The Elliotts: Secret Affairs: The Forbidden Twin

He just watched her, apparently as tongue-tied as she by the necessarily banal conversation, then he drove off. She walked around the corner. Someone was sitting on her doorstep. She could see fabric through the railings but that was all. Then the person stood, not looking in her direction, as if giving up.

“Aunt Finny.” Relieved it wasn’t … well, almost anyone else, she waited as Fin met her on the sidewalk.

“I wish I looked that good without makeup,” Fin said.

“Oh, right, like you’re some old crone. You’re only thirteen years older than me.”

“That’s a lot of years in prime-woman age. I hope you had a good night?”

Scarlet grinned. “I’m relaxed.”

“Ah. Lucky you.”

“Come inside,” Scarlet said, heading to her private entrance. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking your advice. I went for a walk in the park. I’ve been calling you off and on to see if you wanted to have brunch with me.”

“Why didn’t you call my cell?”

“I did. It’s turned off.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Probably not turned off but a dead battery, Scarlet decided. “Well, I had a late breakfast, but I’ll be happy to keep you company. Did you see Granddad yesterday? He called me up to his office.”

“I got the same order, but I had a message sent to him that I’d already left.”

“I should’ve thought of that,” Scarlet said, unlocking her apartment door. “I’m trying to figure out who’s talking to him about me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He said he’d been hearing good things about me. Called me creative and competent. How does he know that?”

Fin frowned. “I haven’t talked to him about you.”

“You think we have a mole? Someone who reports to him about the goings-on at Charisma?”

“Maybe.”

Scarlet started to press the message button on her answering machine, then decided against it. Later, maybe. In private. She’d learned her lesson there. “Who could it be? And why is it necessary? Granddad has access to all financial information. Since he’s only worried about fiscal profit to declare the winner of this contest, why would he need someone reporting behind the scenes?”

“A very good question.” Fin paced the living room.

“I’m going to change. Make yourself at home.” Scarlet hurried. She changed into jeans, a T-shirt and a leather jacket, then pulled her hair into a ponytail, added a little mascara and lipstick and was done. She could smell John’s soap on her skin, and her body ached comfortably. One area where the man had above average creativity—and flexibility—was in bed. The aftereffects lingered.

“Do you want to go to Une Nuit?” Scarlet asked Fin as they left the house.

“I don’t want to go to any family-run operation.”

Scarlet smiled. “Hot dog and soda in the park?”

“Sure. Why not?”

A few hours later Scarlet dragged herself home. They’d listed every employee, trying to come up with the name of the snitch. She wished she hadn’t said anything to Fin, who didn’t need something else to obsess about.

Scarlet made a promise to herself that she would never let her job consume her life as Fin had—easy for Scarlet to say, she supposed, at this point. Maybe when things ended with John, she would dive into her work, too, and not come up for air for a long time.

She hit the message button as she passed by the answering machine, listened from her bedroom to a message from Summer saying she would call Scarlet’s cell, four hang-ups, then one from her grandfather.

“Your grandmother and I are coming to the city for the week. She thought I needed to warn you, for some reason.”

Scarlet could almost see him rolling his eyes.

“So, here’s your warning, missy. We’ll be arriving around four. Plan on dinner with us.”

Another command performance. Scarlet looked at her watch. Almost four. She needed to call John, let him know ….

Why? How would it matter to him?

You just want to talk to him.

Right. And wrong. She had a legitimate reason. They needed to coordinate schedules and see when she could help him with his wardrobe. And she’d expected to spend the night with him at least once. Now they needed a new plan. She couldn’t stay away overnight with her grandparents there.

With that rationale in her head she picked up her phone. His number was still on the speed dial.

She hesitated. Why hadn’t Summer removed his number? Would a psychiatrist say she was keeping her options open in case things didn’t work out with Zeke? Even though she and Zeke were engaged, she’d been engaged before, to John, and that hadn’t worked. Maybe Summer was having a life crisis—

Scarlet shook her head. Summer was different with Zeke. Openly happy. Relaxed. Excited. All the things she hadn’t been with John, or even before John. Nothing was going to change there, even if Summer changed her mind. And John wouldn’t want her back, anyway. Would he? No. Of course not.

She dialed his number, got his machine, but didn’t leave a message. She didn’t know his cell number.

The intercom buzzed from downstairs. Her grandparents had arrived.

Time to put on a happy face.

Ten

A few days later John stood by while Scarlet pulled item after item from his closet to make room for his just-delivered new clothes and shoes—although he suspected her reason had more to do with removing the temptation of his ever wearing his old stuff again. His new tux and five suits wouldn’t be ready for a couple of weeks, but everything else they’d bought could be put away—shirts, ties, jeans, leather jacket, T-shirts, boots, shoes, other casual clothing.

His credit card statement now seemed in line with the national debt, but he had to admit he liked the new look, not flashy but up-to-date.

Not that he hadn’t argued with her, starting with her wanting him to use a friend she’d gone to design school with instead of the tailor he’d used all his life, his father’s tailor. Somehow—he still wasn’t exactly sure how—she’d convinced him to give her guy a try, then decisions were made all around him for a while before he asserted himself with veto privileges and started offering his own opinions. He was happy with the end result, particularly after he finished trying on clothes, when Scarlet locked the dressing room door and they made love, their need to be quiet somehow intensifying everything—scents, sights, the silken feel of her skin, the force of his orgasm.

Or maybe it was the four walls of mirrors that had done that, especially as she’d stripped for him, and he’d had a view of her everywhere he looked, and from every angle.

He went hard at the memory.

“When do you have to be back at work?” he asked her now, coming up behind her in the closet, his hands on her hips, keeping her rear snugly against him.

“Same as usual. One-thirty.”