Page 75 of Mirror Image

I looked up at her, grinning so wide that I thought the corners of my lips might actually touch my ears. “I know, right?!”

Sam held out her hands, and I took them so she could pull me up to my feet and have an impromptu dance party right there in the middle of our living room.

“I’ll crack open the bubbly!” my boyfriend declared, getting up to pull the bottle out of the fridge. Then he poured it into flutes, handing one to each of us before taking a glass for himself. “To Hollywood’s newest ‘it’ girls!” he declared, lifting for a toast.

Sam rolled her eyes but clinked glasses anyway.

“So how ’bout you try sleeping in your own bed tonight?” she suggested to Brad.

“Great idea!” I piped up before he could respond. “The TV in his room is huge, and I love curling up in there with a bowl of popcorn to watch The Late Show.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed on me. “I was hoping we might have some time together. You know, alone,” she said pointedly.

Brad set his glass down on the coffee table and held up his hands in surrender. Always the “bigger man,” he made a point of not engaging in any of my sister’s petty assaults. “This sounds like a discussion for you two ladies to have privately,” he said.

“Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious,” she snarled.

He just shot her a smile before giving me a quick kiss. “Call me later and let me know what you want to do. I’m fine with anything—if you want to be on your own or come over or whatever.”

“Thanks, I will,” I agreed, waiting for the door to close behind him before spinning on my twin. “This has got to stop!” I spat.

“Yes,” she agreed, “it does. That guy is nothing but a leech.”

“A leech?” I countered incredulously. “He’s got more money in the bank than both our earnings combined! And he knows every A-lister in town. What on earth do I have that he could possibly leech off?”

She looked pouty that I’d called her on her BS.

“Emotions,” she said finally.

I picked up Brad’s glass and took it, along with mine, to the kitchen, setting them in the sink. Sam followed me, cornering me against the cabinets.

“Emotions?”

“Yes. He’s an emotional vampire. I know the type, Mary. You need to ditch him before he drains you dry.”

I put my hands on my hips and quirked an eyebrow. “Of my emotions.”

She nodded somberly. “Absolutely. Trust me on this, the guy’s bad news.”

“And what about you and all your hookups? They’re not emotional vampires?”

“No! They’re just sex. I know how to separate the emotional from the physical. But not you. You give yourself over completely, and that’s just . . . well, it’s naive, Mary. And it’s going to get your heart broken. Take it from me—you don’t want to hang your happiness on anyone else because, in the end, they’ll let you down when you need them most. Every. Time.”

I took a step forward so we were only inches apart, and when I spoke again, it was with a softer, gentler tone. “Sam, what happened to you?” I asked for about the hundredth time. “Who hurt you—who betrayed you so badly that you won’t trust your heart to anyone? That you don’t want me to trust mine to anyone either?”

Because that’s what it boiled down to. I didn’t, for a second, think that Sam Kinski was innately opposed to love. But I believed she was honestly concerned something awful might happen to me too. This wasn’t about Brad specifically; it was about men generally.

She recoiled backward, as if I were a snake about to strike. “Stop trying to change the subject!” she demanded, not quite able to hide the warble in her voice. This subject always rattled her. “You know I’m right about him!”

“I know you’re out of your mind,” I countered coolly.

That was the button—the one that made her turn fifty shades of scarlet.

“One of these days, Mary, I’m going to show you just how out of my mind I can get,” she threatened.

I quirked a challenging eyebrow. “Really? You mean it gets worse? ’Cause you seem pretty unhinged to me.”

That was when she slapped me.