by Dani Collins
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you went to Reve’s to find me,” Nina said. “We were in Luxembourg, trying to find answers about...well, everything. I didn’t actually know my parents weren’t my birth parents. How could I have a secret twin?”
“Did you find anyone from the clinic?”
“No, but we found medical records on our delivery and...” Nina explained about Inga as she dug up the letter.
Oriel set her hand over her heart. “She kept it all this time?” She carefully unfolded the paper.
While Oriel read, Nina picked up Reve’s hand from her shoulder and pressed her damp cheek to the back of his knuckles. It was a gesture of gratitude. Perhaps she was only trying to include him in her special moment. A few short months ago, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be drawn into anything this emotionally charged. As it was, he felt privileged to be part of this with her.
“This is so sad. My heart is absolutely broken for her,” Oriel murmured, tears standing in her eyes.
“Mine, too.” Nina then told her the rest, how Lakshmi hadn’t been allowed to hold her babies or learn she’d had twins.
The sisters’ anguish was palpable as they hugged it out, and Reve had to step away to a window and swallow back the lump that rose in his throat.
Behind him, they moved on to the deeper mystery of where they’d each gone after their birth, beginning to share and laugh in bemusement. Reve didn’t listen to the words so much as the pleasing sound of Nina’s voice in stereo. He didn’t know how he was going to give her up, but his head was pounding with the knowledge that he had to. He cared for her more than he’d imagined he could care for anyone. It was a double-edged sword. The more he cared, the more he wanted to protect her from anyone who could harm her—himself included.
An abrupt knock cut off his rumination and the women’s conversation.
Reve moved to open the door and confronted a man wearing the most hostile, contemptuous, death wish of a lip curl Reve had ever seen on anyone. Ever. And he’d seen a few in his lifetime.
“Ah,” Reve said with false magnanimity. “The husband.”
* * *
“Vijay!” Oriel leaped to her feet.
Nina rose and, even though she’d seen dozens of photos of Vijay Sahir with his wife, she was a little bowled over by how movie-star sexy he was. He crossed to kiss his wife’s cheek.
Nina was envious of that, the simplicity of being in love and greeting each other with a kiss.
Oriel introduced Nina as her sister, and Vijay shook her hand graciously enough despite a noticeable hostility in his demeanor. He didn’t shake hands with Reve.
“We don’t know I’m her twin,” Nina clarified, thinking he must be suspicious of her claim. “It’s what the birth records we found would suggest, though.”
“And anyone with eyes,” Reve said laconically. She heard the edge of steel in his tone, as if he was offended Vijay might have doubts about her.
Had he forgotten that, as recently as yesterday, he’d been telling her what venal souls most people possessed? Vijay was allowed to be skeptical.
“I imagine Lakshmi’s family has been inundated with people claiming to be her daughter. I’m happy to do a DNA test,” she assured Vijay.
“Seems redundant, but I’ve already connected with our lab,” Vijay said. “I’ll arrange it shortly. I need to speak with my wife first.” He looked at Oriel, and the air between them crackled with enough sexual tension that Nina immediately felt like an interloper.
“You should check in with your family, Nina. Warn them that things are about to get very chaotic,” Reve said.
“Oh. Vijay will arrange protection for you.” Oriel looked to her husband.
“Already in the works,” he assured her.
“I can protect her,” Reve said in a tone that sounded both offended and territorial.
“Do you think I’m going to let anything happen to my wife’s sister?” Vijay moved aside with Reve to exchange cards.
“Shall we meet for dinner?” Nina invited, anxious not to lose another minute with her twin.
“Of course. I just need a few minutes...” Oriel sent Vijay a conflicted look, then put Nina’s number into her phone and promised to text.
Minutes later, Vijay’s bodyguard helped Nina and Reve slip out a side door and into their car undetected.
“I feel like we were rude, leaving so abruptly,” Nina said, her head still spinning.
“Did you not see the way he was looking at me?” Reve’s voice dripped with ironic amusement. “He blamed me for the photos that made it look like his wife was having an affair. I suspect that’s why she came to Paris alone and was so surprised he turned up.”
“Why would he be mad at you for that? It was my fault.”
“He can’t be mad at you. It would be like yelling at his wife while trying to apologize to her. He kicked us out so they could kiss and make up.”
“Oh.” They arrived at his building and darted in before any enterprising photographers caught them.
In the elevator, she asked curiously, “Would you have an affair with her?”
“I never sleep with married women,” he dismissed firmly. “You?”
“Have I slept with a married woman? My sister. And my brother’s cat preferred to sleep with me, which made him furious. Does that count as cheating?”
“Sure does. Home-wrecker.”
They both laughed and his smile lingered. “You’re happy. It looks good on you.”
She was happy because she was still with him and they were bantering like the things they’d said yesterday hadn’t happened.
As if they both suddenly recalled the conversation, they sobered. He stared at the doors, which conveniently opened.
“As I said at Oriel’s, you should call your family, tell them what to expect,” he said as he let her into the penthouse.
Nina waited until he had shut the door to ask, “What should I expect? Are we saying goodbye for good now? It’s okay if we are. I just—” she cleared the gathering thickness from her throat and almost dropped her phone as she drew it from her bag “—need to find a hotel.”
“You’re not going to a hotel,” he said gruffly. “You still need my help, Nina. Tell your family you’re safe and let them know I’ll arrange security for them. I’ve already made preliminary calls. I’ll have my people draft a statement, but we won’t release it until we’ve coordinated with Oriel’s people. Ask your family to sit tight for a little longer.”
“How am I supposed to afford all that? Do not say you’ll pay for it,” she warned.
“I will pay for it. I protect what’s important to me,” he said implacably.
“Reve.” She wanted to stamp her foot and also hug him with all her might. He was the most infuriating, endearing man she’d ever met. “I can’t keep leaning on you. Not when—” The tendons in her throat flexed. “I don’t want to lose your respect. Not after I’ve worked so hard to earn it.”
“Bloody hell, Nina.” He paced a few feet, then shoved his hand through his hair with uncharacteristic agitation. “You don’t have anyone on your side. Not anyone who knows how to survive the mess you’re in the way I do.”
“I have Oriel.” Was she being presumptuous? They seemed to have an immediate connection, but maybe that perception was only on her side.
“You literally met her an hour ago. She has a husband and an unborn baby and her own family to protect. You can’t be her top priority. Let me lead you through this.”
“I can’t do that to you, Reve.” It killed her to say it, to provoke the darkness blooming in his expression as she rebuffed him. “It’s everything you hate. You’ll start to hate me.”
“I can take care of myself,” he dismissed with a wave of his hand. “It’s you I worry about.”
“And I’m worrying about you! Reve, w
hat are we doing?” she cried, struck by the absurdity of it all. “We obviously care about one another. Why are we putting all these...things between us?”
“I’m simply trying to help a—” He cut himself off, his mouth tightening.
“What? Business partner? Is that what I am to you?”
Ironically, she had been terrified of this moment when she left the old Nina behind and became this new woman. Oriel’s sister. Lakshmi’s daughter. She hadn’t known what to expect, only that her life would change. She would know more about herself and some of that would be difficult. It was.
But as she let go of her old self, and the layers of hurt and existential angst she had been using as self-protection, she saw herself more clearly than she ever had.
She was still Nina. She had loved Reve before and she still did. Her love for him had been beating under her skin with her pulse all along, and she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Reve, I love you.”
“Don’t.” He closed his eyes.
His rejection stung like a million ant bites. A wound opened in her chest, but she understood him so much better now.
“Don’t say it? Or don’t feel it? Because I can’t control it.”
“Don’t feel it. I’m not worth your love,” Reve said, each word scoring into her. “That’s for people like your family. People who know how to love you back.”
“It’s okay if you don’t love me back,” she said. Her throat was tight with agony because, yes, deep down she longed for him to love her back. “I don’t want you to say words you don’t mean. You were right when you said I wouldn’t want to marry and have children just to tick those boxes, but I’m realizing I would rather leave them unticked than give up the man I love.”
He withdrew more firmly, his hands clenching into fists as though he was enduring some kind of intense pain.
“I won’t force you to accept my love, either,” she said with quiet dignity. “Love isn’t supposed to be transactional. I’m not saying it to get something from you. I’m offering it freely. Here is my heart. Pick it up or not. That’s your choice.”
He still wasn’t looking at her. The veins in his arms stood out as he inhaled deeply and released a long breath.
“I am so afraid of hurting you again, Nina. Now I don’t see how I can avoid it.” His expression was anguished. Tortured. “I want to stay and protect you, but I don’t want to lead you on. I don’t want you to believe...” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “To think that I’m going to become more than I am.”
A skip of hope pulsed through her.
“You’re enough, Reve. You are. Could we...?” She stepped closer. “Could we agree to take it day by day and see how far we get?”
His expression contorted with conflict, but as she slowly approached, his arm shifted so his hand settled on her hip.
“This is why you’re so damned dangerous to me,” he said in voice thick with fatalism. “All I can think about is how I don’t want to make you cry—”
She threw her arms around him.
* * *
Maybe I do love her, Reve thought as Nina sealed her mouth against his.
Whatever this feeling was, it was big and unwieldly. He was still trying to figure out how to grasp and hold on to it, and the trying made him feel clumsy and expansive and raw. He couldn’t fudge something like that, though. His worst nightmare would be for her to look at him with disillusionment and betrayal again.
It made him take things very carefully as she led him to the bedroom. He undressed slowly, giving her time to be sure, before they slid naked into his bed. There he settled his mouth over hers with aching gentleness, trying to convey the need in him to protect her. Cherish her. Celebrate her.
When he looked into her eyes, he saw so many emotions he was certain he was physically falling through air. His throat thickened and his chest hurt. Every emotion filled him, then. Regrets and awe, conflicts and need, the heat of lust and the sweeter, softer glow that wanted her to know how incredibly precious she was to him.
A sting hit behind his closed eyelids. Joy. It burned his chest in a painful bliss as he swept his hands over her skin, wanting to gather and caress, worship and incite all of her.
She did the same to him and it was exquisite. She touched him with reverence even as she did all the things she knew drove him mad with pleasure. He couldn’t help the broken groan that left his throat or the possessive growl that resounded in his chest.
He claimed every inch of her, too, caressing her with a delicate saw of his fingertip until she was shaking with need. Then he settled over her and slowly pressed into her, both of them sighing as they were finally where they needed to be. Together. One.
They stayed like that a long, long time, moving in small, savoring strokes, holding fast to each other until their bodies betrayed them and demanded more power, greater depth. They were basic elements then, creating heat and friction and, aligning perfectly, they melded into something new and gleaming and indelible.
Nina shivered and clenched beneath him. Reve’s voice tore.
The waves of culmination soared over and through them, holding them at the brink of heaven for eternity, bathing them in its glorious light before slowly releasing them to drift gently back to earth.
With a sigh, Nina relaxed beneath him.
After a time, Reve gathered himself to withdraw, but she pressed him to stay inside her, whispering, “Not yet.”
He shifted and they fell asleep still joined.
* * *
The next hours were a roller coaster of emotions, but Nina was at peace with it. She had Reve. Maybe they weren’t committed for a lifetime, but they were united for now and that was enough.
Oriel and Vijay turned up looking like honeymooners. They could barely keep their hands off one another, which had Reve sending Nina a told-you-so look behind Oriel’s back.
She bit back a smirk, then sobered when Vijay began rhyming off the security he was putting in place.
“That seems like a lot.” Nina was daunted. “Is it really necessary?”
“Vijay is extra cautious. I’m afraid you’ve acquired more than a twin,” Oriel teased. “You also get an overprotective brother.”
“I already have one of those!” Nina said, pretending to be disgruntled before she added cheekily, “I guess there’s no such thing as too many?”
“That’s what I was thinking about sassy little sisters.” Vijay winked as he stepped away to talk press releases with Reve. Nina grinned. She liked him.
Nina and Oriel sat to have their cheeks swabbed by a nurse who would personally courier their samples to a private lab. She said they would have the results by morning. “But, honestly?” the nurse continued. “This seems like a lot of money and trouble to state the obvious.”
They were all thinking that even before Nina and Oriel discovered they were alike in ways beyond the physical. They laughed at the same things and disliked the same foods, and Oriel went into raptures when she saw the pop-up boutique Reve had installed in the spare room.
“Vijay,” Oriel called from the doorway. “I’m throwing you over for Reve!”
“Reve already has one of you,” Reve called back drily. “But I’m given to understand one can’t have too many?”
Oriel snickered, then asked Nina, “How long have you two been together? I only ask because Vijay thought I had something going with Reve when your photo turned up.” She began to comb through the racks. “I’m surprised there weren’t more. Reve is very well-known in New York. We might have found each other sooner if I’d seen you with him.”
“Reve hates the spotlight. He avoids photographers as much as possible.” Nina didn’t explain why.
Oriel’s gaze flashed up and softened with compassion. “He won’t enjoy the attention in India. I don’t know how to prepare you.”
After
hearing the security measures, apprehension was sitting like heartburn in Nina’s chest. She tried not to think of it and chatted fashion with Oriel, eventually showing her a couple of her own pieces from her luggage. Oriel gasped with delight.
“These are beautiful. You should make my maternity clothes.” Then she joked, “We should start a label like those other twins who had a house here in Paris.”
“The Sauveterres? Are you being serious? Because I’m so on board I’m riding all the way to the station.”
“I was kidding, but...” Oriel cocked her head, considering. “Design isn’t my strong suit. That would definitely be on you. I would excel at networking, though. I know a lot of people. Plus, I’m in India full-time. I could source textile and garment factories.”
“I’d want it to be the fair wage kind,” Nina said. “No exploitation.”
“Agreed. Ethical from soil to shop. Prove to the industry it can be done. Are you being serious? Because I’ve been stressing about giving up modeling. I love this idea so much.” Oriel excitedly locked her hand around Nina’s wrist. “You’re coming to Mumbai, yes? We’ll hammer out our business plan while you’re there.”
Nina laughed at the idea of her dearest-held dream coming to fruition so easily—and with the perfect person.
She hadn’t fully processed that she would go to Mumbai, or that she had other blood relations besides Oriel, but one video chat with Lakshmi’s brother, Uncle Jalil, and she longed to meet him. He already felt like family.
Jalil wept openly, deeply upset at the way his sister and her daughters had been treated. “Bring all the papers. I already have a lawyer working on this. Whatever settlement we win will go to Lakshmi’s estate,” he told them. “Oriel has been resisting accepting that, but you two are entitled to it. I want you to have it.”
“I’m just happy to know where I came from,” Nina told Oriel when they ended the call. “I don’t want to offend him by refusing, but I really don’t want her money.”
“Same, but he’s adamant. I suggested we use some of it to make a biopic on her life.”
