This time Lance couldn’t control his response. He grabbed the front of Clay’s shirt with one hand while fisting his other. “If you go anywhere near Willa—”
Clay pushed his hand off him and straightened his shirt. “Don’t wrinkle the Hugo Boss.”
Lance ran a hand through his hair, striving to regain control of himself. Some of his brothers were known for their short tempers, but he’d always been the more levelheaded one. He was also a strategist. To win against Mother Nature, an architect needed to imagine worst-case scenarios and plan accordingly. Neither anger nor love had ever made a building stronger. Careful, educated decisions executed with solid, quality materials always produced reliable results. It was how Lance designed buildings and how he lived his life.
He didn’t brawl with friends of the family. That was Asher’s style, not his.
Which didn’t change how much he wanted to punch the smug smile off Clay’s face. I don’t need this. Dax will have to find a new source of entertainment for his friend. “I’ve changed my mind about using you as a consultant on this project.” He looked around the grassy area in disgust. “Next time you want to congratulate someone—send a fucking fruit basket.” He turned and walked away.
Chapter Three
Rather than hailing a cab, Willa strode down the busy sidewalk, indifferent to her feet protesting the wrong shoes for a prolonged stomping away. She yanked her phone out of the pocket of her jean skirt and glared at a man whose eyebrows rose appreciatively as the act lifted one side of her skirt. She was so angry she wanted to scream, and her expression must have communicated that because the man quickly looked away. Without breaking her pace, Willa called Lexi. It rang through to her voice messages.
Did Lexi know? Had Clay told her?
I want to believe he didn’t.
She didn’t.
But I know Lexi.
Willa called right back. This time her sister answered.
“You knew.” Willa ground out, not wasting time greeting her sister.
“Knew what?” Lexi answered innocently. Too innocently.
While waiting for a light to change, Willa continued, not caring that the people near could hear. “That Lance was the person the flash mob was for. You humiliated me.”
Lexi’s silence was all the confession Willa required.
Willa crossed the street with the crowd when the light changed and waited for her sister to say something, anything that would make what she’d done okay.
In a subdued voice, Lexi said, “That wasn’t my intention.”
So, I was right. Where do we go from here? “It’s never your intention, but that doesn’t change the outcome. I am so angry with you. I don’t want to go back to our apartment. I can’t afford to go anywhere else, but that’s going to change. I think it’s time for you and me to get our own places.”
“You’re not serious. I thought—”
“No. You didn’t. You didn’t think about how I would feel, or you wouldn’t have done this to me.”
“So, what? You move out, hate me forever, and we’ll never talk again? Calm down, Willa; it’s not that big of a deal.”
“To you. It’s not that big of a deal to you.” Stopping at another street crossing, Willa brushed her hair impatiently out of her eyes and said, “Nothing ever is. I love you, but I remember this feeling. We’ve been here before. I don’t want to go back to thinking I can’t trust you. We’re almost thirty. Maybe it’s not healthy for us to live together anymore.”
“If you think we’re broke now, wait until each of us is paying our own rent.”
“I don’t care. I’ll make it work.”
“You wouldn’t be happy living on your own. You need more people in your life, not fewer.”
“Don’t tell me what I need.”
“Really? You can say that after recently passing judgment on every aspect of my life?”
The anger in Lexi’s tone struck a chord in Willa and deflated some of hers. “I only said what you needed to hear.”
“In your opinion,” Lexi said shortly. “You dismissed everything I’ve done because I deviated from your rule book. Do you know how it felt to hear how little you respect my choices?”
Willa paused mid-step. “So, you wanted to prove I’m more messed up than you? Is that why you set today up? Because you wanted to win?”
“No. Willa, how could you even ask that?” Lexi sounded more offended than apologetic.
Despite the people passing her on both sides, Willa covered her face with one hand. She remembered accusing Lexi of something similar when they’d argued over Lance many years earlier. They truly had come full circle, back to a dark place. Someone bumped into Willa and brought her back to the moment, making her aware of how public her emotional display was. “Let’s talk about this tonight.”
“Let’s not. I really don’t want to go twenty rounds with you about something you’ve already made your mind up about. I’m working late then going out. Don’t wait up for me tonight.”
Regardless of how upset she was with her sister, Willa loved Lexi. She struggled to verbalize how she was feeling. Her greatest fear was losing her sister. Her second greatest was losing herself in Lexi’s shadow. “Lexi, I don’t want to fight with you either, but this was wrong.”
“Fine, I was wrong. Keep hiding from the world, but don’t blame me when that stops you from having the life you want. If you want to move out, Willa, move out. Or I will. Maybe you need to see what it’s like to not have me looking out for you. Maybe that’s what it’ll take for you to appreciate me.” Lexi hung up.
Appreciate her? How can she think I don’t appreciate her? She’s my best friend. My twin. Of course I appreciate her. I chose being with her over everything else. Everyone else.
Willa pocketed her phone and hailed a taxi. Her anger had dissolved, and in its place was a feeling of emptiness she didn’t know what to do with. She’d put the past behind her. Nothing but pain would come from looking back.
On the ride back to her apartment, she considered calling Kenzi but didn’t. When it came to this situation, there was too much Kenzi didn’t know, would never know.
Willa entered her apartment and placed her phone and keys on the tray she’d purchased to keep the entryway organized. Lexi had probably placed her keys in the tray twice in all the time they’d lived together, and likely only by mistake. She was much more the type to walk in, toss her keys in the general direction of the table, and keep going. Willa had always gone back and put them where they belonged. She didn’t see how Lexi thought she was the one who needed taking care of.
Unless she knows.
But there is no way she could.
On the way to her bedroom, Willa stopped when she caught her reflection in a mirror across the room. Dressed as she was, at first glance, she could be Lexi.
Did Lance believe me when I said I was Lexi?
Does it matter? After all this time, it shouldn’t.
And I shouldn’t be this angry.
Lexi isn’t a bad person. She just doesn’t think things through. The ripple effect of her impulsiveness was lost on her. Like a person who runs across the street without looking and wonders why two cars crashed behind her, Lexi was blind to the devastation she sometimes wreaked. How much was a person’s fault and how much would have happened anyway? It was a question Lexi and Willa never agreed on.
r /> Willa changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt. She took out her laptop and sat on the couch. Whether she stayed or moved out, she needed a job. She started to write an email to Dax, asking if he still had a position for her, but then decided to call him later instead.
She didn’t feel ready to speak to him or Kenzi yet, not after seeing Lance that morning. I should have told him it was me. I should have acted like seeing him was no big deal.
Instead, I hid behind a lie.
I’m a coward. No wonder he chose her.
Willa forced herself off the couch and headed to the gym, taking her reader tablet with her. She ran on a treadmill much longer that day than she normally would have, both because the story she’d chosen was a good one and because she didn’t want to rush back to her life.
She ran until she was too tired to care what Lance thought of her.
Too tired to worry where Lexi was headed that night.
She ran until she was dripping with sweat and her muscles were shaking from the exertion. Only then did she stop. Another woman might have released the tension of the day by crying, but Willa never allowed herself that luxury.
Crying had never solved a problem. It hadn’t brought her parents back.
Wishing things were different was a waste of time.
I have to find a job—and now.
When I do, I won’t have time to argue with Lexi or waste another moment thinking about a man I should have purged from my system a decade ago.
The next day Lance was seated at the dining room table with his parents and all of his siblings except Andrew. Dax looked comfortable in his spot beside Kenzi. A visibly pregnant Emily was seated beside Asher. There was an air of anticipation that had made the meal drag a bit, but no one was asking why they’d been summoned that evening. If the expression on his mother’s face was a clue, it wasn’t bad news.
Sophie took her husband’s hand in hers. “Our family has had quite a year.” She smiled at Emily then Dax. “But we’re better for the changes as well as the additions.”
Emily used her napkin to wipe a tear away from her eyes. Dax merely nodded, but Lance could tell her words had pleased him.
