“He’s not inanimate. He’s real. If you love them enough, they become real.” I try to keep my tone light, but I sound like I’m on the verge of tears.
I can’t do this. I can’t lie to him anymore. Not for another second.
“Andrew, I—”
I’m cut off by the sound of a foghorn blaring, and Andrew pulls away. “I’m sorry, but this is Nick. He wouldn’t call if it weren’t important. I’ll just be a few minutes.”
Giving my hand one last squeeze, he stands and crosses to the other side of the member’s lounge, disappearing into the men’s room with one of his guards close behind him. The other guard scoots discreetly closer, ready to defend me from any members-only-lounge threats that might attack while Andrew is gone.
But I’m the only threat.
The call is coming from inside the house, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do about it.
Chapter Nineteen
Andrew
The entire way back to the castle, I can barely look her in the eye.
I smile and joke and try to maintain the relaxed, playful energy we enjoyed at breakfast, but inside I’m waging bloody war with myself.
I can’t do this.
I shouldn’t even be thinking about doing this.
If I’m wrong, then I’m putting an innocent woman and my future wife’s life in danger. Elizabeth has responded well to treatment for anaphylaxis in the past, but what if something goes wrong this time?
What if she forgets to bring her EpiPen to the picnic after the ceremony? What if there’s an accident on the road to the hospital and the ambulance can’t get to her in time? Without immediate treatment, her allergy is life-threatening.
I’m basically considering attempted murder even though I have no wish for Lizzy or anyone else to die.
I just have to know.
I’m eighty percent certain that I’ve been falling for Sabrina, but if there’s any chance that this is Lizzy, I have to try to keep trying.
Shockingly, I want her to be Lizzy. I want it badly enough to make excuses for a lot of things. But I saw the fear in her eyes when I asked if she fell on purpose. It was only there for a split second before she regained her composure, but at that moment, she might as well have had a sign reading, “I’ve been outted as my twin!” in glaring red neon over her head.
She all but showed her hand.
But in the end, she didn’t, leaving me with no choice but to consider the ace Nick just put in mine.
He still hasn’t come up with any definitive physical differences between Elizabeth and Sabrina, aside from the fact that Sabrina is half an inch taller. That, of course, will be difficult to judge without getting the twins barefoot and standing back to back, which isn’t likely to happen on my fucking wedding day. But Nick did discover something interesting while poking around in their medical records. Elizabeth still suffers from a deadly allergy to strawberries and bananas, which I knew. But Sabrina doesn’t, apparently having outgrown her own slight irritation when she was a child.
So all I have to do is sneak the forbidden fruit into my fiancée’s food and wait for her to have a reaction.
Or not.
Nick made it clear he doesn’t advocate poisoning anyone. He was so apprehensive about telling me that he held onto to the information for an entire day before sharing it, but in the end, he’d said, “I kept thinking about what it would be like to marry someone who I was afraid I didn’t really know. So I’m telling you the truth. But be careful, big brother. Whether she’s Elizabeth or Sabrina, she seems to be a decent person. I’m sure she has her reasons for tricking you, if that’s what’s happening. And even if this were a mean-spirited prank, she doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
But we don’t always get what we deserve.
I know that better than most.
I took a lot of reckless chances as a teenager, far worse than parachuting out of a helicopter. Everything from racing my motorcycle through Calcutta to swimming with sharks in a cage with bars so far apart, the animals could stick their heads into the shelter.
It’s a miracle that I grew into a man mature enough to put his country’s needs before his own. But I did, and that’s what I’m trying to do now.
I can’t be the king my country needs under these conditions. The uncertainty is wreaking havoc on my concentration. I’ve missed a conference call with a sultan and two meetings with my economic advisory board since Lizzy/Sabrina came crashing into my world. I can’t afford to grow any more mentally scattered, and I refuse to marry anyone but the woman sitting beside me.
If she and her sister think they’re going to pull a last-minute switch, they’ve got another thing coming. All I’ll have to do is take one look in the other woman’s eyes, and I’ll know I’m with the wrong girl.