The Wild One (18 page)

Another wave of guilt. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“Exactly. There has to be more to his feelings than thinking I was available. The way he talked to me when he thought I was you—there was more passion in his anger than I’d seen from him in our entire relationship. And I saw the look on his face when he walked in on you and Nathan kissing. You really hurt him.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Roxxy asked, shaking her head in confusion.

“Yes!” Layla insisted. “When you love somebody, I mean really love them, then you don’t shrug your shoulders and wish them well when they tell you they want to be with someone else. Andrew loved me, but when I asked him that second time to let me go in order to be with Nathan, he didn’t put up a fight. Like at all. And even when I admitted to cheating on him with Nathan, he was more concerned with winning me back from his brother than what I’d done. He never really got angry with me. It was more like he was angry because Nathan had one-upped him.”

Layla patted Roxxy on the back. “Just let your mom—our mom explain and Andrew will eventually come around.” She put her arm around Roxxy’s shoulders and squeezed. “I have a good feeling about you two.”

For the first time that day, Roxxy started to feel a little optimistic herself. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Layla gave her a bright smile. “Just wait and see.”

And Roxxy found herself smiling back. She didn’t know if Layla’s prediction would come true, but she could already tell one thing for sure. She was going to really love having a sister.

WHEN A KNOCK SOUNDED ON HIS OFFICE DOOR a few hours after the look-a-like farce went down, Andrew half-expected it to be Layla—the real Layla, not the one who had been duping him for weeks now. The real Layla was the kind of person who couldn’t bear to see others in pain and might insist on coming upstairs to comfort him. She wouldn’t realize that just looking at her was painful for him now, because it reminded him of the fantasy he’d been peddled and how stupid he’d been.

He didn’t want to hurt Layla’s feelings but called out, “Leave me alone until further notice.”

His brother came strolling into the room a few seconds later, like Andrew hadn’t requested that the person at the door go away. Typical Nathan.

“So you like to sulk in your office, too,” Nathan said, looking around. “When I was getting back together with Layla, I clocked a lot of hours in mine. Sometimes it felt like the only place that made any goddamn sense.”

Andrew slumped in his chair. “If you’ve come to gloat, save it. You can’t make me feel any worse than I already do.”

Nathan dropped into a guest chair. “Please don’t use the word ‘can’t’ with me. You know how hard I find it to back down from a challenge.”

Andrew ignored the bait his brother was trying to dangle in front of him. With him and Nathan, it was a thin line between words and a physical fight. But Andrew was feeling too beat down himself to fight with his brother in either way right now, so he stayed silent, waiting for Nathan to get to the point of his visit.

Nathan shrugged. “Look, I promised Layla before our wedding that I’d work on my relationship with you and I haven’t been doing all that good a job at it. Believe me, she was livid when I told her I’d been trying to get a hold of you for two weeks after you called me, and you hadn’t returned any of my calls. She’s the one who insisted we fly out here and make sure you were all right. Good thing she did, too, or that girl would have gone on tricking you indefinitely.”

“So you’re here to get a thank you for coming out here unannounced?” Andrew asked him.

“No, I’m here because you’re still my brother, and even if you did get it on with a crazy clone of my wife, I don’t like when other people take advantage of you. I’m thinking we should sue her for fraud. Take her for everything she has, so she thinks twice before ever pulling this stunt again.”

Andrew was strangely touched by his brother’s words. “Thanks, but I don’t want revenge. I just want her to go away, so I can forget any of this ever happened.”

“Okay, how about if I work the revenge angle, and then let you know when it’s done? You’d be surprise how much better revenge can make you feel.”

“You mean like when you got Layla to agree to leave Pittsburgh forever, because you were so angry at her when you thought she’d chosen me over you? How did that little piece of revenge work out? Last I checked she was still living in Pittsburgh, and with you no less.”

Nathan glared at him. “Not the same thing at all. Layla was a victim. This chick came out here with every attention of playing you.”

Andrew shook his head. He wished he could get himself as worked up as his brother right now. He’d love to concentrate on revenge and nothing else. But he couldn’t get past what had happened in the living room.

When he’d walked in on Fake Layla kissing Nathan, he’d want to punch his brother for even daring to touch her. And even after he realized this woman wasn’t really Layla, it hadn’t stopped him from wanting to throw her over his shoulder, take her up to his room, and show her in every way it was him she wanted and not his brother.

And when she’d told that impossible story…

“I want it to be true,” he confessed, though he’d made it a point throughout his life never, ever to share his feelings with his callous brother. “I want her to really be the witness Steve Kass was supposed to drop off with me, because if she really is who she says she is, then maybe I can forgive her.” He shook his head. “You think this is all about me wanting to get with your wife, but believe me, I had let Layla go. I’d moved on. But then this woman showed up, and it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. My dick gets hard every time she walks into the room. And she told me some things about herself, stuff I don’t think anybody could make up. Plus, she can sing. I mean, really well. She got up on stage at this bar we were at and she had the whole crowd in the palm of her hand.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “Congratulations, the woman you were sleeping with is not only a liar and a psycho, but also an
American Idol
reject.”

Andrew didn’t watch much television, but even he got what Nathan was trying to say. Being able to sing well didn’t make Fake Layla the music superstar she was claiming to be.

“I think I knew deep down she wasn’t really Layla, because Layla and I got along, but we never had anything close to the chemistry I had with this woman.”

Nathan shrugged. “I get it. She’s hot. Believe me, I had a hard time keeping my hands off Layla myself. But you’ve got to understand, her story has about a one and a million chance of being true. If it is, that means, somehow of all the places, this rock star who no one has seen without her makeup could have been sent, it’s to the brother-in-law of the twin sister she didn’t know she had. The odds of that happening are—“

“Astronomical,” Andrew finished for him, a dark cloud once again settling over him. “I know.”

But Nathan kept on going. “On the other hand, people become obsessed with people all the time—especially rich and famous people. We were all over the news when that stuff with Diana went down. Anyone could have glommed on to that story and started spinning a fantasy that got out of control. In any case, it’s way more likely she’s completely nuts than Layla’s long lost twin sister.”

He was right. Andrew knew Nathan was right. And it made him feel like a psycho himself to hold on to the hope that somehow fate had conspired to bring him the perfect woman in the form of Layla’s long-lost twin. But he couldn’t stop himself.

And when he saw a BMW pull up outside the front of the house, he sat up in his seat. A well put-together black woman climbed out of the car and looked around. Andrew stood up to get a better look at her. Even in the dim light of the setting sun, he could see she resembled Roxxy and Layla enough to have some family connection.

“She doesn’t look old enough to be their mother,” Nathan said, getting up to stand with him at the window.

Andrew’s face became grim. “Let’s go get some answers,” he said to his brother.

CHAPTER 24

WHEN
the door to the barn opened a second time, Roxxy stood up, because she thought it might be Andrew. But it was actually Nathan who came through the door followed by Shirelle and then, finally Andrew.

“Roxxanne!” her mother cried out when she saw her. She ran to Roxxy and engulfed her in a fierce hug. “Thank God, you’re okay.”

Roxxy was a little taken aback by her mother’s enthusiastic greeting. Shirelle hadn’t hugged her in years, especially not this tight. Maybe Layla had been right about people surprising you. “I’m fine. And thank you for coming,” she said. “Now that you’re here you can explain why you did what you did.”

Her mother pulled back from her, shaking her head. “What are you talking about, Roxxane?”

“I’m talking about the twin sister you never told me about.”

Shirelle squinted at Layla as if seeing her for the first time. “Oh my God, you’re Layla Sinclair, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” Layla said, obviously confused. “And I was under the impression you might be my mother. Our mother.”

“Oh no,” Shirelle said, backing away from Roxxy. “Roxxanne’s been obsessed with you for awhile now, ever since she saw your story in the paper. And when she spent her life savings to get plastic surgery to look like you…”

“What?” Roxxy asked. “You’re the one who’s in love with plastic surgery. I don’t even get botox!”

Shirelle went on like she hadn’t even spoken. “I’m afraid, she became too much for our family to handle. We had her committed to a facility.”

“Why are you lying?” Roxxy demanded, realizing now that her mother was seriously making up a story about her as opposed to telling everyone the truth.

Shirelle hung her head in what looked like abject sorrow. “Whenever I came to visit her at the facility, she’d be talking about you and how you should have picked Andrew Sinclair, because obviously he loved you.“

“What?” Roxxy said. “No, I haven’t! I never even heard of any of you before I came to the ranch.”

Shirelle shook her head at Roxxy. “I still can’t believe you did this to yourself, Roxxane. Now you look more like her than me and we’re actually sisters.”

“We are
not
sisters,” Roxxy said, rolling her eyes. This wasn’t the first time Shirelle had claimed to be her sister in front of an audience. “She’s my mother, my extremely vain mother, and she’s lying. I have no idea why.”

Shirelle shook her head in apology to Layla. “I don’t know what Roxxanne told you. And I hope it wasn’t something too hurtful. But she’s been off her meds for several weeks now, ever since she escaped from the group home. Did she also try to tell you she was Roxxy RoxX? That’s who she was obsessed with before you, ever since she found out they both spelled their first name with two X’s. In fact, part of the reason we were able to get her committed after her plastic surgery, was because she also violated the restraining order Roxxy had against her.”

“What?!” Roxxy screamed the question this time. “I can’t believe you. You’d do anything to keep me in the life you chose for me. Even lie about me being crazy?”

A thought suddenly occurred to Roxxy. “Oh my God, you’re not just an off-the-chain stage mother. You’re actually a sociopath. You probably knew what that label head was going to do to me when you sent me up there to meet with him. You knew and you sent me anyway, even though I was only sixteen.”

Shirelle shook her head. “Oh, Roxxy, we’ve talked about this. That’s why you have to stay on your meds. The paranoia, the hallucinations, they’re not good for you, and look how much trouble you’ve caused these good people.”

“’These good people?’” Roxxy mocked. “Maybe you’re the one who should be taking acting lessons, because you sound like a bad Lifetime movie right now.”

Shirelle thrust out a hand with a pill in it. “Please just take this. It will calm you down and then I can take you home.”

“So now you’re trying to dope me up again? Do you ever stop?” Roxxy could barely keep herself from clawing her mother’s eyes out at that point. “I’m not taking any pills, and I‘m most certainly not going anywhere with you.”

“Please, Roxxy,” her mother said with what sounded like real tears in her eyes. “You’re my sister, and I’ve been worried sick about you for weeks now. Not sleeping, barely eating. I’m so tired. Just please take the pill, so we can go home.”

“Stop with the crocodile tears, you controlling harpie,” Roxxy said, feeling the urge to cry herself, but with frustration. “I’m sick to death of you trying to manipulate me. You are a terrible mother. You’ve always been a terrible mother, and if you think I’ll ever pay you another dime of my money, you’re—”

“Roxxanne!” the sound of Andrew saying her real name for the first time in their relationship, cut her short.

She looked up to find Andrew still standing near the door, his hands in fists at his side.

“Your sister’s right,” he said.

“She’s not my sister,” Roxxy started. “Layla is.”

“I don’t care who you think this woman is. Or who you think you are. You’ve done enough damage here. You’ve hurt enough people, and I want you gone. If you have any decency at all, if you have even one not-crazy bone in your body, you will go with your sister and never come back here.”

Roxxy turned to Layla for support, only to find her twin silently weeping into Nathan’s chest.

She didn’t believe her, Roxxy realized. No one believed her. She had basically given her mother the exact story she needed to get out of explaining why she abandoned Layla in the first place.

She gritted her teeth. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go. But Andrew, Layla, and Nathan, I have one last thing to say before I do. I
am
a good person, a better person than I ever thought I could be. I found that out here. And I’m going to do amazing things. I’ll start my own camp for underprivileged kids if necessary. But I will spend the rest of my life proving I’m not who you think I am right now.”

She strode to the door. “And one last thing, nobody calls me ‘Roxxanne’ except my back-stabbing mother. My name is ‘Roxxy.’”