“SHE WAS FOUND, CHLOE.” His tone was soft, grim, and resigned. The sureness in this statement was emphasized by the hollowness of his voice and the haunted look that sparked from his eyes. He wasn’t just saying that.

Chloe Carrington started shaking her head repeatedly no at her brother-in-law, Ryder Kincaid. As if her neck were stuck on a recorded loop, she could not stop shaking. NO! No. Oh, no! It couldn’t be. But inside, she knew. In that instant, Chloe knew there was only one reason Ryder would be standing there in her restaurant’s kitchen, in the middle of the afternoon, with that terrible expression on his face.

Ebony. They found Ebony. Her sister. Her identical twin. Her other half. And Ryder’s eyes were big and solemn and sad. So sad. That meant…

She couldn’t even say the words in her head. She started shaking her finger at him as he advanced towards her. If he touched her, he’d have to hold her, and comfort her, and support her as she fell apart.

He was telling Chloe that her sister was dead. By saying “found,” Chloe knew he was referring to her body. Her mind, heart, soul and everything else that made Ebony the woman she was instantly vanished from the earth.

“No! No! No! Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare say it, Ryder Kincaid. Get out! Get Out! Don’t say it!” She stepped back as if by moving, she could somehow ignore the facts. Maybe it was wrong to begin with. If she denied it, perhaps it couldn’t hurt her.

But of course, it already had. Ryder held her shaking body against his, wrapping his arms around her to hold her up, supporting her body weight when she collapsed. Her legs felt like rubber as the grief in her heart saturated her mind and body. Her sister, her beautiful, talented, smiling, energetic, identical twin sister, her other half was dead.

NO! No, goddamn it! He was wrong. He had to be. She lifted her head to argue and stuttered as she pleaded with Ryder to take it back because it was a lie. “B-b-but she sent a note. Remember? She told us she had to leave. That she couldn’t continue living here. And couldn’t be a mother or a wife any longer. She told us. It wasn’t right, and she should have stayed here but don’t you remember? She told us she had to leave.”

His arms supported her body while his hands rubbed between her shoulder blades. He leaned back a little so he could look into her eyes. But Ryder’s image was blurry to Chloe. She sniffed and another loud sob escaped her lips.

“Apparently, she was murdered. She never left us. Someone made her send us that note. Someone else robbed our savings. It wasn’t her. It was never her.” Ryder’s voice cracked as he said her the last time. He was overcome with grief and misunderstanding as he gripped Chloe harder.

“How do you know? Are you sure?”

“A body was discovered in Rathbone Plains. I went out there. It had her earrings and the necklace I gave her for our first anniversary, along with her engraved wedding ring. It’s definitely her. There will be an official investigation, but Chloe, it’s her. She never left us. She never did that to us.”

Chloe’s reality was altered forever and her heart hammered in her chest as her entire body trembled. Oh, God! All the terrible things Chloe thought about her sister for choosing to leave her family… They all believed she made that choice. For over three years, everyone believed her sister just walked out on her husband Ryder and Wyatt, their then eighteen-month-old son, as well as her twin sister and loving parents. They believed that Ebony abandoned them to pursue another lifestyle. Chloe spent the better part of those three years working through her anger, rage, and resentment of her sister. She could not forgive her sister’s betrayal in choosing a different life over what she had with them. They thought Ebony had wanted a much better life, one that was more exciting and far beyond the mundane confinements she found in Silver Springs.

They believed it at the time too, because her note said she was doing that. The note was written in her handwriting, and verified by Chloe and her parents.

Chloe’s heart sank even lower. They believed the note. She and Ryder, as well as her own mother, believed the note. She glanced up, using Ryder’s forearm to support her. They swallowed that story so easily and hated her for it. But now? To find out she was dead and, even worse, murdered was beyond Chloe’s comprehension. Ryder said her body was found in the swamp and only the jewelry she wore could identify the remains. The remains. Oh, GOD! Her sister was relegated to nothing more than the remains. They never bothered to even look for her. Ebony was decomposing in the stinking swamp without one person searching for her. That image haunted Chloe. It churned her gut and made her stomach ache. A piercing wail broke the silence. Did that come from her? She leaned forward, trying to gasp for breath. She could not breathe with all the images clashing in her head.

Ebony.

Chloe saw Ebony smiling at her, and getting so cheeky as she told her about the guy she met. This hot, white guy in her history class at college. It took her two months of daily flirting before Ryder finally asked her out to dinner. She recalled Ebony grinning from ear to ear when she told Chloe she was pregnant. Ebony was going to have a baby. Both of them were terrified but happy, and they celebrated the occasion by running out to buy a baby outfit. Neither of them had any experience with babies. What Ebony lacked in knowledge she made up for in excitement. Every day. Chloe loved having Ebony in her life every day. Chloe and Ebony worked together, spoke on the phone daily, and took turns cooking holiday meals. They struggled for a while when she married Ryder. They were close so it was difficult to separate and let Ebony live with her husband. Ryder admired their close relationship and considered Chloe more like his own sister than an in-law.

After Ebony disappeared, he became her rock and stability. She often turned to Ryder when she missed her lost sibling. But nothing could touch the relationship she shared with Ebony. They were identical twins. Chloe couldn’t imagine being the only one with this face now… it was so odd. She hated it, actually. She missed seeing her own face on Ebony and showing off when they were together.

In many ways, they functioned as one person. Since Ebony’s disappearance, half of Chloe seemed dead. Gone. Withered. She always believed Ebony would return, feeling sorry and contrite. She knew Ebony would work hard to make it up to everyone she hurt. Chloe doubted if Ryder would remarry her, or even forgive her. But Chloe knew in her heart, in a place she shared with her sister, that if and when Ebony returned, she would have no problem forgiving her twin sister. No matter how long it took and whatever life Ebony chose to pursue, Chloe would always find a way to forgive her. In all honesty, she was desperately waiting to forgive her sister.

Now? Now, there was no chance of that happening. All her imagined scenarios of a reunion, along with her hopes and dreams, were over like Ebony’s life. There was never any foundation for hope. Bile climbed into her throat. Panicked and needing to be alone, she pushed off Ryder and ran to the bathroom at the back of the kitchen, getting there just in time. Leaning over the toilet, she violently expelled the contents of her stomach, but the sick knot in her gut remained.

Her life would never be the same again.

She was alone now. All alone. She no longer had a twin. No longer was she half of a matched set. No more waiting for her other half to return.

She twisted around and fell back onto her butt. She was wearing slacks and a white blouse. The sleeves were rolled up tidily, revealing bare forearms. Flour dusted her hands and wrists. She had already prepped the pie crusts, but now, the fillings might never be finished. She bent forward at her waist and another howl escaped her. Her mouth dropped opened and more sobs could be heard as hot tears filled her eyes. She trembled and saliva dropped from her mouth as her body seemed to repel her own fluids. Her heart was mired in the pain and grief and images of her dead sister.

“Ebony!” she yelled out her sister’s name. She could have been cursing the gods or calling her sister home. She sucked in a deep breath and her entire torso shuddered. There was nothing subtle or tender in her grief. How could there be? Half of her had been exorcised, taking with it her own soul.

She closed her eyes and fell onto her side, lying against the bathroom wall. She was oblivious to the germs and dirt on the floor, something that an hour ago, would have grossed her out. She tucked her knees to her chest and cried her eyes out. Keeping her eyes tightly shut against the harsh reality that was now her world.

Warm arms encircled her. Ryder. He came back to check on her. It had to be. He understood the grief she was in. He felt what she felt. Maybe he was the closest person who could feel it besides her. She didn’t doubt how much he loved Ebony. He was so strong and heartbroken when they first believed she ran off. He’d been there for Chloe, and she for him ever since. That was because they both shared an enduring love for Ebony. Some husbands might have been angry or tried to punish their wife’s family, especially if she had an identical twin sister. But Ryder wasn’t like that. No. She and Ryder became a team raising Wyatt.

The sickening realization that Wyatt would now have to deal with the knowledge that his mother was dead made Chloe’s gut churn. Fresh tears streamed from her eyes. She curled into Ryder’s strong embrace. He picked her up. She was shocked at first, but eventually let him. Her body was small, only five feet tall, but her frame wasn’t. She had a voluptuous figure that made her anything but lightweight. She and Ebony had always been short and small. They both had big boobs and curves and always teased each other about it but agreed that eating was a favorite pastime. Chloe was a pastry chef so there was no way either of them refused to eat.

Chloe kept her eyes closed and remembered how often Ebony would eat one of Chloe’s whole pies just to prove she could. The stupid, double standard of making women starve until they got sick was invalid to Chloe and Ebony. If men could eat whatever they wanted, then so could Ebony. Chloe shuddered and a small moan escaped her mouth as she pictured her funny but fierce sister scarfing down a huge piece of pie, as if to say, “Fuck you!” to the rest of the world and their standards.

Chloe was being carried into her office before gently landing on the couch. A throw blanket was tucked over her. She curled into a fetal position just as she’d been while on the bathroom floor. This was too much. She could not handle it or survive so much pain. It was way too much for anyone to endure.

Her eyes stung and she kept them tightly shut. A glass touched her lips. She opened her mouth and cool water slipped down her throat. She tried to swallow the huge lump of grief that burned in her throat from screaming her sister’s name so loud and for so long. Then a pill was placed on her tongue and the water glass returned to her mouth. Somewhat startled, she started choking and sputtering before her eyes flashed open.

She sat up straight when she saw it wasn’t Ryder. Holy shit! Odder still, it was Chet. Chet Willapana was kneeling in front of her and holding the glass of water. He sat back on his heels and lowered the glass. His dark eyes were focused on her. His black, silky hair, which was too long, fell over his forehead, obscuring his eyes. He had an annoying but also sexy habit of flipping it back by running his hands through it and shoving it out of his way. His eyes were slightly slanted and the dark black slashes of his eyebrows only accentuated his other features. The angles and planes of his face imbued him with a sense of mystery. He didn’t smile very often, if ever. His goatee wasn’t too long, but was so sparse, it often looked like he forgot to shave.

Chloe had never felt too comfortable with her busboy/janitor/dishwasher. He cleared the tables, washed the dishes, and cleaned the bathrooms, kitchen, and the main seating areas of the café. He was definitely a hard worker. That was obvious. He dutifully performed the multiple positions at the café into one without complaint.

He also never said a damn word to anyone.

Chloe often wondered if he spoke proper English. She communicated with him in a small vocabulary of single words, never fluently. She had no idea how well he spoke English. She’d heard him speaking to his mother, Dok, a server at the restaurant, in fluent Thai. But even then, he spoke very quietly, with his head always bowed down. Whatever he said only required a few softly spoken sentences. He’d only gotten the job because Dok asked Chloe to let him work there. Chloe needed a busboy at the time and automatically said yes. It wasn’t a complicated or difficult job. If Chet were anything like his mother, Chloe couldn’t go wrong by hiring him. But since that day, over three years ago now, she could count on one hand the number of times she actually addressed Chet Willapana. In that moment, it suddenly occurred to her how little time she’d allotted to a person whom she spent so many hours being around. Often, it was just the two of them working in a confined space without any conversation.

He just peeled her off the bathroom floor where she was curled up, still screaming and crying in a fetal position. He carried her to the couch and fed her pills and water. She suddenly sat up and shoved his hand away. She started to spit the pill out. What the hell was it anyway? Her shock at seeing his presence briefly eclipsed her incessant sobs.

“What is this?”

Chet got to his feet. He was tall and thin, standing over six feet tall, with long, lean limbs. No two people could have possessed more different body types than she and Chet. She was short and curvy and he was long and lean. Her dark skin was even and clear, while his was decorated in bright tattoos of blue, red, and orange dragons on his forearms. He also wore earrings that dangled on the right side of his head when he swung around. The ends of his dark hair were dyed in a rainbow that spanned from rusty brown to white-tipped ends. He had a youthful face. Chloe couldn’t tell if he were eighteen years old or twenty-eight. She never bothered to look on his employment application. She should have. He had become a fixture in the kitchen and restaurant. During the day, while bussing the tables, he worked in complete silence and with calculated efficiency. He always kept his head down and rarely spoke. The rest of the time, he worked in the kitchen. Chloe saw him every single day, but in that special moment, she realized she never really saw him. She seemed to look right past him, over him, and through him; usually she completely ignored him. And now? He’d practically swept her off the bathroom floor.

“Drugs? What are these drugs?” Did Chet even do drugs? Was it opium? Or some mysterious hallucinogenic substance? She had no idea. “What did you give me?” She hissed at him with suspicion.

He bowed his head down, fixing his eyes to the ground, as usual. “Aspirin.”

“Oh. Shit.” Chloe fell silent. Crap. She sniffed the snot in her sinus cavity and shut her eyes, shaking her head. “Sorry… I… you…”

He didn’t answer so she sat upright. Her shoulders folded forward and she was staring listlessly at the floor. “My sister is dead.”

He didn’t respond. Chloe slid her tongue over her teeth and swallowed. Saying the words out loud still didn’t make them more real. “My identical twin sister was murdered. Her body was found in a swamp. Decaying and rotting.” She lifted her gaze toward him but her eyes ached. They burned and hurt, feeling bruised. As if she stared too long into the sun without sunglasses. He averted his eyes from her and stood there stock-still. The expression on his face was vacant.

“Did you hear me? Do you hear me? Do you understand… oh… hell.”

She should have known. She was his employer and had been for the past three years. Even longer to his mother. Five? Yes, it had been something like five years since Dok Willapana began working for them. Ebony handled all the hiring and bookwork. She was a business major and unfamiliar with the cooking and food preparation. Meanwhile, Chloe attended culinary school and learned how to run a kitchen. She did not, however, know how to run a restaurant. Now she had to because of her sister’s unexpected disappearance.

Chloe had to do it all and was the first to admit the bookwork suffered severely under her management. Ryder Kincaid assumed Ebony’s share and became Chloe’s silent partner, although he wanted nothing to do with the daily running of it. He signed over the running of the daily business to Chloe outright, but she wanted him to take an interest in the finances. That way, if it failed or hit harder times, she had a buffer. Having to run it all, she inadvertently let a few things slide, like perhaps, the vetting of her employees.

She hired Tara Aderly last year as a server without checking her background or anything else. She trusted her gut, and the vibe she sensed from Tara was a good one. So far, things had turned out amazing. Tara was blonde, pretty, sweet and quiet and everyone responded well to her, the young and old, men and women, and black and white. There was something very likeable about her, and as a server, she was competent, proficient, and earnest. Her services resulted in big tips, which became a win-win for Chloe and the café.

In the same vein, when Dok asked her to hire her son as a busboy and dishwasher, she consented without even meeting him. He filled out the job application but she never read it. In that moment, she regretted her sloppiness in background checking. She should have known who was working for her. Ebony would never return to her job or do her part again and that was a drain on Chloe’s strength.

Chloe shuddered as the reality barreled through her system. It was just as harsh and fierce as when Ryder first said the words. She knew the real reason why she let the business end exist so loosely and free. Originally, it was due to a sense of rebellion. Her half-assed efforts were aimed at punishing Ebony for leaving. It was Chloe’s way of saying, “Screw you, Ebony, for running out on your job and leaving it all to me.”

Now there was no longer an Ebony to punish. For over three years, Chloe’s anger and resentment slowly festered. She not only bad-mouthed her own sister to Ryder, but to others too. She did so many things that she now regretted from the mistaken belief that her sister had willingly left her family and her. She thought Ebony had abandoned them. There was no other way to interpret the note she mailed them. Or to account for all the money she’d stolen from the savings account she shared with Ryder. Only now, today, at this moment, did she realize there was no abandonment. She was murdered. And someone else forced her to rob Ryder and write such a heartless letter. Chloe bent forward as her stomach cramped when she tried to imagine the circumstances that compelled Ebony to do those things.

As clearly as she knew her own name, Chloe realized that Ebony would never have done what they assumed for so many years and blamed her for. She would never have abandoned her own son. Of course not. Chloe knew that. She should have known it anyway. She should have fought for and defended her sister against the blatant frame-up. It was too obvious to be the truth. In her heart, Chloe felt betrayed that the sister she knew so well could act in ways that were so unlike her. Her anger toward Ebony only spiraled into rage. Yet, at the root of it, she missed her sister so damn much. She could not handle all the disappointment caused by her sister.

“I understand.” Chet’s voice broke through her foggy haze. What? She jerked her gaze back to Chet. Back to right now. Here. The day she learned her sister’s fate. She also just insulted someone who never did or said a mean thing to her or for that matter, a nice thing either. Not until now when he lifted her off the bathroom floor.

She wiped her eyes, which continued to leak tears no matter how often she squeezed them tightly to stop them. She tried to regain her bearings. “I’m sorry… I’m so… sad. I don’t know what I’m saying or doing. It’s just… you never talked to me before.” She shook her head. Why the hell did that matter now? She wasn’t sure she even noticed it before. Still, that’s all he said. “Do you realize that, Chet? I don’t think we’ve ever had a real conversation before.”

She lifted her eyes back up to him and his lips curled on one side. Was it a smile? But his only response to her was a nod. Under normal circumstances, her cheeks would have burned with embarrassment for not noticing it before. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances and she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel normal again.

She sighed and Chet’s strange behavior was a temporary distraction to keep her grief at bay. She welcomed it. Her suffocating tears receded for a moment. She got to her feet, and her knees were weak, nearly buckling when she tried to stand up. She stepped towards her desk to grab a tissue. She took several from the box and blew her nose. Throwing them away, she wiped her eyes. The white tissues were smeared with black from her mascara that ran everywhere. She blew her nose again. Something she most likely wouldn’t have done with anyone else close to her. But today, what did it matter? Nothing mattered anymore.

“I spent the last three years hating her… and loving her. How can that be? How could I hate my own twin?” She pressed her hands flat on her desk, leaning over it with her weight on her upper body. Chet was easy to talk to, almost like confessing to oneself. He didn’t answer or react to anything she said. And neither condemned nor agreed with her. It was refreshing and right then, as raw as her nerves and emotions were, it managed to help her. “How could I not have known the truth? How could I ever have assumed she abandoned her own baby?” Her voice trembled as she whispered and her head bounced back and forth. Over and over, she thought about it, as if her denial could somehow undo her former beliefs and the past. But she knew it couldn’t. Nothing could. The guilt she endured ripped her in half and was every bit as incapacitating as the grief and loss.

She felt hands touching her back. One hand on each shoulder. Warm and solid, Chet’s hands were on her, cupping her shoulders. He had big hands, enough to cover most of her shoulder, and his fingers were kneading her upper arm and her back. The heat of his hand radiated through the smooth silk of her blouse. She sucked in a startled breath. Chet slowly pulled her upright and turned her all the way around. Her body was like a rag doll, drained by her grief. Surprised to be turned around and facing him with her back to the desk, she stared up curiously. She bit her lip and her gaze rose to his. He wore a white t-shirt as usual. Sometimes, he wore a sweatshirt over it. Today, it was just a thin, plain, white T with jeans. His hair fell forward as he bent his head down towards her. It was a long way considering their substantial height difference. But he leaned forward, getting closer to her.

What in the hell? Why was he leaning towards her? What did he expect to do? Kiss her? Confused and dizzy, Chloe couldn’t move or think… and then his lips descended onto hers.