Chapter 2
THEY HAD HER PEGGED
“No, wait. Maybe shove the desk over there,” London said, pointing like she was directing traffic in rush hour.
The two delivery guys lifted the ends of the heavy desk again. She watched, her lips pinched, her hand on her hip, her head tilted as she judged the placement.
“Here?” one of them asked, out of breath.
She squinted. “Actually…no. It was better where it was. Can you move it back?”
The men exchanged a look, equal parts exhausted and terrified she’d change her mind again. They set it back in the original spot and, without waiting for her approval, immediately retreated before she could open her mouth.
Probably smart. They’d been here thirty minutes already in her office alone bringing things in.
From the office across, she heard her twin sister’s voice. Softer. Warmer. That infuriating blend of charm and sweetness that made people bend over backward for her.
The two guys laughed at something Paris said, then politely asked, “Need anything else?”
Her jaw clenched. Of course Paris got the politeness. The easy smiles. The extra help. Meanwhile, if she so much as breathed an instruction, she was suddenly the Wicked Witch of Wall Street.
Maybe she could have been nicer. Fluttered her lashes. Let out a cute little giggle.
Ugh. Hard pass.
Because that was the assumption anytime she and Paris entered a room. Matching blondes, blue eyes, long legs, big chests. Just like a pair of walking stereotypes. A matched set of office Barbies.
They thought they had her pegged.
Fine. Let them.
Let them think she was soft, fluffy, and harmless.
Then bam—right between the eyes—she’d hit them with exactly what needed to be done and every single thing they were doing wrong. A shark in heels and she loved it!
It wasn’t like Paris didn’t correct people too. She just did it with gummy bears instead of lemon drops.
Whatever. That balance was why they worked so well together.
Paris was the good sister.
London? She loved being the bad one.
“Are you going to calm down today?”
She swiveled around to see her twin standing in the doorway, a big grin on her face, the jeans Paris was wearing almost exactly the same as what she’d put on this morning.
“I’m calm. What makes you think I’m not calm?” she asked, moving her monitor around her desk to get it in the perfect spot so that she could see the screen and the view out of the two windows in their office space.
She and Paris each got the offices with the view of the buildings next door. At least it was daylight.
The rest of the space was walls only. It’d look better once they put their touches on it.
“Oh, I don’t know. Just the vibrations pelting off the walls,” Paris said. “You’re wound up. I could hear you pacing in your room all night.”
She let out a laugh. “Not likely because I wasn’t pacing.”
“Your mind was,” Paris said. “You know I feel it too.”
She sighed. Paris was always the one who talked about their twin powers more than her.
Or what Paris considered them to share.
Their happiness, sadness, excitement and even fear.
Maybe that was why Paris tended to calm her because she knew in advance and could prepare.
“Then you know how huge this is.”
“I do. We’re going to make it. You know, West would have never given us this chance if he didn’t believe in us. And you know damn well he looked into our work before we even started talking about it.”
Because her first cousin, billionaire West Carlisle, gave no one a free ride, but he sure the hell would help family if they had a solid business plan.
Which she and Paris worked a good year on before they even presented it.
Years of them working for different companies doing similar jobs. They rarely saw each other even though they’d lived in the same building complex. But one or both of them could be on the road at any given time.
Now they were in Manhattan, sharing office space, renting a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, and living the dream they’d had since they were in college.
Maybe not exactly like this, but she was adaptable... regardless of what everyone thought.
“I know. He said no one knows we are related other than family,” she said. “The last thing we need is special treatment.”
They were already getting it by having office space in this building at a ridiculously low rate.
Not to mention seed money to get them started with West getting thirty percent of their business.
Not only that, most of their business was actually coming from West and all his holdings, regardless of the percentage he’d held.
She didn’t ask why that was and didn’t care. They were smart enough to know they needed to build their reputation and having West as their biggest client was only going to help.
“If it comes out, it does,” Paris said. “Everyone knows West doesn’t play favorites so let it go.”
She pushed her shoulders back, heard the crack and the pop, then spun around the room with her arms out.
Her sister was laughing, then joined in.
“There,” she said. “I feel so much better now. It’s ours. All ours.”
“Sixty percent is ours. Thirty to West, ten to Dad.”
She laughed. “Good old Dad. He didn’t have to do this. I feel kind of bad. I mean there are nine of us. He can’t do this for everyone.”
“He’s not,” Paris said. “But he has money in Phoenix’s business. He said he’d help anyone or everyone he could.”
“He put us all through college,” she argued. “Give me a break.”
“He’s not hurting and you know it,” her sister said. “Let him have his fun. He’ll be hands off.”
“I know. I just thought, or hoped we could do it alone. Wishful thinking on my part.”
“Yeah, well, Phoenix thought he could do it alone too and look at how much better and more successful he is now that he swallowed his pride and let West in. Even having Nelson there for months with the changes helped.”
“And now it’s up to us to do a lot of what Nelson and Laken did while they tackle other things,” she said. “I’m so nervous. Why am I nervous?”
“Because it means so much,” Paris said, moving over and pulling her into an embrace. She held on like she had in the womb, she was positive.
Everyone said London was the stronger twin. The more outspoken. The one who rubbed people the wrong way.
Paris was the one who held everything together. Her sister was the quiet anchor that let London step forward, take the hits, take the heat, absorb every snide comment or bruised ego before it ever reached them. Paris kept the center steady. London guarded the perimeter.
Being the older one by nine minutes made it feel like her job. Her responsibility. Her role since birth.
“Anyone in here?”
“Coming,” London yelled, her sister covering her ears.
They left her office, walked down the hall passing the bathroom, the conference room, and two rooms that would be used for other employees in the future. Rooms that would hold several cubicles in them.
The minute they hit the reception area, right past the empty desk that their new assistant would start at next week, there was a man standing there.
A very attractive man.
Gray trousers, sleek gray sneakers that still somehow looked expensive, a light pink shirt threaded with white stripes that should have looked soft but didn’t on him. His brown hair was short, neat, styled but nowhere near fussy.
His eyes moved over her first, slowly assessing, then shifted to Paris, then back to her again. Not leering. Not shy. Just…taking inventory. Noting similarities and differences.
They weren’t identical. Never had been.
But there was no universe where you could look at them and not see they were twins.
“Hi,” he said, moving forward. “Just coming to introduce myself. I’m Spencer Jensen. We’ll be working together a lot it seems.”
His voice, it was deep yet almost silky. A kind of calmness that her sister had, but when her hand touched his, there was nothing calm in it.
There was heat slapping her palm, racing up her arm and crashing in her chest.
“London Westerly. My sister, Paris.”
Spencer shook Paris’s hand next. “Nice to meet you. Braylon told us we’d be working with you soon. It was nice of you to come down and introduce yourself.”
“I know what it’s like being new to the organization,” he said.
“We heard you’d only been here a few months,” she said, lifting an eyebrow.
His eyes flashed, maybe a touch of annoyance over her tone. It wasn’t that she meant to be snotty, it was just that he unnerved her when men didn’t normally do that to her.
“I think what my sister is trying to say is that we’re glad to be in the same boat. Right, London?”
“Yeah, sure,” she said. “That’s what I meant.”
Spencer’s polite smile never left his face. “I’m sure we’ll work well together. You probably know where Braylon’s office is, so I’m two down from it.”
“We do,” London said. Not that she’d offer the information of who she was to Braylon. He didn’t need to know that. He was here to do a job just like she was.
“Looks like you’ve got a lot of setting up to do in here.” He was looking around at the freshly painted walls. A soft mint green that Paris picked out. She’d said it’d look great and her sister was never wrong with those things.
“Just need to put everything in its place. Foster will be here tomorrow to get our computers going, then we’ll be decorating it some. It will look much better by the end of the week,” Paris said.
“My sister has the magic touch with decor. Even with people.”
“Ah, got it,” he said. “Most people say that about me. Not with decor, but with people. My younger sister, she’d say otherwise, but then again, she’s a little brat.”
Paris laughed as if she were falling for the charm. London only held her smile in place.
“I think it’s normal to think young siblings are brats,” Paris said. “We know that ourselves.”
She turned and narrowed her eyes at Paris, hoping her sister didn’t give too much away.
She didn’t need to worry because Spencer didn’t look as if he was going to inquire. “I can’t wait to see when it’s done. When you get everything set and ready to go, reach out with your schedule and we can get started.”
“We will,” she said. “It’s nice of you to come down and introduce yourself.”
He turned and left, her eyes following his movements through the glass door to their office, then he turned out of sight.
“Geez, London. You could have been a bit nicer.”
“I was nice,” she argued. “What are you talking about?”
“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry. That might as well have been what you did when you said it was nice to meet him and your eyes flashed back to the door as if telepathically telling him to get lost.”
“Hey. You only knew what I was thinking because of our connection. He had no clue.”
“I doubt that. Just like you want to deny that you didn’t think he was hot and that is why you wanted him out of here.”
“Go,” she said, shoving her sister. “Put your office together while I do mine.”
“I’m right,” Paris sang as she walked down the hall. “And you hate it when I am.”
More than she’d ever admit to anyone.