Chapter 8
Meirna
My cell phone is plucked from my fingers before I can manage another confused response.
“I’m Bobby, Meirna, geezus fuckin’ Christ. I’m your fiancé. You’re with the wrong guy.”
I can’t fully explain what’s going through my headspace right now. All I know is that I’m looking at Bobby.
That I’m with Bobby.
That the man who planned an intimate wedding and is taking me on my dream vacation is Bobby.
I married Bobby.
“We on our no-phones rule now?” Bobby inquires, shoving mine in the back pocket of his dress slacks.
He never takes my phone away from me.
I was just in mid-conversation with someone.
“Bobby,” I start, using the pads of my fingers to rub at one of my temples. “There was a man on the phone who just said—”
“I’m Bronte, Daydream,” he says matter-of-factly, retrieving the sandwich he just obtained from me off one of the small tables. “We can stop with the bullshit now.”
What?
I know I’m gaping at him when he hands me my lunch, but I don’t make a move to take it.
Bronte?
Who the hell is Bronte?
“Since when did you get funny?” I prompt with the plate still hovering in the air. “I know you liked to mess around, but making up marrying fake people? On my way to my honeymoon?” I shake my head. “You’re a riot.”
He really must need the outlet.
Except, I can’t get it to stop repeating in my head.
“You’re with Bronte. My twin brother.”
Dread.
Yep, that’s what hits me and can be perfectly described.
That voice on the other line, I’ve heard a million times. I know that voice. I’ve been with it every day for two years.
That was Bobby.
But…so is the man standing in front of me.
“I didn’t,” Bobby says flatly. “Bobby was always the one fucking around.”
Now we’re referring to ourselves in the third person again?
Rising from the couch, I put a bit of distance between me and the man I’ve only known as Bobby.
I can’t help but study him and try to place the facts with what I know.
Just by standing here, this man is a bit taller than I remember. His green eyes are still lighter…his voice—
“Who are you?” I immediately pose, clutching my fingers together, and feel my cunt throb from how hard he just fucked me minutes ago.
This is a really twisted joke.
Even for Bobby.
I watch him place the sandwich down with ease and zero anxiety. When he straightens and looks back at me, I see it.
I see more…broody male.
I see the sharper jawline. The darker hair. The tanner skin.
No, it’s the lighting in this plane.
“Is this the moment you freak out?”
What.
In.
The.
Fuck?
My lips part, but I can’t organize a sentence to save my life right now. If what he’s implying and following along with is true…I just fucked someone who was not my fiancé.
“Meirna,” he mutters, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress slacks. “Ask me.”
No.
If I ask, that means he answers.
That means…I couldn’t even pick out my own fiancé. That I couldn’t tell.
That I couldn’t feel it.
Oh, you felt it. You just felt it differently.
I flinch at the memories of the last three days. How Bobby has been different and more desolate. I thought it was the workload. It made sense.
Or I thought it made sense.
How was I supposed to know…that someone who looked exactly like…no, this can’t be happening.
I’m not that fucking oblivious.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Bobby pipes in, remaining where he is and exactly as he always has been—collected, confident, and unaffected. “Easy mistake. Not even my own parents recognized who I was.”
My breath catches because this joke won’t fuck off and get lost on me.
He’s confirming it without saying it. He’s vaguely inflicting the truth, and that I’m an absolute moron for not realizing it before.
How do you not realize your fiancé?
How do you not know that the man who’s fucking you is not the same man who has been fucking you for over the last two years?
You knew.
Things were different.
He was different.
You just gave him excuses because you liked it.
My stomach knots, and I place my palm over the chaos brewing there. What’s done is done. I cheated on my fiancé with…what was his name?
And since when does Bobby have a twin?
A twin I don’t know. A twin that no one thought to mention to me, the whole two years I was with Bobby.
Not once.
He’s mentioned he’s an only child. It’s something we have in common.
“Sit down, Meirna,” the lookalike Bobby orders gently. “I’ll explain everything—”
“Who are you?” I clip out, allowing my anger to take center stage over my fear. I don’t know how this man can stand in front of me with zero fucks to give and no apology, but I want off this plane and answers.
“Bronte Vasiliou,” he claims evenly. “Technically, I am a Harding. But—”
“Turn this plane around right now,” I seethe, immediately feeling sick to my stomach. “Take me back—”
“That’s against protocol.”
Protocol?
“Now,” I demand, not giving a crap about rules and regulations right now. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”
“Meirna—”
“But I have no money, and if you think getting a ransom for me was going to work, it’s not.”
“Bobby wouldn’t be able to spring it for you, even if he wanted to. He’s broke.”
My face skews because no, he’s not. “I want to go back home…now.”
Bronte Vasiliou gestures toward the couch I just rose from. “Please…sit down. I’ll explain everything.”
I shake my head because nothing he’s going to say is going to make me feel any less stupid than I do right now.
Any less confused or dizzy.
This is madness.
This is insane.
This is—how the hell did Bobby not tell me he had a twin brother?!
“You’re in shock,” Bronte claims as if he can be all the things mentioned above and still know what I’m thinking. “But, think back, Meirna. You had to have known.”
I scowl at him. “Known what? That everyone I met has a twin?!”
He has the audacity to roll his eyes at me. “No, me.”
“What?” I take another well-needed step back and try to gather myself.
I’m in a crisis right now, on a plane, going to another country, with a man who just fake-married me.
“Wait.” My eyes turn into narrow slits on Bobby, but not Bobby.
“We’re not married, right? That wasn’t real.
This is a really bad prank gone wrong because…
are you wearing a mask? Is that makeup? Where’s Bobby? ”
Those light greens stay fastened on me when he emits nonchalantly, “No. We’re married. You’re my wife.”
No.
Wife.
We’re married.
You’re my wife.
And that’s all I remember before a sea of blackness abruptly engulfs me.