Stand-In Bride's Seduction

But she’d done more than poach now and, somehow, without letting the truth come out, Rina had to find a way to step back and prevent anything like last night’s kiss ever happening again. If it did, Rina knew she could never forgive herself.

She bent over the basin and splashed liberal amounts of cold water directly over her face, scrubbing at her skin with her bare hands until her cheeks tingled. She reached for a towel and wiped her face dry before looking at herself in the mirror once more. It was no good. She looked just as tired and disgusted with herself as she had when she’d woken.

The sound of the cottage’s phone ringing in the sitting room stirred her to action. Please, please, let it be Sara calling to put her out of her misery, she prayed silently.

“Hello?” she answered, lifting the near museum quality handset from its cradle.

“Good morning, mi corazon.”

Rey’s voice flooded through the phone, as rich and liquid as warm dark chocolate. Instantly, she felt every nerve in her body react and hone in on the deliciously deep timbre—as if just the sound of his voice could reach through the telephone wires and stroke the surface of her skin.

Her nipples pebbled into tight aching buds against the surface of the old T-shirt she’d continued to wear to bed each night—the soft fabric a caress as light as a lover’s touch against the taut peaks. Heat streaked, like lightning, through her body, centering low and deep in her body. Creating a throbbing need that all the cold water in the world could not extinguish.

“I trust you slept well last night,” Rey continued, oblivious to her traitorous body’s reaction. “I thought that you might like to see a little more of the island today. Perhaps in the late afternoon?”

Rina gathered her scattered thoughts and forced them into words through lips that were suddenly dry and uncooperative.

“Late afternoon?”

“Sí,” he replied. “I will see Benedict this morning for a while, and again this afternoon, but I must also now attend to my office for some hours. I thought to pick you up around four or five and we could drive along the coast before coming back to my apartment for dinner. What do you say?”

His apartment? Dinner? Was that all he asked? She knew that he and Sara had not yet been intimate together; a fact that still surprised her given their engagement. But did he plan to change all that tonight? And if he did, would she have the strength, let alone the will, to discourage him?

“Sara?” he prompted, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Yes…yes, that sounds lovely,” she finally spoke. At least she would have the day to herself. Time enough, hopefully, to shore up her defenses against her forbidden attraction to him. “Um, should I wear anything special?”

“Good question,” he answered. “We might go out for a drink along the harborside, first, so something a bit dressy, perhaps. What about what you wore the night I proposed? You always look beautiful in that. Until this afternoon, then. Hasta luego.”

Even after he’d hung up, Rina still stood there holding the phone to her ear. Her fingers clenched around the old black plastic, which creaked in protest at her white-knuckled grip. The dress she wore the night he proposed—the dress Sara wore, that is. What on earth was she to do? She had no idea which one it was and, without any contact from Sara, no way of finding out, either.

Numbly, she replaced the phone in its cradle and walked back to the bedroom to throw open the wardrobe doors. Given its rather frugal size, and the number of clothes Sara had kept here, it shouldn’t be impossible to narrow it down—but what if her twin had taken the dress with her?

Rina slumped onto the edge of the bed and stared unseeingly at the contents of her sister’s closet. Her eyes began to burn with unexpected tears. Suddenly this stupid charade was all too much. She loved her sister with an affection that transcended most sibling boundaries—would give her life for Sara’s if necessary—but continuing to masquerade as her twin this time around was taking a toll she’d never anticipated.

Maybe she should come clean. Tell Reynard the truth about what had happened. Let him know that Sara was suffering cold feet and that she’d asked Rina to stand in for her—after all, he deserved the truth. As one who’d been lied to and cheated on, she knew with personal understanding how cruel that type of behavior was.