Twin Scandals

The problem was, he had tried abstinence. That hadn’t worked, so he had tried dating, specifically women who did not look Sophie. That hadn’t worked, either, because none of the pretty blondes he had dated had truly interested him.

Which left one other strategy to get Sophie out of his system. A crazy, risk-taking option that was the military equivalent of picking up an unstable, unexploded bomb.

Getting gorgeous, fascinating Sophie Messena, back in his bed…just one more time.

Hell would freeze over before Sophie would allow Ben Sabin close to her again.

Sophie Messena took the elevator of her brother’s newest resort down to the ground floor. The only reason she was here tonight was for the express purpose of confronting Ben for his horrible behavior in sleeping with her a year ago, then ditching her without so much as a word.

Sophie tensed at the thought of seeing Ben again.

He was six feet two inches of broad, sleek, muscular male, his dark hair cut short, his jaw tough, with the kind of cool blue gaze that regularly made women go weak at the knees.

But not her. Not anymore.

Tonight she was determined to exorcise the last dregs of the fatal attraction to Ben that had dominated her life for two-and-a-half years. Finally she would be able to move on.

It would be over.

Forcing herself to relax, she exited the elevator and strolled into the foyer with barely a hitch to her stride and with a smoothness it had taken weeks of physiotherapy and repetitive exercises to achieve. A faint stiffness was still discernible in her lower back, courtesy of the dislocation injury she had sustained when her SUV swerved off one of Dolphin Bay’s narrow country roads eleven months ago.

That was three weeks after Ben had left her bed following their one tumultuous night together. She had thrown away his brief note thanking her for a “nice” time.

Nice.

As if leading up to that night, there hadn’t been eighteen months of a sultry, electrifying attraction that had made it difficult for her to think about anyone but Ben Sabin. Not to mention the frustrating encounters that had fizzled into nothing, before she had finally made the desperate decision, on Ben’s last night in Dolphin Bay, to go out on a limb and seduce him.

She stopped opposite the reception desk near an alcove decorated with palms at which she had arranged to meet her date for the night. She checked her watch. He was late, which was annoying because it was imperative that she not be seen alone tonight.

For an unsettling moment, she had trouble remembering her date’s name. It wasn’t until she spotted him walking toward her that it came back to her. Since she had met Tobias, a broker who worked for her banker brother, Gabriel, only a couple of times, and both of those times only in passing, when he had been out on a date with her twin, Francesca, maybe that wasn’t surprising.

As she greeted Tobias, the knowledge that she was just minutes away from seeing Ben, made her jaw tighten.

One year ago Ben had walked out on her. Three weeks after that she’d had the accident. Her body had recovered physically. Now, tonight, she would test the mental and emotional healing she hoped she’d achieved after untold hours of very expensive therapy. If the assurances her therapist had given her were anything to go by, she should now be completely immune to him.

Frowning, Sophie scanned the room—which was thronged with a glittering array of guests, local business people and, of course, media. Her stomach tightened ever so slightly when she caught the back of a dark head. By the time the man turned, she had already dismissed him; he was tall enough to be Ben, but his hair wasn’t cut short and crisp, and his shoulders were too narrow. Not broad and sleek and muscular from the time Ben had spent in the military, followed by years of hands-on construction work and long hours working out in his private gym.

She took a deep breath and tried to relax, but in the instant she had thought the man was Ben, her heart had raced out of control and adrenaline had shot through her veins. Now, instead of being relaxed and cool as a cucumber, as she had planned, she was terminally on edge.

“Do you want to, uh, dance?”

Sophie remembered her date for the evening, Tobias. Now an ex-boyfriend of Francesca’s, he was tall, dark, muscled and handsome. He looked super hot but, unfortunately, Sophie couldn’t seem to drum up anything beyond polite interest for him. With any luck, when Ben showed up, he would see her with Tobias and jump to the conclusion that the few passionate hours Sophie had shared with Ben were ancient history and that she was now very occupied with her latest guy.

“Maybe we can dance later.” She sent Tobias an encouraging smile. When Ben arrived it would definitely be good to be seen on the dance floor with Tobias, preferably slow dancing to something romantic.

Linking her arm through Tobias’s to make sure they were seen as a couple, she steered him in the direction of the bar, asked for a glass of sparkling water and took a sip. Anything to distract her from the attack of nerves that had come out of nowhere. Nerves she shouldn’t be feeling because she was over Ben.

“Drowning your sorrows?”

Sophie almost choked on a swallow of water as Francesca waved at Tobias, who had stepped away to speak to an elderly couple. For a split second, Sophie had had trouble recognizing her own twin. “You’ve dyed your hair blond.”

Francesca signaled to the barman that she would like a glass of champagne. “Britney Blonde Bombshell. Do you like it?”

Sophie studied the silvery blond color, which was struck through with honey streaks and darker lowlights. On a purely aesthetic level, she could appreciate that the beach-babe effect was gorgeous, but dying her hair blond held no appeal for her. To put it bluntly, she wouldn’t be seen dead with blond hair, probably because every time she saw a picture of Ben on social media, he had a blonde clinging to his arm. “It’s…different.”

Francesca shrugged. Though identical in appearance with Sophie, she was the polar opposite in terms of personality. “You know me, I like change.”

She sipped her champagne. Her gaze restlessly skimmed the packed dance floor as if she was looking for someone. “Right now I feel like I need to be a little more…definite in my personality. More like you. I love your dress, by the way. You always look so cool and in control in white.”

Francesca glanced down at her own red silk wraparound dress with its starburst pattern at her midriff. She frowned. “Maybe I should try wearing white.”

Sophie set her drink down with a clink. “You don’t wear white.”

White was Sophie’s designated color. It was a twin thing. From around the age of six, when their brains had finally developed enough that they realized the adults were dressing them like robot clones, all in the name of twin cuteness, they had rebelled. There hadn’t been a discussion, just a moment of shared outrage, then, somewhere in the midst of the weird, developing alchemy of being twins, a tacit understanding that they needed to dress differently. Sophie had chosen whites and neutrals; at a stretch she would wear pastels or dark blue. Francesca had gone straight for the hot, wild colors. They had maintained discipline for years with the result that no one ever confused them, although Francesca, with her bolder look, had had to get used to the evil twin jokes.

Francesca’s chin firmed. “I’d wear white if I got married.”

“Married?” Sophie frowned. “Lately, you’re not even dating.”

And she realized that, in itself, was strange. Francesca, who was a free spirit in contrast to Sophie’s ultra-ordered, perfectionist, control-freak existence, usually had a man in tow. None of them ever lasted very long unless she chose to keep them as friends, as she had with Tobias. Since Francesca was softhearted, endlessly forgiving and hated hurting anyone, she had a very long list of male friends. The difference in their personalities was also the reason that Sophie was the CEO of her own fashion retail company, while Francesca preferred to operate as head fashion designer for their own brand. “What’s going on? Have you met someone?”

Francesca ran a fingertip around the rim of her champagne flute. “I’m not sure. Maybe. I’ve got…you know, one of my feelings.”

Now Sophie was worried. Francesca, aside from being outgoing and too compassionate for her own good, was strongly intuitive. Sophie had learned, along with the rest of the family, to pay attention to Francesca’s “feelings” even though she didn’t understand where, exactly, they came from.

A case in point had been when their father had been killed in a car accident years ago. It had been Francesca who had woken their mother up and raised the alarm, insisting there was something wrong. An hour later the wrecked vehicle had been found. It had been too late to save their father, but from that day on they had all paid attention to Francesca’s premonitions.

Francesca took another sip of champagne and stepped away from the bar, her attention once again focused on the colorful, shifting crowd. “I just feel that tonight I could meet that special someone.”

She smiled, although the smile seemed over-bright and a little taut, as she deposited the half-empty flute back on the bar. “Fingers crossed. So far Miami has been a complete washout where men are concerned.” She grinned at Tobias, who was now leaning against the bar, arms crossed over his chest, a rueful expression on his face. “Except for Tobias! Mind if I borrow your date for this dance?”

“Be my guest,” Sophie muttered, her concern for her twin evaporating as she spotted a tall broad-shouldered figure in the crowd. A sharp tingle shot down her spine. He turned, and her attention was riveted by the strong, faintly battered masculine profile, courtesy of the fact that his nose had once been broken, and a rock-solid jaw. It was Ben.

His gaze locked with hers for a searing instant. Her heart sped up, making her feel suddenly breathless, and, out of nowhere, an irresistible thought surfaced. Maybe, the business he was conducting with her brother aside, Ben was here for her. Maybe, after a year of separation, he had finally realized that what they had shared had been special.

Dimly she recognized that this was not the reaction she should have after months of therapy designed to reposition her thinking. She was supposed to be focused on choosing the best for herself, not setting herself up for disappointment again.

All of that was swept away in the sudden realization that Ben was not alone.

Sophie stiffened. Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to be with someone. She had thought that, because her life had ground to a halt while she’d processed the hurt of rejection, he would also be affected in some significant way. That he might even be missing her, or regretting leaving her without a word, without even a phone call—

Her jaw tightened. Of course, that presupposed that Ben had a heart.

Her gaze settled on the woman who was pulling him onto the dance floor. She looked young, barely out of her teens, with tawny blond hair piled in a messy knot, a short turquoise silk dress skimming her curves, a tattoo on one slim shoulder and outrageously high heels.

Sophie’s breath came in sharply. She was only twenty-seven, but looking at the young, vibrant thing in Ben’s arms, she suddenly felt as old as Methuselah and, with her simple white designer dress and low, strappy shoes, just a bit…boring.

However, if she was “old,” then Ben, who was thirty, was ancient and practically cradle snatching.