken?

Rick and I said very little to each other the rest of the way home, but when we finally entered the city, I had made up my mind about one thing, at least.

“When you drop me off at my apartment,” I said, “I don’t want to ever see you again. We did a terrible thing, and I wrecked the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Keeping his eyes on the road, he touched my leg and spoke imploringly. “Nadia...”

“No.” I pushed his hand away. “Don’t do that. This is tainted. All I want is for Diana to forgive me. Just please take me home.”

When he pulled over in front of my apartment, got out and opened the trunk, he said, “This isn’t over.”

“Oh, yes it is,” I replied, as I took my suitcase from him.

He slammed the trunk shut and got back into his car.

As I stood on the curb, watching the taillights grow distant, I realized with a pang of sadness that I was alone again, and somehow, this time felt worse than all the others.

Maybe it would have been better if I’d never known Diana existed.

O
VER THE NEXT
few days, I tried everything. I called Diana’s cell phone repeatedly and left voice mail messages to apologize for what happened and express my regret. I sent her long emails where I struggled over how to explain why I had made such a foolish mistake: I was a lonely person. I just wanted to be loved. I was flattered by the attentions of a man like Rick. I was under some kind of spell.

I was weak. Stupid. Insecure. Desperate.

I told her I would never see Rick again, and I begged for her forgiveness.

All the while, I wondered if Rick was doing the same thing – begging for her to take him back. Maybe he had come to his senses and was on his way out east with an engagement ring, and I would be pushed out of the circle.