One Night, White Lies

by Jessica Lemmon

Reid had been in London for nearly two weeks. He’d gone to his parents’ home to stay, and they’d been delighted to see him. It was rare he popped in for a surprise visit. Hell, he’d never popped in for a surprise visit.

  As glad as they were to see him, however, he couldn’t feel good about being here. He had news for them he knew wouldn’t be welcome.

  And he’d put it off for too long.

  He’d played off the extended visit as “old home week,” and he’d made good on that bargain as well, hunting down old friends and cousins he’d not seen in years. He’d spent a lot of time at the pub—every damned night. Last night he and his father had downed their fair share of scotch while sitting at the fire. Mum had long since gone to bed, and the scotch warm in his veins, Reid found it the perfect time to tell his father what had happened in Seattle.

  George Singleton had taken the news well. Stoically, actually. The tremor in his hand had rattled his half-empty glass, but he’d listened intently as Reid caught him up.

  Flynn was the one who’d called the correct Tate Duncan. He’d reached him via Spright Island’s realty office. A woman named Shelley had answered the phone. Flynn had convinced her that he and Tate had met up in Seattle, but he’d lost Tate’s number and was interested in bringing more business to their community. She’d mentioned that Tate had taken the week off. “I believe he’s in Seattle now at his fiancée’s house,” Shelley had said. “Would you like me to leave him a message to call you?”

  “It’s urgent. So, yes.” Flynn had relayed Reid’s phone number. “If you could give him the name Reid Singleton and tell him it’s an emergency. He’ll understand.”

  Flynn had ended the call and nodded to the four of them seated at Reid’s kitchen table, each in front of their own laptops. “I think that was him.”

  Sabrina had reached for Reid’s hand, and he’d held on to her tightly, feeling as if his friends were the only thing keeping him bolted to the earth. Like without them he’d go hurtling into space until the oxygen was robbed of his body and he collapsed like a meaningless black hole.

  Reid sat across from his mother at the breakfast table now, who was wholly ignoring her sausage and eggs. His father held her hand, his expression unreadable. She cried softly, and Reid wanted to stop talking. To stop breaking her heart into tiny pieces. Unfortunately, there was more to tell her.

  No going back now.

  “Wes—Tate Duncan called me, Mum. That afternoon. Within an hour of Flynn’s phone call, he called me back.” He drew in a deep breath as his mother’s face filled with hope. “He’s...not ready. To meet either of you.”

  She collapsed into his father’s arms, her wailing sobs drawing wetness to Reid’s own eyes. George shushed his wife and rubbed her shoulders, there for her when she needed him most.

  Exactly the opposite of Reid’s reaction to Drew, and he’d needed her even more than she’d needed him.

  Reid hadn’t been able to lean on her even when he’d received the knee-weakening call from his brother. The one where Wesley plainly stated that he’d remembered being snatched.

  “Must’ve been a repressed memory or something.” Tate’s voice was low, his tone flat. Reid remained silent. “I spoke with my parents. My adoptive parents. They told me something I’ve never known before. The agency that facilitated the adoption was...sketchy. They extorted money from them. A lot of it. My mom said she was too in love with me to see the truth for what it was. That the death certificates for my birth parents could’ve been faked.”

  It was a lot to take in—then and now. It was so much that Reid didn’t say any more to his mother about what Tate had relayed to him about the adoption. But there was a sliver of hope he could give her, and thank God for that.

  “I need to tell you some good news.” Reid patted her arm and his mother—his beautiful mother with her stylish gray hair and trim figure, and green-blue eyes—pulled her face from George’s neck to fasten Reid with a look that conveyed so much hope his heart broke for her.

  “He’s agreed to meet me for dinner when I go home. It’s a start at building a relationship. He has a lot to sort out. And so do we.” Reid wasn’t sure how he’d handle a man he didn’t know coming up to him in a coffee shop and saying he was his long-lost twin brother. He supposed he’d have become angry and stormed out, like Wesley had. How did anyone even begin to accept their entire life was a lie?

  “I promise you both,” Reid told his parents, “that I will do everything in my power to bring him to meet you.”

  “Or us to meet him.” Jane wiped away her tears and offered a brittle smile. “We will fly to Washington, darling. We will.”

  “I know you will. And as soon as I navigate around this very sensitive subject of Wes—Tate accepting that we’re his family, I will put you on a plane myself. But keep your hopes in check. Just in case.”

  She nodded excitedly, and he could see that her hopes were most certainly not in check.

  “Can we call him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But you can call me.” He held his mother’s hand. “You can call me and I’ll tell you everything about him and how our dinner went. And I will tell him that it’s best for all of us if we reunite as soon as possible.”

  Jane’s tender smile was like the sun bursting through dark clouds. “My baby boy.”

  Reid assumed she was referring to Wesley until she moved from George’s embrace and into Reid’s. He held his mother as she cried against him and vowed that no matter what, he’d make that reunion happen. If it took him the rest of his mother’s life to convince Wesley to reunite with his actual family, Reid wouldn’t give up on his twin brother.

  Not ever, ever again.

  “There’s more I have to tell you,” he told his mother as she calmed. He smoothed his hand along her back. “I’ve met someone.”

  Jane pulled herself from his arms, her face a comical expression of shock. She didn’t know details about his love life, but she knew he wasn’t one to settle down. “Have you?”

  “The one.”

  He was as sure of it as he was sure that Tate Duncan was Wesley Singleton. He was as sure of Drew being his destiny as he was the sun would rise in the east. He was sure, for the first time in his life, that the pieces of his life had intersected at this precise moment for a reason.

  Drew was meant to be his.

  “She’s my best mate’s sister. Her name is Drew. And she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.” He tapped his mother’s chin. “Save you.”

  A crack of laughter sounded from his mother—possibly the best sound he’d ever heard. “Well, where is she then?”

  “She’s at home. And I need to tell her what I’ve learned. About Wesley and about myself.” Reid had believed himself incapable of loving or trusting anyone. He’d believed that his running into Tate was a premonition of danger; a warning to turn back. He’d reasoned that he was leaving for Drew because she deserved to be with someone who wasn’t a train wreck waiting to happen.

  But as these two weeks had passed he’d realized the train wreck had already happened and Drew hadn’t hesitated to sift through the wreckage and find the surviving parts of his heart. Of his very soul.

  She’d been everything to him before he’d been brave enough to admit it, and now that his life was more unstable than ever, he knew she was his port in the storm.

  She was his home.

  “I hope she’ll take me back,” he said to his parents, but mostly to himself. His eyes on his empty breakfast plate he added, “And I hope she believes me when I tell her how much I love her.”

  Twenty-Six

  Drew helped Christina unload her bags from the trunk. Her flight left in an hour, so she needed to hustle. “Have a safe—oof!”

  Christina hugged Drew tightly, practically choking her in the process. “I’m a horrible, awful, terrible person!”

 
“Can’t...breathe.” Drew tapped her roommate’s shoulders insistently, half kidding, half needing Chris to release the boa constrictor hold on her neck.

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Drew inhaled melodramatically before offering her friend a wink. “You’re a wonderful, sweet, loving person.”

  “You shouldn’t be consoling me! I’m taking a job in Chicago with almost no notice and leaving you here to fend for yourself at the worst possible time.”

  “You’re taking your dream job,” Drew corrected, ignoring the “worst possible time” thing. It’d been over two weeks since she’d heard from Reid, which had sucked her soul into an emotionless vacuum, but she couldn’t pin that on Christina. “You paid me rent for the remainder of this month and next, what more could I ask of you? I’m planning on paying you back, by the way—”

  “No, you’re not. My signing bonus was huge. I want you to have it because I love you.” Christina grinned. “I’m going to miss you.” They hugged again.

  “You’re also going to miss your dream flight to your dream job if you don’t get going.”

  Christina dragged her wheeled suitcase behind her and blew Drew a kiss. “I’ll call you when I’m settled!”

  “You’d better!”

  Christina vanished behind the reflective glass doors of the airport terminal, and Drew buckled herself up in the driver’s seat. It was the end of an era. Christina hadn’t been shy about telling Drew she’d had an eye on Downey Design for her entire adult life. Every time she’d consider applying, though, she’d reasoned her way out of it. Chris didn’t know anything about Chicago, didn’t want to make new friends, blah, blah, blah. Then that day she’d lain on the sofa while Drew was sharing her first drink with Reid in California, Christina had been brave enough to upload her portfolio.

  They’d responded last week and asked her to start right away.

  Drew was happy for her friend. Almost as happy for her as she was miserable for herself.

  Lately, Gage and Andy had stuck to Drew like a dryer sheet. She could scarcely find a moment to herself if she wasn’t at work. Either Andy wanted to take her to lunch or out shopping, or Gage was fussing over repairs in her apartment. He’d come over to change light bulbs for her yesterday—as if she couldn’t have done that herself?

  She appreciated his doting, though. It showed that Gage loved her, and Andy did, too. So did Christina.

  Everyone loves me except the man I want to love me most of all.

  What a miserable reminder that was. Thanks a lot, Brain.

  No problem.

  Sundays used to be her favorite day, but now Drew resented the spare time. Gage and Andy weren’t hovering since they knew Drew was driving Christina to the airport, and with both of them working full-time jobs, they had to make the most of the weekends. And what more could they do for Drew? She was sad, and there wasn’t any fixing it.

  Except for...

  She cut that thought off at the knees.

  * * *

  The grill marks on the halibut were perfection. The red and green sauces the perfect yin-yang design on the square white plate. Drew rested the piece of fish in the center, sprinkled it with smoked, flaked sea salt and then balanced a small tuft of microgreens atop the fish.

  She’d been trying to perfect this dish for quite some time, and now the dish was as pleasing to the eye as she knew it tasted. But just to make sure...

  She grabbed a fork and lifted a bite to her lips. A sharp knock came from her front door and, her mouth watering, she sent a forlorn look at the fish.

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away,” she called to what had to be Andy or Gage—or both of them. She turned the knob and pulled, then froze solid at the sight of the man standing in her doorway with a bouquet of roses.

  Red roses.

  “My brother’s alive,” Reid said.

  Drew blinked as she processed that news. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know. Can I come in?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” As wonderful as it was to see Reid’s ridiculously handsome face, she was also feeling pretty damned protective over her own heart. How could she and Reid ever make it if he didn’t trust her enough to tell her what was happening in his life? “I ran into him the day before my birthday,” Reid continued from the entryway. “At Brewdog’s. I bought him a cup of coffee and then blurted out that his name wasn’t Tate Duncan like he thought it was. I told him he was Wesley Singleton and scared the life out of him. He thought I was scamming him or something. Anyway. I found him. He remembers being kidnapped. Not much around it or after it, but he remembers the birthday party. He remembers our childhood home in London. And he remembers me.”

  It was a lot of information to take in, but while Reid talked, her broken heart took a back seat to the miracle that had occurred.

  She couldn’t hide her awe. “That’s incredible.”

  “He’s living outside of Seattle. On an island you have to take the ferry to get to. We’re having dinner this Friday, and I’m almost as sick over it as I am excited.”

  “It’s the best news.” She found herself returning Reid’s infectious smile.

  “It is. It truly is. And I didn’t share it with you.” His smile fell. “I have more I want to say if I could give you these—” he held up the flowers “—and come inside. If you want me gone, I’ll leave. If after you hear me out you can’t forgive me and have nothing left for me, I will leave, Drew. I promise. But if what I say changes everything...it’d be worth it to both of us for you to hear me out.”

  She watched him for several seconds. He was in dark gray jeans and a weathered T-shirt. He was holding six red roses, and the expression on his face was as sincere as she’d ever seen. As much as he’d hurt her—as much as she’d been hurting—she couldn’t deny herself the chance to hear what he’d come here to tell her.

  She stepped aside and he walked in, resting the roses on the kitchen table. “I’ve interrupted your dinner. It’s a work of art.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “And probably the only perfect thing left in my life. That’s your fault.”

  “I know it is. And finding Wes—Tate...” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and she felt for him, she really did. He had to be struggling with finding his brother, with adjusting to him being alive and potentially a part of his life again. She wondered how his parents had reacted. They had to be overjoyed. After decades, their family was whole again.

  But you’re not, she reminded herself.

  As great as the news was that Reid’s twin brother was alive, there was unfinished business between Reid and her. She deserved an apology. Thankfully, he knew just where to start.

  “I’m sorry I shut you out, Drew. I’m absolute shit at sharing with the people in my life. I could argue it was because of losing my brother at such an early age. I could explain that being a twin feels like you’re half of a whole, and I haven’t been whole in a long time. But I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve come to you. I should never have stood you up without a word of explanation.” He sighed, his eyebrows bending in remorse. “I never should have been so cruel to you when you came to my apartment. You were concerned and I... I was a complete wreck.”

  He stepped closer but didn’t touch her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to or not. She had no idea if he’d simply come here to make reparations and then leave things as is, or if there was more. Then he cleared that up for her, too.

  “I want you, Drew Fleming. Not only in my bed, but in my life. You have a way of pushing me into realms I’d have never discovered on my own. You’re healing the deepest part of me. The part that has never been whole. I tried handling this on my own. I tried to clean up the mess and not involve you, but...”

  He paused as if gathering his courage, and then started again. “I need you. I have long prided myself on never needing anyone, but you..
.you’re different. I love you in a way I’ve never loved anyone before. I don’t want you at arm’s length. I want to come home to you and I want to be held by you when I’ve had a shit day. I’ve never thought myself a family man, but when I picture our lives—our marriage and our children—with my family, with my brother, I can hardly breathe because the joy is too great.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. The picture he painted bloomed to life inside her head with hardly any effort. Marriage, a beautiful baby boy in her arms, celebrating Christmas in London...

  “I screwed up. I have no excuse for being a complete wanker. But I can absolutely promise you that I won’t do it again. I won’t shut you out of my life, and I won’t ever keep secrets. I love you too much to risk losing you again.” He swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “If you can accept my apology and let me try again, I promise I’m worth loving. If you can let yourself love me.”

  “I already let myself love you, Reid. It’s what I was going to tell you on your birthday. I was planning on telling you how I felt that night.” She felt the loss of that night fresh. “I thought once you saw what I’d planned for you, once you were there with the gold and black streamers and the perfect steak dinner...” It sounded so foolish now that she said it out loud. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I should’ve just told you how I felt.”

  “Streamers?” Realization dawned on Reid’s face. “That night...there wasn’t a soft opening, was there?” he asked miserably.

  “It was a birthday dinner for you. A private one. I borrowed the Fig & Truffle and hired a server, bartender and chef. I wanted you to have a good birthday memory to add to the bad ones. I knew it wouldn’t make up for what you’d lost, but I thought it might soften the blow.”

  Reid stood stock-still and simply stared. “Wow. I really don’t deserve you.”

  “No. Probably not.”

  “I’m sorry. For all of it.” His mouth turned down at the corners. “That was my piece. I’ve said it. Have I earned my second chance?”

  She rested one hand on his cheek and peered up at the beautiful, lost dope of a man who couldn’t trust his own heart or himself when he’d finally found true love. “You’re still on your first chance. I’m completely and totally in love with you. I want marriage and kids and I want to go to London.”