Instead, I told a variation of the truth. Heavy on the variation.
“I was wondering if I could come in for a consultation sometime,” I said. “At your practice.”
Joel's other eyebrow raised to join the first. “A consultation? For surgery?”
I nodded.
“Why would you want to do that?” His honeyed tone was laced with curiosity.
I shifted nervously under his all-encompassing gaze. “I'm trying to get more into acting, but I think if I'm ever going to make it big-time, my face could use a little tweaking, you know?”
“No,” he said, brow furrowing. “I don't know. I think your face is perfect the way it is.”
My legs jellified and threatened to give out from under me. He thought my face was perfect the way it was. What did that mean? It was such a strong, definite statement to make about somebody he barely knew. Why would he say that unless there was some reason he didn't want to work on me?
“Wouldn't it be against your professional interests to turn down a potential client?” I asked.
The corner of Joel's mouth crooked into a charming half-smile. “I never said I wouldn't do it. I can certainly book you in for a consultation. I suppose I just don't understand why someone as naturally beautiful as you would want to alter their face in any way.”
There it was again, like a blow to the head. He thought I was beautiful.
I'd always been aware that I had a pretty face. How could I not be, when I grew up alongside a mirror of myself? It was always easier to see beauty in other people, and finding Chelsea beautiful was the same thing as finding myself beautiful. There was little I would actually want to change about my face, except maybe a few less freckles spattered across my cheeks. All the same, knowing I was pretty, and hearing it from a gorgeous man whose job it was to make people beautiful, were two very different things.
“Great.” I smiled. “So how do we do this? Do I call your clinic and make an appointment? Is there some sort of deposit?”
Joel folded his arms over his chest, making his biceps strain against the fabric of his bright blue dress shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows in the heat, revealing long stretches of tanned and toned forearm, and the addition of the bicep eye-candy was almost more than I could handle. Perhaps I should have found a doctor that wasn't quite so...distracting.
“I have some time tomorrow, actually. No need to call. Let's say nine for your appointment?”
I nodded happily. “Nine sounds great.”
It was the weekend, so I had all the time in the world for the next two days. I would need it.
“Your clinic is on Andros Island, right?” I asked.
“It is.”
Everything I'd heard about Andros told me that the island was the ultimate tropical paradise. Lush rainforests, white sand beaches, and enough seclusion to make the place your own personal heaven. I just never thought I'd end up on it, since I was so busy with work.
“I'm not really sure how to get there,” I said. “Is there some sort of ferry?”
Joel's eyes twinkled, as if I'd said something amusing. I couldn't for the life of me think what that could be. I licked my lips, and noticed his eyes tracking the movement before he gave me a cheeky, almost mischievous look.
“Meet me at the dock just before nine,” he said.
With that, Joel turned on his heel and headed back towards the set. I watched him go, his hands thrust casually in the pockets of his tan slacks. Everyone else was baking in this heat, but Joel bore it effortlessly. I supposed that must have been one of the benefits of living between Miami and the Bahamas all year round. Acclimatization. Then again, he seemed to do everything effortlessly. I watched him trod back across the sand, gliding over it as easily if it was asphalt.
I went back to my own work, feeling a little less stressed about the days ahead. Even if the appointment I'd made to see about getting my face—and Chelsea’s, which I’d tell him later—changed felt more like a date than anything else.
Chapter Four
The boats on the dock bumped lazily against each other in the morning sunlight, as gentle waves slapped against their hulls. There was little activity this early in the day, since most people preferred to take their mornings slow and steady around these parts. I would have preferred that too, but I was on a mission.
I'd spent the past few weekends down by the pool at my hotel, curled up on one of the lounge chairs with a book and big, floppy sunhat. This sudden change of pace had knocked me a little off balance. Everything seemed so intense now, and I could practically feel the clock ticking down to when someone would come after Chelsea, and she'd be forced to run.
“Where is this guy?” Chelsea asked. Her face was scrunched-up behind her oversized sunglasses. She wasn't a fan of my plan, especially since it would mean spending some of her ill-gotten cash. I didn't care whether she liked the plan or not. As far as I was concerned, if she didn't want to get extensive and expensive plastic surgery, then she shouldn't have embezzled a boatload of money.
“He said he'd meet us here.” I craned my neck, looking over the heads of tourists milling around the marina. “Be on the lookout for anyone who looks vaguely like a Greek god.”
“Noted,” Chelsea said, her tone brightening noticeably. “You should have mentioned that sooner. You would have gotten a little more enthusiasm from me.”
I frowned and gave her a brief shove. “I wish you'd stop being so cavalier about this. It's serious. He might be hot, but he'll be scary as hell when he’s standing over you with a scalpel in hand.”
She grinned. “It's not like I'll be awake for it.” Chelsea was less concerned about the surgical aspect of our predicament than the financial aspect. I was the exact opposite.
“Oh, mama.” Chelsea smacked her lips. “I think I see him.”
I followed her line of sight to the man leaning against the wooden railing that marked the beginning of the dock.
I didn't realize that Joel could get any hotter, but somehow, he had. He was wearing a well-fitted navy polo—which beautifully highlighted his toned pecs and abs—paired with a casual pair of khakis. He was wearing aviator sunglasses, and the wind ruffled his dark hair. Somehow, he was even sexier dressed-down than dressed-up.
“That would be him,” I said. Quieter, I added, “Be good.”
“I'm always good,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth as we approached.
“You're telling me you don't remember the time you stole a hundred thousand dollars from your former employer?”
“Shut up!”
“Hey Joel,” I greeted. “Thanks for meeting us.”
Joel's eyebrows raised behind his sunglasses as he looked between us. I expected such a reaction, considering I'd made it seem like it would just be me. But hey, we looked exactly the same. That practically made us one person, right?
“Sisters or close friends?” he joked.
I laughed nervously. “Sorry, my sister wanted to come along when she heard what I was meeting you for. This is Chelsea.” I gestured to my sister, who had already removed her sunglasses and was staring at Joel lustfully.
He put out his hand and shook hers. “Joel. Lovely to meet you, Chelsea.”
I couldn't stand how intensely Chelsea was staring at him, so I cleared my throat. “What's the transportation situation? Do you have a boat?”
Joel retracted his hand and put his sunglasses back on, then gestured to a seaplane bobbing at the end of the dock.
“That's yours?” I asked. My eyes must have been the size of saucers. Luckily, my sunglasses hid my surprise.
“Last time I checked.” He smiled mischievously. “Unfortunately, I didn't realize I'd have two passengers. It only has two seats.”
Crap.
Chelsea answered Joel before I even had time to think of a workaround.
“Why don't you two go ahead? I'll sit this trip out.”
Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. She'd been salivating over him in overd
rive since she had first laid eyes on him, so I didn't know why all of a sudden she was happy to let me take over.
Chelsea responded to my look with an encouraging smile. “Go on. I've got lots of trouble I can get into today that doesn't involve surgery.”
“Don't get in any trouble,” I muttered. “I mean it. You better be in the room when I get back.”
I gave her my key and strict instructions not to leave the room, and then walked with Joel to the end of the dock.
“I can't imagine it would be a very long flight from here to Andros Island,” I said, trying to make conversation in wake of my embarrassment regarding my sister.
Joel gave me the side-eye behind his sunglasses. “It's not. About fifteen minutes or so, depending on the wind.”
“Do you always pick up potential clients in your airplane?”
He chuckled. “No. Usually, they already have their own form of transportation.”
I blushed, feeling officially out of my element. What was I doing out here with him? He probably thought I was nuts for this whole plastic surgery business. No, he definitely did. He'd basically said as much. So why entertain my request, anyway? I wondered if he suspected something. It was impossible. It had to be impossible. But why were my hands suddenly clammy?
Joel, however, did not seem to have noticed my mini-breakdown. So much the better. He stopped in front of the plane and offered me a hand up into the cockpit, smiling warmly.
“Normally, if I have to pick up clients, I bring the boat,” he said. “The ones I really like get the plane.”
I couldn't tell whether the flood of relief that washed through me was from the realization that he knew absolutely nothing about why I really wanted to change my face, or because he'd just said he liked me. Either way, I was pleased as punch by this development, and I took his hand gratefully. It was warm and strong, just like him. Once I was inside the cockpit, I scooted over to the passenger seat, and the plane bobbed and dipped as the waves cycled beneath it.
I was impressed to see there wasn't a pilot already onboard. He'd given me no reason to think otherwise, but for some reason, I hadn't thought that Joel would be the one flying us over to Andros. He set me up with a headset and I waved a final goodbye to my sister as he started up the engine.
“Have you ever been on a float plane before?” Joel asked.
“Nope. But it can't be much different than a regular plane, right?”
He grinned cheekily. “You tell me.”
Being on a floatplane—or, I suppose, just a small plane in general—was a much different experience than being on a commercial airliner. I nearly shrieked with excitement as we began soaring toward the open ocean, gaining speed until we lifted off into the azure sky. Then, we were flying.
It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. It felt like we were just another seabird, soaring low on the horizon with only the wind keeping us aloft. It was a strange sensation, smelling the salt spray of the ocean while soaring above it. I felt the urge to put my hand out the window, like I used to as a child on road trips, but this was no car.
I turned to look at Joel, watching the ease with which he flew the plane. I'd never seen someone look so relaxed.
“You must really like flying, huh?” I asked.
Joel flashed me a white smile. “It's a favorite hobby of mine, yeah. My father flew in the Air Force, so it was always something I dreamed of, growing up.”
Did everything about him have to be so goddamn attractive? I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to start acting like the giant jerk I thought he secretly should be. He was a plastic surgeon, for God's sake. He changed the way people looked for money. I would've thought that such a profession would come with an overbearing ego, or a natural penchant for snobbery. But, so far, he'd been nothing but genuinely nice to me.
I let my gaze slide from his tanned, muscled forearms to the hands gripping the steering column. They were so strong, so masculine. I'd always had a thing for hands, and Joel's looked as though they had been sculpted by a Renaissance master. I imagined him cupping my face in them, kissing me long and deep. I imagined his hands running down the length of my naked body, leaving goosebumps in their wake. They'd probably be a little rough and calloused, but soft enough to stroke me in a way that would send fire dancing along my nerve endings. Oh God, they would feel good.
“You okay?”
I shook my head and blinked. I'd zoned out looking at Joel's hands, which luckily meant I could pretend I'd been staring out the window instead.
“Uh, yeah.” I smiled sheepishly. “I guess I just got a little mesmerized. I'm not used to…all this.”
“It's amazing, isn't it? Get ready, we’re making our final approach.”
As I felt the aircraft swing down from the sky, I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking. The last thing I needed was to get caught up in stupid, girlish fantasies about Dr. Joel Lockhart. Had I forgotten why I was here in the first place?
My sister's future was on the line. My future was on the line. I couldn't afford to make anything more complicated by getting involved with Joel—in my imagination, or otherwise.
Joel landed the plane on a stretch of water on the far side of the island, and pulled the plane alongside a long, wooden dock. Once he killed the engine, he tossed a line to a young man waiting on the dock, took off his headset, and hit me with another one of those intoxicating smiles.
“Ready?”
I nodded.
He offered me his hand. “Then let's go.”
I looked at it for just a second before taking it, unsure that I'd be able to maintain a clear thought process afterward. Luckily, I did, and soon we were heading up through a small copse of trees towards his clinic.
There was nobody else around, which I suppose I should have expected. The gentle morning sun filtered down through the canopy, bathing us in a warm, green-tinged glow.
“So, you have a twin sister,” Joel said, just as the small parking lot of the clinic came into view. “Is she an actress as well?”
He cast a look back at me that could only be interpreted as mischievous. I had a feeling he'd seen through my excuse for the consultation the moment he spied Chelsea on the dock, if not sooner. The only question now was why he was still entertaining me, if that was the case.
“No, she's not an actress,” I admitted. Better to let some of the truth out now. “I wasn't totally honest with you yesterday.”
We stepped up to the front doors of the clinic, and Joel began jangling some keys as he searched for the right one to unlock the door. He glanced back at me and grinned.
“You don't say?”
He had such a playful demeanor about him. It was different than what I'd expected—a cold, clinical doctor who operated at the epitome of professionalism. Not that I minded this side of Joel. It made me feel more at ease in his presence, even if my heart started to race every time he looked at me.
Joel opened the door and held it for me. The building was simple but elegant: white walls decorated with various pieces of art that probably cost more than I made in a month. The small waiting area was furnished with designer leather sofas, and the mahogany coffee table—which looked pristine and untouched—had a selection of magazines on it. I felt like I couldn't even afford to be standing in the waiting room, never mind seeing the doctor.
After turning off the alarm system, Joel turned to face me, and gestured toward the door to the clinic offices. “Shall we?”
I followed him through the door and down a hallway with other doors branching off it. He opened one at the end of the hall and we entered his office. It was just as clean and tasteful as the waiting room; his desk was uncluttered and free from even a speck of dust.
“Take a seat,” Joel said, gesturing to a chair while he sat in the office chair opposite. “I'd love to hear why you're really here.”
I winced before I could stop myself. I couldn't tell him why I was here. Not the whole reason, anyway. All Joel cou
ld know was that my sister and I wanted some changes made to our faces, and that was all he needed to know, wasn't it?
“Well, I'm not an actress.”
Joel leaned back in his chair and evaluated me with his glinting green eyes. “If you were, I'm sure I would have believed you the first time.”
My face heated, heart hammering away at the back of my ribcage.
“It's a bit embarrassing, okay?” I didn't need to pretend to be embarrassed, because I truly was. Just not for the reason he said. “My sister and I have gotten confused as each other our whole lives. We both just want a little bit of identity that is our own. Getting surgery to change the way we look is the best way to do that.”
It was a blatant lie. While the part about us getting confused was true, I would never alter my face just to stand apart from my sister. Sure, there were times growing up that it frustrated the hell out of me that we looked alike, especially since I always seemed to get in trouble for things she had done, but that was an issue I'd long since gotten over. Now, I loved that we shared the same DNA. I was still unique in my own way, and so was Chelsea, but we shared something that nobody could ever take from us. I just hoped surgically altering our faces wouldn't change that.
Joel was watching me, the fingertips of both his hands pressed together in front of his face like he was about to offer me a deal on a reality TV show. It made me nervous. I could feel sweat tickling the back of my neck, and wished I'd put my hair up this morning before I left the house.
“I know that you probably have an extensive waiting list, but we can pay cash to skip it.” I was blabbering now, trying to fill the silence between us with something. Anything. “But if you don't want to do it, then that's okay. I'm sure I can find someone else.”
I wasn't sure I could find someone else. In fact, I had an inkling he was the only plastic surgeon in the Bahamas. At least, the only one I knew of. But Chelsea and I would find another way. We always did.
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