Chapter 20
“Listen,” Marsha said, leaning a hand against the tree trunk by her side. She glanced toward the front of the beach house for a blink before setting her gaze back on Zander.
“This isn’t exactly new—the Benton family showing up in social media and tabloids. There was that incident between your brother James and the private chef. Videos replaying the mishap went viral, mainly because he’d been dating a vicious super model at the time, but still.
“Then your sister goes off and asks one of New York’s hottest bachelors to propose to her on live TV, all to get back at an old high school nemesis who’d suggested she’d end up a spinster.
“When Kat matched up with the profile so well, I had no choice but to select her. Let’s face it—the Benton family gets noticed. You’re all attractive. You’re billionaires, for crying out loud. America is fascinated. They want to see what will happen next.”
Zander followed Marsha’s gaze to see if Kat had come looking for him yet. She hadn’t. He ducked further beneath the trees and motioned for Marsha to come under its cover as well.
“So you’re saying they’re just creating something out of nothing here? They’re used to scandals surrounding us, so…”
Already Marsha was shaking her head. She squared a hard look at him, her green eyes piercing. “Listen, I showed you the page to see if you’d come clean. You’re not, so let me just put it this way…” She followed his lead, further into the brush and out of sight.
Sparks of fire-hot heat prickled Zander just beneath the skin. He gripped hold of a nearby branch to steady himself; he couldn’t let the guise unravel. Not yet. Not before he had the chance to tell Kat.
Better hidden from plain sight now, Marsha set her gaze back on Zander. “I’ve been on to you since day one,” she said.
Zander’s grip on the branch tightened.
“I know the difference between you and your twin. Your personalities are like night and day. From someone who spoke with Duke multiple times throughout this process, watched his video submissions along the way, it was obvious to me that you weren’t him.”
Zander stifled a curse. It felt like someone had set his skin ablaze. Full-on flames were moving from his palms, up the insides of his wrists, through his arms and straight to his heart.
“Kat’s going to see this page,” Marsha assured.
“So you might as well take a look at some of these.” She scrolled past side-by-side shots from Zander at the wedding and Zander from The Lion’s Den.
The words same exact hair scrolled beneath.
Others showed montages of Duke sporting his man bun, attaching quotes about how much he loved the thing.
She paused at a video and tapped the screen. “This is from the page’s creator,” Marsha said.
A middle-aged woman with red hair sat centered behind the lens.
“INDIZ stands for It’s Not Duke, It’s Zander.
And guys, trust this super fan of all things Benton—it is Zander, not Duke.
I encourage you to use our acronym in your feeds and posts in place of the words in this.
Example…” She cleared her throat. “INDIZ world, if you marry an identical twin, you never know which one you’re going to get.
But let’s face it—any woman in her right mind would gladly take either one of those twins, even if they were lying about who they were. ”
There was no stifling the next curse that came to his lips. Zander clenched his eyes shut and groaned. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
He was surprised to feel a hand on his arm. “Are you falling in love with Kat?” Marsha asked.
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you walk down the aisle instead of Duke?”
Zander huffed out a breath, lifted his chin, and squared a look at the producer. “Duke was in Nepal. Then he got stuck in Washington. I didn’t want to, but it was live TV. We know how that works as well as anyone.”
She held his gaze for a blink, then nodded. “Yes, you do. So Kat doesn’t know?”
Admitting the truth to Marsha before telling Kat…it felt like an added level of betrayal. Heck, it seemed half of the world already knew. “No,” he admitted. “But I’m going to tell her right now.”
He stepped forward to move past Marsha, but she put up a firm hand to stay him. “Not yet,” she said. “There are repercussions for what you’ve done. And for what Duke let happen after he signed a very binding contract.”
Anger flared hot in his chest as he stepped around her. “I don’t care.”
“Randall’s telling her about the page right now,” Marsha said.
Zander stopped mid-step. “He is?”
“Yes. Who knows what she’s thinking? She might realize they’re right and demand to leave the island. Or she could be in denial and wanting confirmation from you. You’ve got to think through this before you just spit it out.”
Fear was a terrible thing. Zander had experienced plenty of it over the years.
He’d worried about Winston and his addiction the most. And even amidst all of that upset and fear, despite his and his siblings’ desperate attempts to save his younger brother’s life, their worst fear had become a reality.
In the end, there’d been nothing they could do.
But this…this was different. How he handled this situation with Kat could make all the difference.
She needed to know that he was repentant.
That he had a valid reason for doing it, for keeping it from her.
And for not telling her even after they’d fallen in love.
“We’re willing to cut a deal with you. We’ll forgive every infraction against you and your brother if you agree to tell Kat on film.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.”
“You lied to all of America too, Zander.”
It had been days since someone had called him by his real name. The sound of it made him flinch. Standing just outside of the trees now, Zander looked over his shoulder. “You’re right. But the only person I care about is Kat.”
“Zander?”
Ice replaced the blood in his veins. It wasn’t Marsha who said his name this time; it was Kat. And by the sound of her voice, she was standing nearby.
A gulp slunk past his tightened throat. A rash of chills spread over his skin. Little by little, Zander turned to face her.
Kat’s eyes were wide with shock. Lips parted, she searched his face. “Marsha just called you Zander.”
“Don’t say anything,” Marsha mumbled from behind.
But Zander only nodded and took a step closer to Kat. “Yes,” he said, “she did.”
Kat took a step back, eyeing the white sand between them. “Why? Why did she call you Zander?”
The hurt in her face—it was like a million knives stabbing into him at once. He put his hands up in surrender and took another step. “Kat, listen.”
“It’s true?” She brought a shaky hand to her heart, began pressing at it with her palm. “Please…tell me the man I fell in love with wasn’t lying to me that whole time.”
The blades sank deeper, threatening to rob his next breath. Sweat broke out over his face and palms. “It’s just a name, Kat. I only lied about my name. I am who I said I was.”
A humorless laugh trilled from her throat. “Does that mean you are Duke? Because who you told me you were was Duke Benton, not Zander.” She forced out another laugh. “I don’t even like Zander. I told you that, and you defended him.”
The words I don’t like Zander caused a different sort of hurt, one that was drenched in fear. Fear of losing the woman he hoped to spend the rest of his life with.
“Please, Kat. Let me explain.”
But she was already hurrying away.
Zander trailed after her through the sinking sand toward the beach house, fear turning quickly to anger. “This is exactly what you did the first time we met. Just run away instead of giving me a chance to explain things.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Kat hissed while hurrying up the stairs. “Don’t follow me.” She flung open the screen door and bolted inside.
The momentum rushing through him made it hard not to follow, but he forced himself to spin around and pace the porch instead. His words, on the other hand, would take no such detour. She’d struck a nerve with her comment.
“You didn’t like me?” he hollered. “Could that be because you didn’t give me even a second to defend myself? If you would have let me speak when you showed up at my office, you would have found out that I have plans to make Milton and Brewster more eco friendly than any printing press to date.”
His words bounced off the wood-slatted deck. They echoed off the glass of the beach house. But they didn’t slow down the woman they were meant for. She was too busy hoisting her suitcase onto the bed and dashing over to the armoire, he could see that much from the porch.
“We might have actually hit it off then, Kat. I was attracted to you. I was interested in you. Why do you think I sent you roses?”
Marsha bounded up the steps. “You sent her roses? Before all of this?”
Zander kept his gaze pasted on his view of Kat packing her bag. “Yeah.”
In his periphery, he saw Marsha fling open the door and step inside. She spun around before heading in and spoke through the mesh screen. “Go cool off for a minute. Let her do the same.”
Desperation gripped hold of him, tightening his throat and chest as he sucked in his next breath. “But we need to talk. Can you just get her to listen so I can explain?”
“You know what she is right now?” Marsha challenged, pushing the door back open a crack. “She’s fire.” The intensity in her green eyes made him flinch.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean timing is everything when it comes to women. Right now, she’s a spark ready to explode. And anything you say is gunpowder. If you love this woman—practice some patience. Now’s not the time.”
With that, she yanked the door closed.