Her skin prickled with awareness, every inch of her hypersensitive to the arrival of the man behind her.
“Here’s where you’re hiding.”
Without turning around she silently slid the tumbler back toward the bartender. Kim couldn’t stomach alcohol—much less scotch—a fact she was sure Alexander knew. Schooling her face into a pleasant expression, she turned around. The sight of him dealt her a fiercer kick than the scotch. “More like recuperating,” she replied, placing her hand in his outstretched one.
He tugged her close, his gaze devouring her. A frown creased his forehead. “Did you just have a drink?”
Managing to hold on to another curse by biting the inside of her cheek, Olivia shook her head.
His disbelief hung like a curtain between them. Instantly she tried to remedy her mistake. “I actually took some aspirin for my headache. It just seems to be getting worse.” At least that wasn’t a lie. Her head was beginning to throb as though she had spent all night at a Metallica concert. In the front row.
His brow cleared and his gaze shone with sympathy. “At least no one will find it strange if we escape the reception quickly. After all, it’s our wedding night.”
Her gaze flew to his as he ran a long, dark finger over the sensitized flesh at her neck, tracing the lacy neckline of her dress. Her soft gasp got lost between them as he bent toward her ear.
“I can’t wait to rip that dress off you.”
A shiver traveled up her spine, sparking desire in every inch of her. Locking arms with him, she tucked her head down, fighting for air. His muscled body only heightened her awareness of him. Every second that passed was twisting the hard knot in her stomach tighter. Where the hell was Kim? She didn’t want to be here for another minute, not with the way her body was reacting to his mere presence.
Not when it was another woman’s man. Dear God, he belonged to her twin—the one person who had stood by her no matter what.
Somehow Olivia held on to a semblance of composure as she smiled and talked to the guests, nodding enthusiastically as Kim and Alexander’s friends raved on and on and about how perfect they were for each other, pretending to know them. If they thought it was strange that the always intelligent and articulate Kim was mostly silent, they could put it down to the excitement of being a new bride.
She had to bite the inside of her mouth to stop thrusting her tongue out as her father praised Kim’s success to anyone who would hear... If only he knew...
She had no idea how she lived through the torturous dance with Alexander. Each sinuous, slow movement threw her against his muscled strength, with the pulsating energy between them winding her up, the scent of him seeping into her every pore. Her muscles groaned at her stiff posture by the time the dance came to an end. Only the enticing prospect of sinking into the claw-foot bathtub with numerous silver faucets she had spied back in Kim’s suite kept her standing.
Just as she released a breath of relief and untangled herself from Alexander the front man of the lively native band announced the bride’s dance with her father.
No, no, no.
Olivia froze midway on the polished lacquer floor, feeling the color leach out of her face. Fear gripped her insides in an unforgiving knot, and the corseted bodice of her gown was crushing her lungs as her father walked toward her, a genial smile on his handsome face, the very image of a loving father, his stride purposeful as ever.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t dance with him—not without the whole pretense blowing up in her face. She shivered, sliding into the skin of that clumsy fifteen-year-old forced to dance with her father on her birthday. Stand up tall and look me in the eye. She could still hear the caustic hiss of his disapproval when she had accidentally trod on his toe, could still feel the painful, cutting press of his fingers on the skin of her shoulders, eroding another piece of her.
The more he criticized, the more she had faltered. He would have gone on forever except Kim had intervened, claiming her turn, and proceeded to pacify him with her perfection. Always. Kim had done it to divert their father’s attention from her. Liv knew that. But in the end her twin’s perfection had only showcased Olivia’s failure even more.
The memory coursed through her like acid, eating away at the armor she had grown, exposing wounds that she had thought covered, if not healed. She gasped for breath when a guest stopped her father. She hadn’t talked to him in six years and she couldn’t now. He would know in a nanosecond that she wasn’t Kim. And he wouldn’t even go along with it until she could explain. No, he would bring holy hell down upon her right there, until the whole world gleefully concluded that Olivia Stanton had once again screwed up—and this time her own sister’s life.
Pain sliced through her, robbing her of breath. The very intensity of it was still so raw. She wanted to be able to look him in the eye, not to flinch when she saw the corroding disappointment in his gaze. But she couldn’t, because nothing had changed. She just wasn’t good enough—not now, not ever. Not even to be a stand-in for her perfect sister.
She rubbed her forehead with trembling hands and turned toward the exit, her legs rubbery. “My head feels awful. Please apologize to my father,” she threw at Alexander.
She could feel his razor-sharp gaze drill into her back until she stepped out of the banquet hall. But she couldn’t look back. Right now, all she needed was to escape.
* * *
Picking up a champagne flute from a passing waiter, Alexander stilled and stared at Kim’s retreating form. She looked pale and intensely troubled, her hurried gait anything but graceful. And even as he watched she tottered on those heels. The doubts that had been niggling at him all evening crystallized into irrefutable truth, shock stunting his movements.
The woman running away as though the devil was on her heels was Olivia Stanton, the embodiment of everything he despised in a woman—selfish, impulsive and scandalous—who could wreck everything: his reputation, his sister’s care. With one reckless word or action.
Kim would have never run at the sight of her father. No, it was Olivia who couldn’t run fast enough. After all, the rift between Jeremiah Stanton and his younger daughter was continuing fodder for the tabloids, among other things.
Fury washed up through him in tidal waves, an incessant drumbeat drowning out the innocent chatter around him. Why had they switched? When had they switched?
The answer came to him with crushing clarity. He had slipped the wedding ring onto Olivia’s finger, his gaze snagging on her lips, fascinated by the blood-red lipstick, wondering how he had missed this side of a woman he had known for six months.
Everything he had worked for his entire life now rested in the hands of a good-for-nothing party girl who didn’t know the meaning of responsibility.
The crack of the champagne flute in his hand pulled him out of the red mist. Ignoring Jeremiah’s concern, he took a turn toward the exit.
He made his way to the suite that Kim had occupied since her arrival at his mansion a week ago, his steps unhurried in contrast to the blistering anger coursing through him.
Olivia was going to rue the day her self-centered, worthless existence had entered his life.
CHAPTER TWO
HAVING NOT FOUND her in the suite, he’d looked out at the beach view. Something white and gossamer shimmered in the moonlight, contrasting against the dark backdrop of the ocean.
His heart racing, Alexander quickened his steps over the landscaped wooden floor. The minuscule light thrown by the artistically placed lanterns along the gravel path did nothing to make his mounting fury abate. Disbelief poured through him, stalling his usually quick thought processes. He hurried past the artificial landscape, reaching the untouched strip of beach behind the mansion that was his private haven.
He came to a standstill, his heart