Of all the places I expected to meet my twin sister for the first time, Al’s Diner didn’t even make the list. As we walk toward the familiar entrance, I bite back questions. How did you know Karina and Raul wouldn’t be here? Did you know they only work nights?

I’m not avoiding punishment, I’m avoiding asking questions I already know the answer to. And I’m avoiding conversation in general. I don’t want his eyes on me, his proprietary stare that sees right through me. I don’t want his smile or his sonorous voice in my ears.

I don’t want him.

But mostly I don’t want him thinking that what happened this morning means anything. Because it doesn’t. It’s exactly like I told him—I don’t miss him, I miss what his body can do to mine.

“Here we are, dove.” Liam opens the door and gestures me to proceed.

“Don’t call me that,” I mutter, stepping inside and scanning the familiar tables and booths. Eagerness tickles in my palms and the soles of my feet.

My sister.

Instead, I see the sole occupant of the last booth on the left. A blond man. Tattooed arms. A smile directed at me as he lowers a cup of coffee from his lips.

Liam curses beneath his breath.

Before I can respond, he grips my elbow and all but drags me to the booth. I slide into the vacant side, and Liam settles beside me, his body flush against mine, arm around my shoulders. I don’t throw it off for a simple reason. The man across from us scares me more than Liam does.

Chris nods. “Fine morning, isn’t it?”

Liam doesn’t respond. I take my cue from him and stay silent, my hands clenched together in my lap.

Eventually, Chris takes another sip of coffee, then lowers the cup with an air of finality. “I do commend you. Both of you. It takes some brass balls to defy Maddoc’s orders.” Hazel eyes swing to me. “Eden, you’re looking lovely today. And rather confused, if I might say. Our Liam does like his secrets, hmm?”

Liam’s hand clenches in warning on my shoulder. Don’t speak. I don’t.

“Ah, I see how it’s gonna be,” Chris says. He lifts up, removing something from his back pocket and tossing it onto the table. It’s a folded piece of lined paper. Watching me carefully, Chris says, “Maddoc isn’t without a heart. This here is for you, Eden.”

Chris slips from the booth and stands. With a mocking salute for Liam, he saunters toward the front door.

I unclench my hands and reach tentatively for the paper. Liam doesn’t stop me. With cold, tingling fingers, I unfold it. It’s a narrow sheet filled with glittery pink handwriting, one edge torn like it was pulled from a notebook or journal.

“Eden? Are you all right?”

I fold the paper carefully on its creases. Looking at Liam, I shake my head. “I… don’t know. I guess I expected to feel something different.”

Or something at all.

Liam hears what I’m not saying. Expression grave, he says, “You’ve lived very different lives. Alexis is…” He mulls his thoughts. “Well, she’s basically your opposite.”

“How so?” I press. “Tell me, Liam.”

He sighs in concession. “Not here. Let’s go home.”

Numb from the inside out, I don’t correct his choice of words. Because right now, all I want is to feel safe, and deep down I know there’s nowhere safer than with the man beside me.

* * *

Liam deposits me on a padded teak lounge chair in the backyard. I close my eyes and let the sun warm my skin, wishing it could sink deeper and warm the cold core of me.

I’ve stepped into a parallel universe and no longer recognize the person I was before. Before my birthday. Before Liam. Before Alexis and Maddoc Donnelly and veiled threats and traps and the vast, terrifying unknown.

Who was I? Who was the woman before? Not a woman, really—a girl. Young and innocent. Not naive, not sheltered from struggle, and yet totally clueless of essential truths about my life.

My mother took me—stole me—and put me up for private adoption. My ex-boyfriend and warden is somehow associated with the Irish mob. My biological father is an underworld kingpin. My twin sister is a stranger who writes in pink pen.

The lounge beside mine creaks as Liam sits. I open my eyes, and he hands me a glass of iced tea. I hold it between my hands, feeling the cool condensation on my palms. As though the physical sensation can keep me anchored while my identity fluctuates.

“Tell me, Liam.”

He does.

And I learn how sometimes nurture wins over nature. How identical twins can grow in opposite worlds with opposite moral conditioning.

I thrived in school, the accumulation of knowledge symbolizing an escape from obscurity and boredom. Alexis barely graduated high school, more concerned with boys and nightlife than honing her intellect.

She grew up in a bubble of wealth. A princess who acquired anything she desired with a snap of her fingers. Cars. Clothes. Boys… men.

“How do you know so much about her?” I ask when Liam pauses.

“I’ve known her a long time.” His set jaw tells me that’s all I’m going to get out of him.

When I finally take a sip of my tea, the ice has melted, diluting the flavor. I likewise feel watered down, diluted by this new information. Less myself. More someone I don’t know—someone I’m not sure I want to know.

Our first date on the Santa Monica Pier seems like ages ago. As does the past two months I’ve spent with a man who I felt I’d known for years. With a man I didn’t know at all.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for nature, after all. I think of what kind of man Maddoc Donnelly must be. And I wonder what my mother was like, and why she ran from him.

Perhaps the part of me I’ve rejected and embraced in turn isn’t necessarily wrong or sick. My craving for dominant men. Men who’d rather tie me up and fuck me than buy me flowers.

Maybe it’s in my DNA.