Under the Boardwalk (Costas Sisters 1)

Ari blinked, feeling as if she’d been hit by a two-by-four. “Say that again. Slowly.”

“I . . . was . . . set . . . up. By our mother.”

Ari shook her head. “No, the other part.”

A wry smile took hold as Zoe reached for her twin’s hand. The connection felt good after so long.

“I’m a federal agent, Ari.” Zoe met her gaze, nodding slowly. “I work for a local division of the Secret Service, guarding diplomats and other high-level officials.”

“Since when?” Ari asked, the truth much stranger and harder to believe than anything even her parents could have conjured up.

“I applied and started training right out of college.”

“But I thought . . .” Ari sputtered, not sure what to say. “I mean you always acted like life was one big game. There was that jaunt cross-country where nobody heard from you for almost four months.”

Zoe shrugged. “Training at Quantico.”

“You worked as a showgirl when you needed money.”

Zoe shook her head, her long hair swishing over one shoulder. “I enjoy dancing and it’s good exercise, but I never worked as a showgirl. I left the house saying I was going to work. It’s not like you ever saw me dance. And for the last five years, it’s not like you were even home.”

Ari was still unable to process what she was hearing. Or what her sister’s words meant to her entire outlook on life. “Our family operates on the P. T. Barnum assumption that there’s a sucker born every minute. How the hell can you be a special agent?”

Zoe laughed. “The same way you can be a psych professor. You have to admit with the family’s eccentricities, nobody would suspect me of being with law enforcement. So?” She spread her hands wide. “Any more questions or do you finally believe I’m not wasting my life, just taking up space on this earth by operating one con after another?” she asked, repeating words Ari remembered using during one of their arguments.

Pain sliced through her at the memory. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Zoe’s green eyes bored into hers. “Why bother changing a perception you found so comforting?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Come on.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “You needed to believe the worst about us all or else you couldn’t justify your fear and need to run.”

Ari reared back, shocked by her twin’s brutal yet dead-on assessment.

“You’re not the only one who took psychology in school,” Zoe informed her. “And if just once you’d looked at me like you cared about who I was inside, not who I appeared to be, I might have shared my life with you. I love you, Ari. And I never wanted to change any part of you. Except the part that wasn’t accepting.”

Ari wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth on the couch. She took a deep breath and tried to push aside the hurt and anger overwhelming her.

Anger at herself, not Zoe. “I love you, too. And you’re right, okay? I was judgmental. But only because I couldn’t understand your life. A simple explanation and this rift between us would never have happened.”

“You’re wrong.” Zoe hopped up from her seat and paced the floor. “It wasn’t my place to explain. Or Mom’s or Dad’s.”

“They know?”

“What I do for a living? Yeah. But like me, they figured you were comfortable with your assumptions, and we didn’t want to shake your world.” Her voice softened. “We knew how you felt about the way you thought I lived. I wasn’t about to dispel the myth for you. And they agreed it was my story to tell. But I wasn’t talking. Not until you accepted me for who I am inside.” She stopped at a window, which not surprisingly overlooked a densely wooded forest.

A cover for this house, just like Zoe’s entire life had been a cover. The same way Ari’s had been a cover for everything she wasn’t willing to face. And she had no words now for the sister she’d misunderstood and in many ways betrayed.

“Do they know you’re alive and well . . . and here?”

Zoe shook her head, her eyes misting. “To tell them would have been to put them in danger.”

Ari released the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. At least they hadn’t withheld that. Although Ari hadn’t told her parents she’d known Zoe was alive, her reasons were valid. She hadn’t had proof. But double standard aside, she wasn’t sure she could justify it to herself if they’d known and not told her that her twin was safe.

Zoe turned back to her. “Now are you ready to hear how I ended up in this godforsaken place with only Marco for company?”

Ari nodded. “Might as well give it to me all at once.” She pressed her hand to her temples, feeling the beginning of a headache coming on.