Stand-In Bride's Seduction

“I…I don’t know. Maybe a week?” Sara hedged.

“Are you okay? You’re not in any trouble or anything, are you? Maybe I should come to you.”

“No! You can’t do that. There’s nothing you can do for me here. I need you right where you are. I’ll make it up to you, Reeny-bean. Truly, I will,” her twin implored.

Rina gripped her phone tightly in her hand and counted slowly to ten. “That’s it, then. A week. After that, I’m telling him the truth.”

“I’ll tell him the truth myself—I promise, I will—as soon as I get back.”

“A week, Sara. That’s my absolute limit.”

“I know. I gotta go. Love you, Rina, and thank you. You’re saving my life.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. Is it really that serious?”

“I’m just kidding. Everything’s fine. Like I said, I’ll tell you all when I come back. Now I gotta go.”

Sara blew kisses down the phone then disconnected the call, leaving Rina standing in the bedroom, phone still to her ear, and filled with a frustration that brought tears stinging into her eyes. She’d really thought talking to Sara would make her feel better about the decision she’d made to continue with the farcical sister swap. Instead, she felt even more confused.

Did Sara even love Rey?

How had she referred to him? A player who knew the score? What score? And who referred to the man they had promised to marry as a player, anyway?

Rina threw her phone down onto the bed and went outside to retrieve her glass of wine and her notes. At least now, she had a finite time to look forward to—a date when all this would be over and she could go back to being Sarina Woodville again.

But what of Reynard and her feelings for him? What of Sara and whatever decision she was about to make? Could Rina really stay here and watch her sister pick up where she left off with Rey? The answer resounding in her head was an emphatic no, so where would that leave her?

And how could she tell Sara that she’d fallen in love with her fiancé?

Even as the truth of her words echoed in her mind, Rina tried desperately to refute them. She couldn’t be in love. It didn’t happen that fast. She’d only been on the island just over two weeks. Granted, she’d spent a great deal of that time with Reynard, but she couldn’t love him, could she? She’d spent years with Jacob—slowly building a relationship, setting plans in place for their future. Even as she grasped at those straws, she knew that what she’d shared with her ex was nothing like the inferno that burned between her and Rey.

She tried to call upon the logic that usually dictated her life, but reason had deserted her as effectively as her sister. All she could think about was the way she felt every time she saw him. Every time they touched.

She knew she wanted more. She wanted it all. And she knew she could never sit back as an uncommitted bystander and watch her twin marry the man that set her on fire with only a glance.

Rina slugged back a generous mouthful of wine, relished the sensation of it sliding over her tongue and down her throat, before pouring herself some more. She needed oblivion—something, anything, to erase Reynard del Castillo from her mind and from her heart. Even if it was only temporary, she needed the respite from a truth she didn’t dare acknowledge.

Eleven

Rey tried to ignore the scent of Sarina’s hair and the way it spiraled wildly over her shoulder, touching his shirt as he leaned forward to read what she was explaining. He couldn’t believe they’d been working together for an entire week now. An entire week without touching her beyond a light kiss on the cheek, morning and evening, as she arrived and left the office.

It had proven more difficult than he’d anticipated, keeping his hands off her delectable body, especially now that he knew how responsive she could be. He’d spent the past several days in an uncomfortable state of semi-arousal which had left him irritable and short with all his staff. It was soon obvious they blamed Sarina for the change in his usually easygoing mood, and he’d noticed a certain coolness among some of the staff in the way she was treated by them.

Under normal circumstances he’d have put a stop to it, without question, but these were anything but normal circumstances.