Sinclair
I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid as to have just left Cath… no… London alone like that. I had to get used to referring to her as Cath in public and London in my head so I wouldn’t mistakenly reveal my knowledge of the truth too soon. What had I been thinking? I could just imagine how she had felt coming back to the room and not finding me. The thought made my chest feel tight and achy. What had her tears meant though? Had she been sad about being abandoned? Or sad about being abandoned by me? I would like to imagine it was the second one, but how could I tell? I wanted to just ask her, get everything out in the open and stop hitting my head against the wall over this whole situation. It was bound to drive my crazy sooner than later. “Sleeping already?” I whispered when she had been silent for too long. “No.” she slurred sleepiLondonHours later, I still shot Sinclair dirty looks over his little game earlier this morning. To my consternation, it only makes him roar in laughter and I’m tempted to punch him in the throat to stop that annoying, mocking sound.I sigh.Of course, I could never do something like that. The thought of harming Sin even if it was just rough play didn’t appeal to me in any way.“I’m going to order breakfast.” He reaches for the phone on the bedside table. “What would you like?”I look up from the magazine I’d had my head buried in all morning. Apparently, the resort had been delivering these magazines every morning with breakfast or coffee but Sin hadn’t thought I’d have any interest in them so he had been sticking them into the bedside drawer.Who wouldn’t be interested in those things?All the different issues with different celebrities
London"Do you want me to pour you a drink?" He motioned at my empty glass."Please, thank you," I said.I took a sip of the thing after he had poured it and promptly spit it out."What?" He laughed."It's mango. It's gross."He threw his head back and roared with laughter. "What did you think it was?""Uhm. Orange juice! Like normal people drink and sane people serve. This shit tastes like being stranded on a tropical island." I griped.Sin took my cup and gulped down the disgusting drink. I shuddered with revulsion. "Eww."He shrugged easily. "Your loss.""On the contrary Mr Donovan-Wells," I argued. "Yuck."A moment later I felt eyes digging into me and I looked up to discover that he was still giving me that curious look, like he was trying to figure something out. I avoided his eyes as my life depended on it, facing my breakfast and eating it with the concentration of someone trying
Sinclair"Does that mean you liked it then?" She asked."Liked it? Baby doll, I loved it." I smiled. "Good. You can scrub my back in the shower as pay back." She smirked before skipping away. I followed after her eagerly, wearing the biggest smile on earth. I made a detour to the room phone to order for a clean up before heading for the bathroom.She was already naked in the shower when I joined her. I slipped in behind her after stripping my clothes off and then gave an embarrassing shriek when the water made contact with my skin. "Sin? Are you okay?" She looked over her shoulder at me. I loved her, but this was never going to work. "Baby, why are you using water that is at skin skin-peeling temperature?" "What? This is nice. It's relaxing." I snorted. "Yeah, for people in hell maybe." She laughed. "So you're not coming in?" "I love you, but I'm not quite ready to die today." Which was what I was sure would happen as soon as I stepped under that volcano's hot water. How was
LondonI slipped into a lilactwo-piecee bathing suit while Sin was still in the bathroom laughing and being generally annoying. It wasn't really a surprise that Cath's luggage didn't have a single pair of shorts. For someone who had been heading for a vacation in a resort, there were entirely too many dresses and pants in her luggage and I didn't even blame her assistant who had sounded like a sassy teenager the one time we had talked over the phone. The closet in Cath's apartment hadn't exactly been bursting with fancy vacation clothes. Not even a single jean in sight.Cath needed an intervention, or someone to come and unshove the stick out of her ass. With a shrug, I went digging in my second set of luggage, AKA Sin's bags. "That had better not be an Albright rifling through my things." He said, voice full of amusement. I looked over my shoulder to see him standing a few steps away clad in only a towel around his hips. I followed the trail of water that dripped from his hair and
LondonI had been curious about Sinclair’s job since I had read a little bit about him in the Not Yet Forty magazine. Yes, he was as rich as Croesus, but how exactly did he make his money? I knew it had something to do with Wall Street though, but that was as far as I knew.When Cath’s assistant had informed me during our brief phone conversation that first day that the only thing Cath and Sin talked about was work, I had assumed I’d have my work cut out for me. I had been shaking in my boots waiting for Sinclair to bring up something about work. I would have fumbled this gig so badly if he had.Luckily for me, he hadn’t. I assumed he was following my lead, so bringing it up now, might not be my smartest idea. What would I do if he turned it around and began to ask me questions too?“Your job.” I began, thinking of the best way to ask him about it without looking like I knew nothing at all about it and making him su
SinclairI cannot shake the feeling that London had no idea what I was talking about when I talked about her sister’s job. Her reaction was definitely strange. She had looked at me the same way she had been when I had talked about my job.I wondered if she hadn’t reasoned that Cathleen would know all about my job. But that wasn’t the surprising part, it was the attentive look as I had told her what her sister’s company did. There was no way two people as close as they were, and they were definitely close judging by the fact that Cathleen had put her up to this, didn’t know what the other did for work.I brushed the odd thought away because it made no sense. A person wouldn’t impersonate another without having complete information about the other.There was something more going on and once I got my hands on the real Cathleen, I was going to drag out every word of the truth from her.“They&rsquo
LondonSin returned a while later with another glass of the fruity, colorful drink. This one was a distinct purple with a yellow umbrella.“Here.” He settled down in the sand beside me before handing me the glass. “That’s your last for today.”I stuck out my tongue at him. “You’re no fun.”“And you’re a light weight. Plus you’ve barely eaten anything.”“What? I did eat something.” I defended.“Barely two croissants?” He asked. “You should eat more.”“My waistline wouldn’t appreciate that.” I pointed out. I wasn’t exactly a small woman, and I was also averse to exercise. Add that to the fact that Sin could have any woman in the world. Women that were way more gorgeous than me, classy women. He would definitely be repulsed to see me stuff my face with food.Women in his circles at
London“Congratulations!” Someone said.I reluctantly pulled away from Sin’s body to see a couple standing closer to us than the other smiling spectators. They are both young, probably in their early twenties. The man has dark hair and the woman has flaming red hair and a face full of freckles. She beamed at me.“Gage proposed right here yesterday. There’s something in the air, huh?”I laughed. “congratulations to you two too.” I didn’t mention that it wasn’t my first proposal. The previous one didn’t count to me. It felt like it had happened eons ago even though it hadn’t even been up to a week.It was crazy to think that a few days ago, Sin had been a stranger to me. Now, he was an essential part of my life.“I’m Jen. He’s Gage.”I heard Sin sigh exasperatedly behind me. “He’s Sin, I’m Ca-&ldq
One month laterLondon“What if this doesn’t work?” I wrung my hands nervously. Cath rolled her eyes. “You’re the one that came up with this ridiculous plan.” I glared at her. “Hey! You’re the one who started the whole twin switch trend.” “Gabriel thinks this is stupid too.” She pointed out. I huffed. “I can’t believe you even told Gabriel. This was supposed to be between us.” “I’m not going to rub myself over Sinclair without my boyfriend knowing.” She said. “You should just go be Gabriel’s twin then. Ugh, isn’t there like a sacred twin code or something.” She shrugged. “I’m confused about what you’re trying to do here exactly, Lon. Isn’t Sin like so head over heels in love with you that he has a tunnel vision for you.” “Well, but what if?” I whined. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Sin and I were okay, everything was perfect, and yet… yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that he could just love my sister as easily again. I knew it was just my insecurities rearing their ugl
SinclairI had just gotten back from work, a single foot inside my apartment when my phone rang. I dug it out the inner pocket of my suit jacket. “Hello.” “Am I speaking to Sinclair Donovan-Wells?”“Yes. Who’s this?” “I’m calling about Miss Albright, she’s been involved in an accident and you are…”The woman’s words trailed off. Blood rushed out of my head and I felt dizzy and unsteady. “Where? Where’s she?” I managed to ask through the lump in my throat. I was already jumping into the elevator and stabbing the button for the ground floor repeatedly by the time the woman began to rattle off the location. “Thanks.” I said and hung up. The drive over was one big blur, I must have run several red lights in my rush to the hospital. All I could think was that London was lying in a bed, hurt and she needed me. She had to be okay. She had to be. I should never have wasted so much time running around my feelings for her. I should never have even let her walk away from me, from us back
London“I need you.” Three words. Eight letters. The exact same ones from the very same person that had gotten me into the biggest disaster of my life. Maybe I was weak, pathetic, a pushover, whatever you wanted to call it. A wiser and stronger person would have blocked my sister’s number, cut off all connections to her and my parents. Because they had hurt me. The kind of hurt where after years and years of it, I hadn’t even realized that I was being destroyed from inside out. The kind of hurt where they had broken me so much that I thought I had to be the one constantly apologizing for myself. For some reason though, I just couldn’t take that final step. I wasn’t Cath no matter how much I wanted to be sometimes. I was angry and heartbroken about everything, but I knew that someday I’d want to talk about it more calmly and heal. My phone had been blowing up since everything had gone down. I had listened to my parents cry over the phone, but Cath had been radio silent except that o
London“I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered from that night of debauchery.” Eva said as she joined me in the booth. It was the day after Adam and I’s surprisingly fun date. I had been surprised at how well he had taken my rejection, but also glad about it. I’d have hated to have been mean to drive home my obvious lack of interest. Thankfully there had been no need for that. Eva’s lunch break corresponded with mine so we had decided to have a quick lunch together. My treat, because I now had some much needed amount of money in my bank account thanks to March Madness selling out. The hype around it was still going on strong. I guess everyone was curious about the new bestselling book by a previously unheard of author. It felt good to have money, but it felt much better to be able to pay for lunch with my friends. Eva had paid all the other times we had gone out together and even though she had assured me that I shouldn’t think too much about it cause she had money to burn, I still
LondonI had been digging through my wardrobe at a loss for what to wear for my date with Adam when I’d stumbled upon this really cute pink blouse. It was an old cloth but I had never won it because it had been too big at the time I had gotten it. Almost five years later and it was now perfectly my size. It was also perfect for this date paired with dark skinny jeans and black ankle boots. It gave the vibe I had meant to go for which was cute but not too sexy to look inviting. A little stern, but still lovely. The blouse had big flowy sleeves that I loved so much. I put my hair into a low bun, applied minimal make up and a spritz of perfume, then left my apartment to meet Adam at the foyer of my building. I had set up this date earlier today when I had run into him at the dog park. My decision to talk to Sin had hardened into a sure resolve. No matter how it turned out, I knew I couldn’t go out with Adam. I just wasn’t in the right place to pursue anything with him and I had to tel
SinclairAs soon as Cathleen left, I rang Lucas up. “Hey, man. What’s up?” “Sips Plix in fifteen?” I asked. “Make it twenty, I drove out to my sister’s place.” He said. “Sure.” I hung up. Changing out of my shirt and slacks, I slipped into a dark grey T-shirt and black corduroy pants, grabbed my wallet, car keys and headed out. I needed to talk to Lucas and get his opinion on things, but in reality, I knew that even if he discouraged me from going after London, I would still do it. I needed him as more of a sounding board to know how to go ahead with getting her back than anything else. I had made up my mind that I wasn’t spending one more second moping around and waiting for some force of nature to yank us back into each other’s orbits. Lucas showed up almost ten minutes after I’d gotten to the bar. My half full glass of alcohol had been left untouched. “Hey, this had better be an emergency.” He said as he joined me at the bar. “I had to leave my sister’s cute kids halfway int
SinclairI had completely forgotten that Cathleen had access to my apartment. The first thing I usually did when I ended things with a woman was revoke her access to my place. It had always seemed unnecessary with Cathleen though. She was the last person that would show up out of the blues to exchange words or do something crazy. But then again, maybe I had always just overestimated her. I was in the living room with my laptop when I heard the sound of heels clicking behind me. I looked over my shoulder.The first thing I thought was that London was here, in my apartment. My heart leaped. It came crashing back down when my brain finally registered that it wasn’t London at all, but Cath. Now that I knew them, I could clearly differentiate them even half asleep. They were perfectly identical of course, a mirror image. But I had had London in my arms and fallen in love with every inch of skin on her body, so my soul would know her even in the dark. And this wasn’t her.I followed Cat
LondonIt was almost three am when we were all finally wiped from a night of drinking, singing along to the music Eva had queued up to her amazing surround sound speakers and laughing till our bellies began to hurt. All in all, it had been an amazing night. Eva’s bed was super large and so somehow we had all fallen into it in a tangle of limbs and hair. When I woke up, it was almost five am. My head felt like someone had taken a drill to it and my mouth tasted like it had been stuffed with cotton. I tried to silently slip into the bathroom but ended up making more noise than I had expected. The girls were either too drunk or too deep in sleep to notice because when I looked over my shoulder, neither of them had stirred. I let out a breath of relief and tiptoed to the bathroom. I quickly peed and splashed water on my face and rinsed my foul tasting mouth out before making my way to the kitchen. I gulped down three glasses of water then located an Advil and popped two down my throat.
LondonStatic buzzed in my ear at her words. March Madness had what? “I d-don’t understand. What are you talking about?” I stammered. March Madness was my singular published book, and it was a raging failure. Only about ten copies of it had been bought since it’s release two years ago. The horrible sales had made me depressed for the longest time, and my editor had also cut off ties with me afterwards. And now, she was telling me that it had sold out? I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. “Your book, March Madness.” She clarified, her voice never loosing that edge of excitement. I understood her excitement. My book suddenly making it big was like Christmas to her, it meant that she was about to line her pockets with some serious cash. And so was I. “It’s just become an overnight sensation. Six thousand copies were bought and now it’s on the New York bestseller list. Not on the top three, but I believe it could actually get there.” “Oh.” I said stupidly. “As I’m talk