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So here I am with my sister, prepared to say I’m sorry. I love you. And goodbye.
Amber says, “I understand you need to feel safe again. I have an idea.”
I don’t have much hope in any of her ideas. Amber was always creative but supremely impractical. I was always the one to get us out of trouble. But there’s a flutter of feeling in my chest, simply from the fact that she’s trying.
She wants to help.
No one but me and the occasional passing stranger has tried to help me in so long.
“What is it?” I ask, scanning the family walking in the front door to make sure they aren’t suspicious.
“I want to get away, and you need to hide. So why don’t you take my place?”
I’m not sure the extent of my surprise can be accurately described. I blink. Freeze. Spend way too long processing what she just said and trying to wrap my mind around it. “Wh-what?”
“Take my place. Pretend to be me. Then I can get away and your stalker will never be able to find you.”
“But… How can… But… wh-what?”
“We look enough alike to pull it off. You can wear my clothes and take my stuff. We’ll go to a salon around here where they don’t know me so they can shape your eyebrows, redo your highlights, and style your hair better. You can say you felt like going blond. Everyone will focus on the change in hair and not on anything else.”
“You’re crazy! You must be crazy. It’s… insane.”
“Maybe. But I think we can do it.”
“You live with someone, don’t you? He’s not going to be fooled.”
“Sure he will. He’s not there half the time anyway.”
“You really think I’m going to have sex with your boyfriend just to—”
“He’s not my boyfriend. Not for real. And we don’t have sex.”
That surprises me enough to halve the momentum of my initial astonishment. “Wh-what?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. It’s a business arrangement. He’s desperate to prove himself to his family. Getting the Delacourte brand into the Worthing fold will be a huge coup for him.”
“So why not just sell what’s left of the company? If he’s desperate and rich, surely he’d pay.”
“Yes. That’s what he wanted initially. But I can’t.” She shakes her head, her perfectly painted lips turning down in a pout I remember from when we were kids. “Dad tied it up legally when he died. I’m not allowed to sell it.”
Despite everything else, this isn’t a surprise to me. Our father was always controlling, manipulative, untrusting of anyone—especially women. “Fucking bastard.”
Amber doesn’t rile up in defense the way she used to whenever I said anything negative about our dad. Instead, she looks faintly annoyed. “Be that as it may, it’s the reality of the situation. So the only way I could get anything out of the damn company was to make this arrangement. A practical arrangement where we date, get engaged, and then get married. I was hoping it could just be for appearances, but he wanted to try it for real.” Her mouth turns up with a flicker of disgust.
Ridiculously, I kind of feel bad for William Worthing in the face of Amber’s clear contempt. “You don’t want to try?”
“I’m not interested in that kind of relationship. So we’re still trying, but the agreement is clear. When we marry and our assets are officially joined, he gets the Delacourte brand and I…”
“You get what?”
“The payout I deserve.”
“So what’s the problem? Why not wait it out until you’re married? Surely it’s not a long time.”
“It’s not, but I don’t like him. He’s controlling. He thinks he can tell me what to do and what not to do. I don’t want to live with him anymore.”
“But you still want your payout.” It’s a statement, not a question. I understand what’s happening now.
