Chapter 1
Gwen
Ten years ago
My parent’s endless yelling shatters through the silence between songs on my iPod. Tensing, I roll my eyes at yet another fight beginning to wreak havoc for the third night in a row.
The sound of glass shattering makes my heart stop.
Pushing pause, I sit up straight and wait in silence for a moment.
When the yelling continues, I exhale the breath I was holding.
The sound was likely just another of my mother’s wine glasses shattering against a nearby wall.
Figures. I should have known when I walked in the door earlier and saw one empty wine bottle in the trash with Mom well into almost half of the second there would be trouble.
Pulling towards the end of my bed, I take the hoodie next to me and pull it over my head.
Putting my earphones and iPod in the front pocket, I tuck my cold feet into warm slippers.
Even though it’s March, it still has not warmed up a lot yet, and the breeze that was once warm and nice coming through my open bedroom window is now making the night colder than I expected.
Padding across my room and over to the window, I go to shut it and notice my sister sitting out on the rooftop to the left.
Our bedrooms are joined by a jack and jill bathroom, and we often sneak out and sit on the back roof to spill secrets, watch the sunset, talk about boys, and most of the time escape our parent’s endless fights.
No doubt she’s escaping the sounds echoing up from downstairs.
Grabbing a blanket, I climb out across the roof to sit with her.
Staring off into the night sky, I notice a small tear fall down her cheek as I climb closer. Wiping it away quickly, she turns to greet me with a sad smile.
“You think they could have waited until after we went to bed?” she laughs nervously, trying to make light of the situation after the news we received earlier today.
Sitting close to her, I wrap half the blanket around my legs and then shelter hers with the other half.
Pulling her scarf down lower on her forehead, the sadness in her eyes breaks my heart.
She always loved her hair. Now, the little she has left stays hidden under one of the many colorful scarves she rotates daily.
Swallowing hard, I attempt to remain strong so she won’t know the fear I’m guarding.
“Look on the bright side,” I say, nudging her shoulder and pulling her close. “They say when your hair grows back, it could come in curly. Just like you always wanted. Maybe then the world could finally tell us apart.”
She laughs before more tears fill her eyes, then looks out again across the backyard.
“If,” she sniffles. “If it grows back. Besides, I never minded being your twin. Just think of all the fun we won’t be able to have anymore, pretending to be each other if my hair does come back curly. Or even if….”
She trails off, and my heart stops.
“Hey,” I say. “Don’t go there. When, and I do mean when your hair grows back, if it is curly, I will go all 1984 and perm mine to match. We’ll fool the world, B. Imagine how much fun that will be?”
We laugh lightly for a moment before I follow her gaze out across the yard, and we’re both weighed down again by the shrieking yells of my mother and father.
I turn and look at Belle. She’s a split image of me.
Same nose, same lips, same fighting spirit.
Her hair might be gone, her face a little slimmer from all the weight she has lost, but she is still my other half.
I’ve been with her my whole life, even inside the womb.
She has to beat cancer. I wouldn’t know how to live if she… .
I shake my head and bury the thought, not wanting to think about what the doctor said earlier today after her checkup—not wanting to admit that her first round of chemo failed.
She was already on borrowed time. She was given a small chance of beating the brain tumor that’s quickly been consuming her life since she was diagnosed earlier this year after suffering from headaches.
But we can’t give up. She can’t give up. Not now. I won’t let her.
My father’s voice barrels through the night air, attempting to stop my mother from fighting with him any further.
After a few short moments, my mother’s voice can be heard shouting only a few words, which are immediately followed by a slamming door and the start of a car engine.
Tires peel out of our driveway. I’m only too sure my father was the one who escaped.
My sister’s fight with cancer has taken its toll on all of us and serves to be the one thing that’s tearing this family apart.
Attempting to lighten the mood, I tell my sister a secret I’ve been holding in for far too long.
“Hey B, I never told you. I bumped into Rex Roberts after practice two days ago. He sure is persistent,” I laugh.
I smile, remembering how I spotted him leaning against my car, waiting for me.
The way he smiled as I came closer took my breath away.
My heart sped up, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye.
He held my hand to write his number on it with a red pen, and I could barely contain my shaking.
I look at my right hand and grin, barely making out the last few numbers he wrote.
I won’t lie. I didn’t have it in me to wash it off.
Actually, I wrote it down in my diary and stashed it away with the feelings he gives me.
Ones I know I shouldn’t have and definitely should never pursue.
My sister rolls her eyes. “Yeah, persistent with you and every other girl at Lincoln High. I thought you didn’t like him, Gwen?”
I pretend not to be affected by her jab as I shrug and admit, “I don’t know, B.
I kind of do. I don’t know what it is, but he has this pull on me, you know?
Like, I can’t help but be drawn to him. It kind of scares me, but it’s addicting, too.
It makes me kind of want to go for it. Even though I know I shouldn’t. ”
My sister snorts, disapprovingly. Having confessed more than I thought I would about my feelings for the school’s notorious playboy, I sit silently, wishing she would say something.
“Haven’t you ever felt that way about someone?” I ask, sheepishly.
Belle shrugs, “Maybe one day. If I’m lucky,” she says.
We fall silent, and when I can’t think of anything else to say, I feel for my iPod inside my hoodie pocket. Grabbing it out, I take one side of the headphones and hand her the other. She takes it happily and smiles up at me.
Music has always been a connecting force between Belle and me. We always joke that our mother must have played a lot of music to us inside her womb because we’re both addicted to the same lyrics and beats. It has to be the twin thing.
Leaning against one another, I push play as Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” fills the speakers. It’s our sister theme song, one we have always shared a secret love for, as corny as it may be.
As the song enters the second verse, Belle breaks the silence. “Gwen,” she whispers.
“Yeah, B?”
“Please promise me you’ll never settle.” My brow furrows as I stare out into the night, and one face flashes before my eyes.
Rex Roberts. “Promise me you’ll always make every second count.
That you’ll never end up like mom and dad.
” My throat closes, tears threaten my eyes.
“And when you fall in love, Gwen, if I’m not here, promise me you’ll love enough for the both of us. ”
* * *
My eyes flash open and I try to slow my breathing. My hand raises to my forehead, now damp with sweat from the dream I just had. I shut my eyes tightly as a small tear escapes, rolls down my cheek, and my heart breaks.
It was so real. She was so real. I brush the tear aside and will the sob burning in my chest back down where it came from.
A tiny sliver of light creeps through tightly drawn shades as I piece together where I am — and who I am with.
Damn it.
He sure as hell isn’t a dream, and this, whatever it is, sure as hell happened after one too many drinks last night.
His deep breathing next to me makes my own breaths shake.
The heat of him is so close it consumes me.
My heart hammers, as I hold my breath and listen to see if he’s awake.
An even, deep snore fills the room, and I exhale relief, knowing I’m in the clear. There’s still a chance for an escape.
Slowly rolling out of bed, I look around the dark hotel room and try to remember where my clothes may have been thrown.
Tracing back over the night, I remember barely making it through the door before Rex’s hands were on my body, ridding me of everything between us.
I smile before I can tell myself not to as my mind recalls the memory of last night.
Standing naked in the middle of the room we shared, I become instantly aroused as I remember the way he ripped my panties off my body the second we walked through the door, dropped to his knees and thoroughly devoured me.
Rex fucked me so good I swear I saw heaven and hell before being brought back to life not once, not twice, but three damn unforgettable times.
The warmth between my legs pulses at the memory. My hands rise up my bare stomach towards my chest, I harshly grip my tits from the memory of how he worked my body like he’d been spending the last decade perfecting his skills in the chance that he’d one day be able to show me what I’d been missing.
Staring down at Rex, naked and covered only by the white hotel sheet lying across his southern half, I have to stop myself from mounting him like I’m craving.
The delicious morning wood I can make out through the thin fabric has my mouth watering.
God, he hasn’t lost his touch, that’s for damn sure.
If anything, what was mind-blowing before is now earth-shattering as we came together over and over again last night.
Slipping my dress back over my head, I find my undergarments, and discard the torn lace fabric of my underwear in a nearby trash can.
Grabbing my heels, I notice my purse sitting on the chair across the room.
Quietly, I tiptoe towards it. Grabbing it quickly, I pick up my carry-on seated on the floor next to the chair.
I’m almost in the clear before my phone starts to ring inside my clutch.
Quickly snatching it out, I push ignore and curse myself silently as I stand still in the middle of the room and hope Rex sleeps through it.
He rotates on the bed, and I count to five before I make my next move.
Once I’m sure he’s passed back out, I tiptoe across the space and slowly open the door.
The hallway is empty. I take my time slowly letting the door to the hotel room inch back closed as I make my escape.
When it clicks shut, a small piece of my heart is left scattered across the hotel bed where Rex still sleeps. I place my palm on the door and hold it there momentarily. I know it’s stupid, but it’s almost as if not turning and walking away immediately keeps me with him, keeps us together.
My phone begins to ring again, and if I don’t want to be caught outside the door doing the walk of shame, I know I have to leave.
Turning quickly, I make it around the corner, and I’m almost to the elevator before I pull the phone out of my clutch and notice who’s calling.
Great. Figures it would be my boss. Even though I left a very detailed voicemail last night on my way to the hotel, saying I was being delayed and would not make it back in time for the meeting, she must not have received the message.
It was a message that was cut short while Rex’s fingers grazed up my inner thigh in the back of a cab, his lips brushed against my neck, and he nipped and sucked his way to my earlobe.
“Tell me, Gwen, do you still taste as good as you used to?” he teased, lifting my skirt and trailing his fingertips across my dampened center.
I watched his eyes as they hooded over with desire before his fingers pulled aside my panties, and he gently felt up my slick, throbbing slit.
My eyes fluttered shut while I willed myself to concentrate on the voicemail I was leaving as he pressed his fingers inside me and kissed a trail down my neck to my breasts.
Then again, maybe the message wasn’t as detailed as I thought. Attempting to shake last night’s memory from my thoughts, I answer my phone as I enter the elevator and push the button, signaling for it to take me to the lobby.
“Melissa, I was just about to call you. I hope you got my message from last night. I am just on my way to the airport and…”
“Save it,” my boss cuts me off harshly. “Plans changed. Since you missed the meeting, I have no choice but to give the Harrison account to Paul.” I start to rebuttal, knowing I worked my ass off to land that account, but I’m quickly cut off yet again.
“I need you on another project, and if you do well on this one, you might just land yourself the VP position after all.”
I come to a halt exiting the elevator on the lobby floor. A smile spreads across my face knowing that I didn’t screw this up too badly. The VP position? Shit, that is everything I have been after since I graduated college. Missing that plane looks like it was not such a disaster after all.
“Where and what is this next project?” I ask, trying to sound as cool as possible as I walk towards the exit and a future I never expected.
“Lots of the specifics are still being worked out,” she says. “I will have more information for you in a few days. In the meantime, you have enough time to return to the West Coast and pack. The company will take care of all of your moving expenses.”
“Moving expenses?” I ask, hailing a nearby cab and stepping onto the curb as he pulls up alongside me.
This is new. I have taken on big projects before, but have yet to have to relocate for any of them.
“The company is going in a new direction,” Melissa says, as the office chatter grows loudly in the background. “We are expanding and want to offer our marketing services on the East Coast. Tell me, Gwen, have you ever been to New Orleans?”