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“I’m Margaux,” she says with a breathy chuckle as she extends her hand to me. “The real Margaux.”
My jaw tenses.
I don’t meet her hand with mine.
I don’t move.
I’m not even sure I’m breathing.
All I see is red.
“Sloane was going to tell you everything . . . ,” she adds.
“Who the hell is Sloane?” I ask before recalling the piece of mail I saw at her apartment that day.
“My sister,” she says before adding, “my identical twin sister.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I close my eyes and draw in a sharp breath.
“Please don’t be mad,” she says.
Opening my eyes, I shoot her an incredulous glare. “Don’t . . . be . . . mad?”
I’m a lot of things right now.
Mad doesn’t begin to touch any of them.
She releases a nervous giggle. Gone are those crocodile tears she was about to shed a mere moment ago.
“It’s actually a funny story,” she says.
“I highly doubt that.” I check my watch. I’d blocked off the next two hours of my schedule to spend them with her—uninterrupted. Now it appears as though I’ll be spending them in a blinding rage instead.
My blood boils beneath the surface of my skin, and the collar of my dress shirt digs into my throat.
“She was supposed to be boring,” Margaux says, waving her hand. “You were never supposed to fall for her. It’s all kind of hilarious, if you think about it.”
“This entire time, I’ve been seeing your sister? Thinking I was seeing you?” My jaw refuses to unclench, causing me to speak through my teeth. “Forgive me for not finding the humor in being made to look like a goddamned idiot.”
“I told her not to get carried away,” Margaux says, throwing her hands in the air. “I tried to warn her. I told her she was playing with fire.”
I move for the door, refusing to tolerate this shit show a moment longer.
“Wait,” she says, reaching toward me but standing firmly in place.
“I’d rather not.” My hand is on the doorknob and my mind is already a million miles from here. I show myself out without giving her a chance to protest again.
Besides, I don’t want to hear another word from this Margaux.
I want to talk to . . . Sloane.
By the time I get back to my SUV, I have no recollection of walking from the office to the elevator to the sidewalk. Everything is a blacked-out blur.
“Take me to Margaux’s apartment,” I say, sparing him the truth for now.
“Ah, she wasn’t there?” Antonio asks.
“No,” I say. “She wasn’t there.”
Ten minutes later, he pulls up in front of the familiar brown building with the black iron steps. I climb out before he so much as shifts into park, and I sprint up the stairs. Slamming my fist on the buzzer to her apartment, I ring her multiple times . . . and wait.
There’s no answer.
She’s not home. Either she’s out on the town or she’s at work—which serves as nothing more than a reminder that I don’t know where that would even be because I don’t know a damn real thing about this woman.
I buzz one more time—in vain.
And then I return to my Cadillac.
“Take me home,” I tell Antonio as I slam the rear passenger door shut. I’m in no condition to be at the office right now.
“Sure thing, kid.” He doesn’t ask. He knows better.
By the time we arrive, I’ve worked myself into a tension headache that’ll likely last for days. Hitting the sidewalk, I decide to walk off some of this steam. I need to cool off before my daughters get home from school in a few hours.
Pulling out my phone, I hover my thumb over her contact information, tempted to call her and demand an explanation.
Was this all a joke to her?
Was any of it real?
Shoving my phone away, I change my mind.
In my current state of mind, I’ll no doubt say something I might come to regret.
I can’t talk to her now.
Or maybe ever again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SLOANE
“He just left,” Margaux says over the phone.
“That didn’t take long . . . What did you say?” I’m squeezing the phone so hard my hand throbs.
“I told him that I’m the real Margaux, and that you’re my twin sister, Sloane,” she says.
“And how did he take that?”
She’s quiet. “Um, he looked like he wanted to punch something really hard?”
I sink my back against the wall, exhaling.
I hate that he found out like this. It should have been my voice he was hearing, my eyes he was looking into, and my lips speaking this awful truth. No one else’s.
“What did he say when he left?” I ask.
“Nothing. I tried to stop him, but he stormed off,” Margaux says. “I don’t think he’s talked to Theodora yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose my job so . . .”
