All Chapters of She's No Beauty Queen: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Lily couldn’t believe this. It sounded like something straight out of a soap opera. She had a long-lost identical twin! A long-lost identical twin with a seriously complicated life. How could she have the same DNA as a pageant queen with a secret daughter and lover?“Look, I’m sure this is a great shock to you but can I please have the phone now?” she begged. “You did promise.”Eddie handed it over without a word, still looking like the sky was falling. Well, he had just found out the woman he loved was still missing. That was kind of a big deal. She felt sorry for him but not sorry enough to keep dawdling while her loved ones panicked.She dialed the familiar number by heart and her mother picked up on the second ring with a frantic voice. “Hello? Do you have information about my Lily?”Her heart twisted. They had been looking for her. They probably put up missing posters and everything. “It’s me, Mom. I’m okay. I got a concussion and lost my memory for a few days but the people that

Mark didn’t find her fourteen-year-old antics embarrassing at all. In his eyes, Lily had been a defender of justice. She didn’t go around picking fights for no reason.But he didn’t get the chance to say any more because they had arrived in front of her house. It seemed a decent size though it was in one of the older and cheaper parts of town. She mentioned all of her siblings were adopted and couldn’t help but be curious how many of them there were.The moment they pulled up to the curb, he didn’t even get to say goodbye. When the door opened, she was practically yanked out of the car into the arms of a short middle-aged Hispanic woman that had to be her mother.“Mija! You look terrible! I thought you said they were taking good care of you?” she demanded.“Mom, they thought I was someone else, remember? I was taking her medication and it kind of threw me off. I’m really fine but I have so much homework to do so please don’t yell at me too much.”Her mother rolled her eyes. “You’re ge

The two of them ended up getting smoothies after all their classes were done for the day and spent way too long goofing off together when there was homework to be done. Lily headed home and locked herself up in her room immediately, trying to ignore a joint meltdown Adam and Emma were having so she could work.Putting on noise-canceling headphones and blasting the study tunes normally did the trick. She had learned how to survive in this house a long time ago.She was so into the groove that she didn’t notice someone banging on her door until they started yelling too. Whipping her headphones off, Lily frowned and opened the door so she could hear better.“Sorry, what was that?”Genevieve was scowling up at her. “I said there’s a guy here for you. Are you deaf or what?”She held up the headphones in her hand and her sister suddenly understood. “I don’t know why Mom made the girl in the wheelchair go fetch you. Anyone else could have done it.”“Exercise is good for you,” Lily deadpanned

Dinner was a quiet, awkward affair due to Eddie’s lifelessness. He put Aria in her highchair and let the housekeeper feed her a smaller, more toddler-friendly version of what they were eating. Lily dug in—the food here was fantastic—but noticed he only pushed his food around on his plate. Poor guy.The housekeeper took the messy little girl away after dinner to bathe her before putting her to bed and everyone else got down to business. Eddie set a contract down on the table and cleared his throat.“The premise of this contract is fairly simple. You will stand in for Angel at all of her Miss California events either until she is found or there is conclusive evidence that she…won’t be coming back. The competition is two months away but you will not be required to compete if she isn’t found before then.“In exchange, all of your student loans accrued to this point and the remainder of your school expenses will be covered by me in full. You cannot tell anyone about this. The only three pe

Mark could tell how hard Lily was trying to hold herself back as the stylist picked her current style apart. She was so angry her clenched fists were shaking. He barely repressed a smile thinking that she hadn’t changed at all.She was a natural beauty—she was identical to the current titleholder of Miss California, after all—but didn’t do anything to enhance it the way Angel did. Considering he could see how blonde her eyelashes were, it didn’t look like she was wearing makeup at all.She wore a blue t-shirt with a lighter blue drawing of a sea turtle on it with a long buttonless gray cardigan, light wash jeans, and a pair of knockoff green Converse All Stars. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail so her stud earrings shaped like sea turtles were visible as well.How fitting for a marine biology student. Come to think of it, when Mark saw Lily yesterday, she was wearing a long-sleeved gray t-shirt with a cartoon picture of the earth with a face on it and the caption ‘*screams i