His First Choice

Lacey washed t

he watermelon bowl and the pot with baked beans caked on. Thank goodness they’d used paper plates.

“Even half a day,” Kacey said, keeping right up with her drying duties. “We could leave within the hour and be at my place in time for a mimosa on the balcony.”

Mention of alcohol on a Tuesday morning bothered her a bit. But then, Kacey was still in holiday mode.

Looking at her sister, who was wearing no makeup and whose long blond hair was falling straight and loose, Lacey could have been looking at herself in the mirror. The experience would have been disconcerting if she hadn’t had it her entire life.

“I’ll make some calls,” she said against her selfish wishes. She just needed to get home, back to her own space and the life she’d made for herself. The life she was happy with.

But when she felt Kacey’s smile as well as saw it, when she sensed how much peace her capitulation brought her sister, who’d have done the same for her, she was glad she’d made the choice she’d made.

* * *

THEY HAD TEA instead of champagne and orange juice—partially because Kacey didn’t have any champagne—leaving Lacey to wonder if her sister was drinking so much she’d forgotten that she’d finished off what she had, or wasn’t drinking enough to know that at some point she’d opened the bottle she’d thought she’d saved.

As she put ice in their tea glasses, she didn’t ask. Because she didn’t want to know the answer.

But as soon as they were settled, bare feet up on the wrought-iron bars around Kacey’s spacious covered sixteenth-floor patio, Lacey said, “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t.

“You drank twice as much this weekend as you normally do.”

“I was thirsty.”

Didn’t assuage her concerns at all.

She could tell by the way Kacey watched the hills in the distance that her sister was avoiding her unspoken question and her heart sank. Because she also knew that Kacey wouldn’t have asked her to stay if she didn’t need her help.

“Is it a problem, Kace? Or are we still just at the warning stage?”

They’d talked about this before. Once. Right after Kacey’s third broken engagement. Her sister had it all. Got it all. And sometimes all just wasn’t enough. Because it wasn’t what mattered.

Kacey’s shrug out and out scared her.

“You drinking every night?”

“Maybe.”

“A lot?”

“Not always.”

“For how long?”

Kacey turned to her then, her blue eyes filled with pain. “Not long, Lace, I swear. I just... I love my job, but my character, she’s not real. I know that. I don’t even want her to be. I’d hate to live like she does. But everyone I know, everyone I meet, they all think I’m her and...”

Lacey had been thrilled when the offer had come in for Kacey to join The Rich and Loyal cast the year before. Until then she’d been making a very healthy living as a print and commercial model. But if she was smart with her money, the move to daytime television could secure her future for the rest of her life.

But she’d also been worried when the offer had come in. Because at heart, Kacey wasn’t all that different from Lacey.

Other than that, where Lacey just filled the space her body took up, Kacey exuded all over every room she walked into.

“How much longer does your break last?” she asked now. The R and L cast was on summer break. She’d known that, but had just figured Kacey would be doing promos during the time off as she’d planned. She hadn’t known until this weekend that her sister had turned down offers so she could spend her summer traveling with Dean, who’d yet to produce even a glimpse of the private jet he’d told her he owned. And, she was guessing, wasn’t going to be around at all after the previous night’s hasty departure.