12
The kiss is even better than I imagined.
And yes, I’ve been imagining kissing Gray Beckham for quite some time. If I’m being honest, I’ve wanted to kiss him since the first night we met in the stairwell.
I just never thought I actually would.
I’ve no idea if he feels the same way. I want to believe we’ve been barreling toward this, that all our charming little encounters have been leading up to this moment and the attraction is really, truly mutual. But I’m afraid to let myself believe. If it’s not true—if I’ve been dreaming about a mad love affair when he’s simply been being polite—I will die. I can’t stand any more humiliation in the name of attraction. I absolutely cannot. Dig a hole in the ground, shove me inside, and forget I ever existed because I’m done.
Excellent news, though. There’s nothing polite about the way he kisses me back. Better yet, there’s no hesitation. No doubt. When I wrap my arms around his neck and press my lips to his, he groans. Groans!
That tantalizing sound is all the confirmation I need.
He’s been thinking about kissing me too, it seems. The realization that I’m not alone in this—that he wants me as much as I want him—is enough to make me weak in the knees. I think I might faint for real this time. I sway a little, but before my legs give out, Gray presses me against the closed door, leaning into me and anchoring my hands above my head while he continues kissing me as if I’m the most desirable woman in the building. In the universe, maybe.
Oh my God.
This isn’t polite at all. In fact, it’s downright naughty. And I love it. I love how warm his mouth is—searing hot. I love the way I can feel his heartbeat crashing against mine when he leans closer. I even love the way he wads my nerdy, bookish T-shirt in his fist, clenching it tight before releasing it and sliding his hand up the side of my neck to bury his fingertips in my hair.
My body is aflame, head to toe.
Is this what kissing is supposed to feel like? Because it’s not like any kiss I’ve ever experienced before. Heat is coursing through me, making me act in ways that are completely foreign to me. I’m biting at Gray’s lower lip, whimpering against his mouth, begging and pleading for more—more of his witty words and soulful glances, more of his firm, muscular body.
More of him.
Somewhere amid the heady fog of desire, I’m fully aware of the wrongness of what’s happening. He’s a pageant judge. I try to tell myself it’s okay because I’m not really a contestant.
But what I am is actually worse. I’m a phony. And a liar. There’s no possible way that a man who runs a charity for terminally ill children will be okay with what I’ve done.
Nothing good can come of this.
I know I should stop. And I try. I really do, but my brain has turned to mush. If you asked me who J. K. Rowling is right now, I’d probably say she is the president of the United States. He’s quite literally kissed me senseless.
I purr like a kitten. Then Gray’s lips leave mine and just as I’m beginning to mourn their loss, his mouth drops to my neck. I can’t take it anymore. The way he’s pinned my arms above my head is undeniably hot—like, Heathcliff-stomping-around-the-windswept-moors-in-Wuthering-Heights-level hot—but I need to touch him.
“Please,” I whisper, tugging free from his hand, still wringing my wrists like bracelets.
He lets them go, then rests his forehead against mine. Our gazes collide and for the first time, I notice the tiny gold flecks in his eyes as my hands find his chest. At last I’m touching him, letting my hands roam to his sides, sliding beneath his suit jacket and up the muscular expanse of his back.
A lump clogs in my throat. He feels so solid beneath my fingertips. So hard. So real. He kisses me again, but this time the kiss is tender—more reverent than I deserve.
My eyes begin to fill.
Then the door behind me bumps against my back, and I freeze.
We both do.
“Hello? Is someone in there?” The voice is feminine and familiar. It definitely belongs to one of the Miss American Treasure contestants, and she’s obviously right on the other side of the door.
We’ve been caught. Our secret, forbidden tryst has lasted less than fifteen minutes.
“What do we do?” I mouth.
My heart is hammering so hard that I can feel it in my throat. What’s going to happen now? Will Gray be fired? Will I have to wear a big scarlet A on the front of my gown during the evening-wear prelims?
Will Ginny tear me limb from limb for ruining her last shot at the crown?
Yes to that last one, obviously.
“Shhh,” Gray whispers, raising a finger to his lips in a shushing motion.
I try to nod, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed with fear.
The impatient beauty queen bangs on the door again. Who needs ice that badly? What’s going on out there?
Slowly, carefully, Gray’s hand moves toward the doorknob. I watch, wide-eyed, as he presses the pushbutton lock, trapping us inside.
I shoot him a questioning glance. What’s his plan? Do we live here now in the ice closet? I could probably get on board with that.
But as it turns out, he’s just buying time. He grabs his full ice bucket from the ledge of the icemaker, tucks it under his arm, and winks at me.
“Stay here until the coast is clear,” he murmurs.
I blink.
And then he quietly unlocks the door, and before I can say a word, he slips out into the hallway, clicking the door closed behind him.
“Hello there,” he says to the person on the other side. “Sorry, I think there’s something wrong with the door. It’s jammed.”
“Oh, Mr. Beckham. Hi.” The beauty queen’s voice is now brimming with adoration. “I didn’t realize you were in there.”
“I was. But I’m not now. I’m out here in the hallway. With you,” he says.
I stifle a giggle. He’s almost as bad a liar as I am. Correction: as I used to be. Practice makes perfect and all that.
“Right. Well, would you mind stepping aside? I just need to get some ice.” Her voice sounds closer.
What do I do now? Lock myself in?
“There’s none left. I got the last of it,” Gray says. “But here, you can have mine.”
I take it back. He’s actually rather good at thinking on his feet . . .
Among other things.
“Really? Are you sure?” The beauty queen is still lingering.
I am in agony. I’ve got to get out of here before someone sees me.
Just take the ice!
“Absolutely. I insist.” I can hear a smile in Gray’s voice. He’s being chivalrous. And even though I know he’s doing it to protect me—to protect us—an irrational stab of jealousy hits me in the chest.
What is wrong with me?
I wasn’t always like this. I promise I wasn’t.
But finding out your fiancé actually prefers your twin sister does something to you. Something ugly. No matter how many times you try to tell yourself that you’re better off on your own or that you’re an amazing person completely apart from your twin, the resentment lingers.
I’m not sure I fully grasped the extent of the damage Adam’s words did to me until this week while I’ve been taking Ginny’s place. I don’t like it, but I don’t know how to make it go away.
I wish I did. I wish that very, very much.
“All right then,” the beauty queen says. She and Gray are still so close that I can hear the ice cubes shifting in the bucket as he hands it to her. “Thank you so much.”
Finally.
I stay right where I am, with my back pressed against the door, as the voices in the hallway recede. I’m so anxious to get out of here that I could jump right out of my skin, but I force myself to wait.
After a torturous minute of silence goes by, I crack the door open and peer into the hall. It’s blessedly empty.
I sprint back to my room on wobbly legs. My hands are shaking so much that I have to swipe the card key in the lock three times before I get the little green light. When I finally do, I swing the door open and dash inside.
Home free. We didn’t get caught.
Everything’s fine, I tell myself. Nothing to worry about at all. It’s all a-okay.
But it’s not. Not really. That kiss—and everything that followed—was a monumental mistake. And it can’t happen again, no matter how very much I want it to.
He’s a judge, and I’m a fake contestant impersonating her twin sister. The situation is too problematic for words.
Now that I’m back in my hotel room, I realize how lucky we were that someone interrupted us and put a stop to our improper shenanigans. I don’t even want to consider what would have happened if the knock on the door hadn’t shaken some sense back into me.
Except, I sort of do want to consider it. A lot.
But I won’t. Because recent hijinks aside, I am generally a good person. An honest one. I don’t even dog-ear my books, much less engage in the kind of Sandra Bullock–rom-com subterfuge I’m embroiled in at the moment.
I take a deep breath and make a promise to myself. I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to get Ginny to the finals, and then I’m telling Gray the truth. The whole, ugly lot of it. In the meantime, no more sneaking around with him. No more clandestine meetings in the stairwell or the ice closet. Definitely no more kissing.
“Where on earth have you been?”
I jump at the sound of Ginny’s voice.
She rounds the corner from the direction of the bathroom, jams her hands on her hips, and studies me through narrowed eyes. “Um, didn’t you forget something?”
You mean, like how to tell the truth?
I bow my head, certain that she’ll know what I’ve been up to if I look at her head-on. My gaze drops to the floor, and I notice that Buttercup is miraculously still sitting in the exact spot where I left her. She’s peering up at me with her round, googly, Frenchie eyes, waiting to be praised.
I scoop the dog into my arms and cast a fleeting glance at Ginny over the top of her head. “Like what?”
I should probably know what she’s talking about it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember. My head is still back down the hall with Gray. And so, I fear, is my heart.
Ginny throws her hands up. “The ice.”
Oh yeah.
The ice.
“Sit down. We need to talk,” Ginny says, motioning for me to take a seat at the foot of her bed.
I’ve managed to convince her that when I got to the ice closest, the big, rumbling machine was empty. Then, because I’m such a great sister, I went to five other floors, but none of them had ice either. Somewhere in my epic quest for frozen water, I lost our ice bucket.
I feel a tad bit guilty that I’ve made myself out to sound like such a devoted twin in this complete and utter fabrication, but it’s the only believable excuse I can come up with off the top of my head.
What am I supposed say?
Oops! I was so busy letting Judge Number Six kiss me silly that I forgot all about the fact that I hit you in the face with a baton.
“What’s up?” I ask.
Truly, what could it possibly be? I can’t take any more surprises. My nerves are more frayed than Mrs. Bennet’s in Pride and Prejudice.
Ginny sighs and presses a plastic bag of ice against the rapidly forming bruise on the bridge of her nose. We ordered the ice from room service. Thankfully, they didn’t rat me out.
“Come on, Charlotte. We both know what’s going on here.”
I swallow. “We do?”
Okay, maybe the room service people did tattle on me and tell her the hotel is, in fact, full of ice. It’s practically an igloo. Or worse, maybe she’s found out about Gray and me.
I feel sick. Buttercup seems to sense my panic and crawls into my lap.
What is up with this dog? Does she think Ginny and I have actually switched places?
“What’s going on is that you can’t twirl.” Ginny drops her ice pack and gestures toward her head. “As evidenced by my face.”
“In all fairness, I’m only responsible for your nose,” I retort.
I’m so not in the mood for her criticism. Can’t she see how hard I’ve been trying? Does she have any inkling at all how miserable this whole charade makes me?
Of course she doesn’t, and that’s my fault.
I wonder what would happen if she knew the truth about why Adam and I broke up. Would she have still asked me to take her place?
Probably.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
I’ll never know, because it’s too late. I’m swimming in sequins, and I can’t back out. We’re in the home stretch. In a matter of days, the prelims will be over and the top twenty will be announced. I’ve got a shot at this. Or . . . she’s got a shot.
Except she’s right. I can’t twirl, and the talent prelims start in just a few hours.
I take a deep breath. “What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to have to sing,” she says.
“No.” I shake my head. Hard. “No way.”
My sister is fully aware that I can’t carry a tune. Once, when we were in high school and Ginny was trying to rack up volunteer hours for yet another pageant and I needed service hours for my college applications, we went Christmas caroling together at a local nursing home. Midway through “O Holy Night,” the activity director asked me to lip-synch, I kid you not.
Ginny was given a solo, because of course she was.
I did the rest of my service hours at the Dallas Food Bank.
“Look, it’s not like any of these girls are Beyoncé or anything,” Ginny says.
Is she sure about that? Has she seen Jordan Collins, Miss American Treasure 2013? Because she and Queen Bey look more like identical twins than Ginny and I do.
“A handful of the contestants have actual talent, but most everyone is faking it. Trust me. You can do this.” Ginny smiles, but I can tell it’s forced. She doesn’t have any more confidence in my vocal abilities than I do.
She’s desperate. If I don’t show up and display some sort of talent, it’s over. For both of us.
But I can’t even bring myself to try karaoke at the school carnival. Two Halloweens ago, when the principal put me in charge of the karaoke booth, I traded places with the teacher who ran the cake walk. Because I knew the kids would try and goad me into singing something.
Also because cake.
“I can’t.” Gray will be there. Watching me. Judging me. I’d never get through the first verse of whatever show tune Ginny has in mind. It’s always a show tune, isn’t it? Either that, or opera. Which is beyond out of the question. “Let me rephrase. I won’t.”
I’m putting my foot down. I’d rather quit the pageant than sing.
“Then what do you propose?” she asks through gritted teeth.
Just as I’m about to revisit the idea of a dramatic reading, Buttercup lets out a timely snort. My gaze flits to the dog, and a crazy idea pops into my head.