The Bad Twin

by Avery Scott

  “I’m sure that something was lost in translation,” Hudson said smoothly, cutting off her awkward attempt at an apology. “They were just hoping to up their commission. We’ll find something that works- or you can have the ring if you want it.”

  “Oh, no! I mean, it’s marvelous, but it’s too much, and I wouldn’t want people to think…to think…”

  “To think what?” There was a wicked glint in Hudson’s eye as he leaned toward her.

  “To think that we were…that we might be…”

  Abby was saved from her embarrassment by Henri’s return. He was carrying a new tray. This one was uncovered and held a selection of pretty but unremarkable watches.

  Abby barely looked as she selected one at random, clasped it onto her wrist and presented it to Hudson for approval. She had no idea how much each option cost. Henri smiled broadly at the model that Abby chose, a silver-toned (but undoubtedly platinum) bracelet watch with a rectangular face framed by two rows of diamonds.

  “Is that the one?” Hudson asked.

  Abby nodded.

  “We’ll take it,” Hudson announced and stood to go.

  Abby was surprised when no money changed hands. Hudson’s handshake was enough to send them out of the boutique with the watch still affixed to Abby’s wrist and an exquisite box and bag clasped in her hands.

  “Anywhere else?” Hudson asked when they emerged back onto the sidewalk.

  A hundred answers flew to her lips, but she remained silent. Another trip down the Champs-Elysees or through the Bois de Bologne would only postpone the inevitable. These last few days in Paris had been a fairytale, and fairytales have to end. She wished that the ending could be “happily ever after”, but she had a feeling that this wasn’t that kind of story.

  Things might not be over when we get to New York. Abby listened as Hudson directed the limo driver to take them to the airport. Inwardly, she was nursing a foolish hope. Yes, Gabrielle had been angry on the phone, but maybe there was a chance that she would keep the secret. Gabrielle never kept a job for more than a few weeks. Surely, she wouldn’t mind Abby taking this one?

  No, Gabrielle wouldn’t begrudge her sister the job…but the man?

  Something hot and prickly bubbled under Abby’s skin at the thought. I never noticed that you have freckles on your shoulder. She hadn’t paid much attention to the words when Hudson said them, but they taunted her now. Gabrielle didn’t have any freckles. The remark could be innocuous, but why had he looked at her sister so closely?

  “Are you okay?” Hudson asked, offering his hand to help her out of the car and onto the tarmac.

  “I’m fine.”

  Hudson tucked his finger under her chin and raised it to meet his gaze. “Don’t be sad. I’ll bring you back to Paris again. I promise. And you’ll plan the entire thing. We’ll see everything!”

  If only that could be true.

  Abby swallowed hard as a single tear slipped down her cheek. She tried to remind herself of how lucky she had been to come in the first place. She had seen so many sights that she longed to see and had so many experiences. It seemed ungrateful to focus on what she didn’t have. She couldn’t help it. She wanted Hudson. Nothing else mattered, not Paris, not art, and certainly not Gabrielle.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Come on,” Hudson held Gabrielle’s hand as he led her toward the plane. “They have the clearance for takeoff.”

  The woman followed his lead and didn’t speak. He knew that she loved Paris and was disappointed to leave, but that didn’t wholly account for her loss of spirits. She reminded him of someone marching to the gallows.

  “Are you sure that you’re okay?” He felt like he had asked the question a hundred times.

  “Of course,” his assistant gave her standard answer and then fell silent again.

  They buckled into their seats for takeoff and didn’t speak as the plane lifted into the sky. Ms. Levesque looked out the window, craning her head for a last glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, glittering in the twilight. Hudson was watching her.

  “Hungry?” he asked when the clouds obscured her view and she finally turned away from the porthole.

  “No,” she said with a sigh. “The thought of airplane food after all the decadent treats you spoiled me with would be too much of a letdown.”

  “This isn’t your standard airplane food,” Hudson assured her, but he really wasn’t hungry either- at least, not for food.

  The way she half-smiled before leaning her head onto his shoulder made Hudson wish he could spoil her for a few more days. He tried to rearrange his schedule, but there was so much to do back home that it just wasn’t possible. Quinn Holdings had an agreement in principal to purchase Marché d’Été and they were rushing to get the paperwork drawn up before Mr. Fougere changed his mind again. The faster they could tie things up, the better.

  Hudson leaned over and brushed his lips lightly against his lover’s head. He heard her breathing slow and imagined if he could see her eyes, they would be closed. Eventually, she fell asleep. The rise and fall of her chest was hypnotic. Hudson felt himself begin to drift away too, but he fought against the urge. He preferred to remain awake and take a mental inventory of the past few weeks. The trip had been one misadventure after another but somehow he and Gabrielle managed to pull it all off in the end. They made a good team.

  A small yawn escaped his lover’s lips and she shifted her weight so that she was nestled closer against his side. Hudson rested his head on hers. He knew he should sleep but he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what things were going to be like when they got back home. Hudson’s father would monopolize more of his time and he would no longer have a single-bedroom hotel suite as an excuse to keep her in his bed every night.

  How would this work? Would she still want to work for him when they got back? Would she be his girlfriend? His assistant? He decided on the first option. There was no doubt Gabrielle had proved herself to be one hell of an asset to the company, but he wouldn’t feel like he was spoiling her properly if he was still signing her paychecks. Something had changed inside him when he was able to open up about Colin. He was starting to consider the possibility of life outside of Quinn Holdings. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he thought about carving out something for himself. Someone. Her.

  Hudson watched Gabrielle sleep for a while longer, fighting the urge to wake her up and talk about it before they landed. It seemed important all of a sudden. It sounded silly but he had this nagging feeling that if they didn’t talk before they landed back on American soil, things would be different. The magic of France would be gone and so would whatever they were starting to become.

  Ultimately, however, he convinced himself that he was being silly and let her sleep. He hadn’t exactly allowed her to have many restful nights over the last couple of days. Hardly a night had passed without waking her, sometimes more than once, to indulge his carnal cravings. He still wasn’t satiated. He’d give anything to be back in their hotel room, their tangled bodies wrestling in the hotel sheets, their skin damp and flushed.

  Hudson realized that neither of them would get any rest if he kept that line of thinking going. The sex was amazing, but he was more concerned about their relationship outside of the bedroom. Gabrielle was everything he had never realized he wanted in a woman. She was smart, talented, caring, and even feisty at times. She was hardworking and loyal. She was tender. She was understanding. She showed him what he’d been missing by treating women as disposable objects. Hudson wanted Gabrielle beside him every day and wanted her to fall asleep in his arms every night. He hoped that she wanted that too, but now that their trip was over, he was second-guessing himself. She certainly seemed disappointed to head home, but was it because she regretted leaving the world inside their cozy suite, or because she regretted leaving France? Either way, he made a mental note to plan a trip back to Paris soon.

  “Excuse me, Sir.”

  The sound was soft, barely a whisper an
d if not for the gentle nudge to his shoulder Hudson probably wouldn’t have heard it at all.

  “We’re about to land, Sir.”

  The flight attendant started to nudge her other passenger awake, but Hudson asked her to let him do it. He wanted Gabrielle to sleep for as long as possible, even if it was only an extra five minutes.

  When the plane finally prepared to land, Hudson reached over and took his lover’s hand. He lifted it to his lips and brushed a feathery kiss against her skin. He felt her shiver in response. She reluctantly came awake. She squirmed in the chair, yawned quietly and then her wide blue eyes blinked slowly open. She turned her head and focused on Hudson’s face. His heart melted when her lips spread into a smile.

  “Rise and shine, Morning Glory,” he whispered and dotted another kiss on the tip of her nose. “We are going to be landing in a few minutes. We’re home.”

  “Already?” Gabrielle’s voice was soft and raspy from sleep.

  “Already,” he confirmed apologetically.

  He could feel the plane descending, the slight dip forward, the increase in sound. “Listen, I know you will want to swing by your place to drop off your bags and let your sister know that you’re home, but I hope you’ll come back to my apartment with me. We can sleep in tomorrow. You should take a couple of days off. I’d like to talk to you about some things once we’re both adjusted back to New York time.”

  “Yes, there’s something I need to talk to you about too,” his companion answered cryptically. There was something about her vagueness that gave him a prickle of unease. He decided to ignore it. She was still groggy. Surely Hudson had imagined the uneasiness in her expression before she turned away to look out the window.

  Once the plane landed, Hudson stood and allowed Gabrielle to disembark in front of him. They exited the plane hand in hand. Hudson pushed his worries about the future aside. For the time being, he was simply looking forward to sleeping in his own bed, although he doubted that he would manage any slumber until after he had indulged in exploring his lover’s body again.

  “So, I can take you home with me?”

  “You better.”

  That was all the reply he needed to know he’d been acting stupid earlier. Nothing was going to change.

  “I arranged to have a car pick you up, I’m just going to text them and let them know we are here.” She smiled and winked at Hudson. “See, I can do my job.”

  “I think you are finally getting the hang of it. Except you got one thing wrong. The car isn’t here to pick me up, It’s here to pick us up.”

  Gabrielle’s face fell.

  “What’s wrong? I was teasing.”

  But the woman didn’t even seem to hear him. He finally noticed that she was frowning at something specific. Hudson followed her line of sight, curious to see what had upset her. His eyes landed on the object, and then he blinked in disbelief. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw through the grimy window of the commuter terminal. A woman was sitting just inside the doorway on a nondescript gray airport chair. One of her legs was crossed over the other, bouncing impatiently. The anxious body language wasn’t what surprised him. It was her face. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. China doll features. She looked identical to Gabrielle. He took a deep breath before looking back and forth between the pair.

  “Who is...?” he started to speak the words, but let his voice trail off.

  The woman on the other side of the glass had spotted them and jumped to her feet. She pushed through the swinging doors and headed toward them on the tarmac.

  “Your sister?” Hudson said slowly. It was the only explanation that made sense. Gabrielle had never mentioned that her sibling was an identical twin. He had never asked, of course, but it was a curious omission. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to take shape in his head, but he wasn’t ready to acknowledge them.

  Hudson caught a timid nod in his peripheral vision. “Yes,” she said quickly. “I can explain. I’ve been meaning to tell you-!”

  He didn’t get to hear the rest of what she was trying to say. The words trailed off as the second Levesque sister stood in front of them, her stance oddly aggressive and her face a picture of fury.

  Hudson tried not to betray his confusion. He held out his hand in greeting and forced himself to maintain a pleasant tone. “You must be Abagail. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  The woman’s response wasn’t so much a word as a sound: a curious combination of a laugh and an angry squawk.

  “Gabrielle, don’t! Please!”

  Hudson’s brow furrowed when he realized that the desperate plea had come from his own companion. Hadn’t she said her sister was called “Gail”? His brows furrowed as she stepped forward, holding out her hands as if she was trying to physically wave her sister away.

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know.” The clone said, taking another step toward them. “Why don’t you fill us in, Abagail?”

  Hudson swallowed hard and turned to the stranger. “But I thought you were Abagail? And this is…”

  “…My sister,” the woman said firmly. “She’s Abagail. I’m the woman you actually hired. She decided to go to Paris in my place. I have to say that I’m a little bit surprised that she was able to pull it off. I didn’t think she had it in her.”

  Hudson was very quiet as he processed what he was hearing. It was almost too much to take in. Had he really traveled to Paris with an imposter? He didn’t want to believe it was possible, but he couldn’t deny that it would explain a lot: his assistant’s reluctance to get on the plane, her strange story about her name, the confusion about whether she’d been out of the country before, her incompetence, her personality change…

  Pain slashed through his body along with a dawning realization that he had been tricked.

  He turned to face the woman he had travelled to Paris with and spoke through a clenched jaw.

  “Gabrielle…Abagail…Whoever you are…is this true?”

  There was no need to wait for an answer. The woman-Abagail, he was certain of it now-was edging away from him, her eyes downcast and her body folded in on itself like a wilted flower.

  He refused to be moved by the display of contrition. What a fool I was, Hudson thought, trying to gather up the agony of his lover’s betrayal and channel it into anger. Gabrielle didn’t love him. Gabrielle wasn’t even Gabrielle. It was all a ruse. What was she after? His money? Maybe she worked for the Fougere’s and had been hired to bring her around to their point of view. Was that how she had managed to get the meetings back on track? One thing was clear. He had made another spectacular mistake.

  “I’m sorry.” The words were almost a whisper. “I didn’t know what else to do. You came to the house looking for Gabrielle and she wasn’t there. You said you were going to fire her if she didn’t go with you to Paris and we needed the money. I thought…I thought that-“

  “That what? That it would be okay to lie to me and take my money? At least you’re being honest about that part now.”

  “No! It’s not about the money! I mean, it was at first, but then…”

  “Then you fucked me and you suddenly fell in love?” Hudson hissed.

  The baldness of the remark threw the real Abby off balance and she fell silent. Tears were streaming down her face and he had to harden himself against the protective urges they stirred up.

  The baggage cart arrived and the handler, oblivious to the scene playing out beside him, began transferring their luggage into the trunk of the limo.

  “Not those,” Hudson instructed curtly when the man reached for one of the brand-new sapphire blue Globe-Trotter trunks that held the clothes he bought for his companion in Paris. “Ms. Levesque- both of them- will be finding their own way home.”

  “Can we talk?”

  Hudson refused to look at the woman who had accompanied him across the ocean, even though her voice was radiating a pain and desperation that he shared but refused to show.

>   “I know it’s a lot to take in, but maybe tomorrow? After we finish the call with Monsieur Fougere, I could-“

  “Imogene will be in touch with your closeout paperwork.” His tone was brusque. The woman was still talking, but Hudson didn’t allow himself to listen. He refused to let her in for even a second. There was nothing she could say to make this better. He felt unsteady. A single push could topple his self-control. He was determined not to let Gabrielle- Abagail-the woman he had been so close to falling in love with, see that she had affected him. “I suppose that it goes without saying that neither of you should list me as an employment reference.”

  With that, he climbed into the car.

  The windows of the limousine were tinted almost black, but he held his posture rigidly stiff until the car glided out of the airport parking lot and merged onto the Expressway.

  Hudson put his head in his hand and massaged his temples. There was a bottle of bourbon in the center console and he was sorely tempted to pour a glass, but he was worried about where that might end. He doubted there was enough liquor in the world to fill the pit in the center of his stomach. It’s not like he hadn’t tried in the past. It was as if all of the warmth and contentment he felt on the plane had been suddenly stripped away, leaving a hollowed-out pit in their place. He should have known that what he felt in Paris was too good to be true.

  There wasn’t a single name for the swirl of emotions roiling inside him. Anger was the largest part, of course. Embarrassment factored in too. How had he been so completely snowed? Sadness was one of the feelings, though he hoped that would fade as the anger grew. However, the main thing he felt was something close to regret. This trip to Paris had made him feel alive in a way he hadn’t for years. For the first time, he could imagine life beyond board meetings and disposable relationships. One minute, he was planning a future with the woman by his side. In the next, all his dreams were ripped away.