“Twins?” he finished for me. “Yes, of the identical variety.” The doctor’s eyes twinkled knowingly as he flashed a medical flashlight briefly across my eyes.

I blinked several times in rapid succession, still trying to gain my bearings as the little green dot faded slowly from my vision. “Twins, huh. Are you sure?”

He chuckled merrily, slipping his instruments back into his bag. “I should be. I delivered them both myself, over thirty years ago.”

By now, I was in such a mind-blown tailspin that the remark washed right over me. I woke up in a literal castle in the clouds, owned by my own personal Prince Charming, a man I fell in love with during a magical rooftop rendezvous. Now, I was being physically examined by his personal doctor, since men of this James’s means always had private physicians at their disposal, all while he argued with his identical twin brother downstairs.

Yep, that about sums it up.

“Deep breaths,” I instructed myself again, then glanced up in surprise.

Levinson gave me a kind smile, miming the motions as he spoke. “It’s a lot to take in, but you’ll get used to it in time. At any rate,” he said, flicking his eyes to the door as he gathered his hat and jacket, “it seems the boys are worked up enough already. With any luck, you’ll be a calming influence, eh?” Then, with that bit of encouragement, he vanished down the hall, chuckling under his breath all

the while.

I stared at the door for a moment before I decided to run after him. I practically flew down the winding staircase but then came to a sudden pause mid-step, one that almost knocked me off my feet entirely.

Indeed, the twins were quite “worked up,” as the good doctor had diagnosed. I heard them before I saw them, arguing in voices that they failed miserably at hushing. It seemed that on every other syllable, one or both of them broke rank and ended up shouting at the top of their lungs. I found it funny in some odd way that for twins, they sounded nothing alike. Robert’s voice was hoarse and choppy, sharp with rage. It lacked the smooth finesse of James’s, that hypnotic sensuality that had swept me off my feet the first night we met.

As I stood there, I wondered if Robert had put two and two together yet, if he realized I’d mistaken him for his brother the whole time. Fool that I was, the simple truth had certainly eluded me for far too long.

And speaking of Robert...

“I just don’t understand why we had to bring her here,” he said. “My place is just as close, and you never even—”

“Your place is under constant siege from the paps,” James interrupted calmly. “On the other hand, everyone is currently under the impression that I’m still in South America, ingratiating myself with the native tribes.”

I saw their shadows stretching up the far wall, one with his arms folded serenely across his chest and the other pacing in manic circles across the floor. It took only a second to figure out that the manic pacer was Robert.

“I was still under that impression myself,” he muttered under his breath, unable to stand still for even a moment. “Why did you even come back? Last I heard, you were deep in the jungles of Bolivia, trying to—”

“Ecuador,” James corrected patiently. “They tried to kill me in Bolivia. In Ecuador, they declared me a god.”

There was an incredulous pause before the pacing resumed. “Of course,” he snapped.

“As for why I came back, there are...a lot of reasons,” James continued, running his hands through his hair. “I missed the city, wanted to see Dad...”

Robert’s pacing stopped again at the mention of their father, and he glanced once at his twin, then looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Have you? Since you left your numb-minded followers behind, oh great deity James, have you even bothered to visit our father yet?”

“No. I just got in.” James tilted his head to the side, surveying his brother with great interest, despite Robert’s attempts to dodge him. “I actually thought we could visit together. That’s why I stopped by the office, but I only found you screaming at that poor girl.”

By now, I had sneaked to the base of the stairs and was peering discreetly around the corner. It was completely surreal, seeing the both of them in the same room, the man I’d been searching for and his doppelganger who would never quite measure up to the real thing. Strange as it was, I didn’t notice their similarities as I looked at them; I was completely taken aback, rather, by their distinct differences.

Robert might have been incredibly handsome, but James was in a whole other league. It wasn’t any one thing in particular either, not something I could put my finger on. It was bigger than that, the whole package.

There was just something magical about James, as if he was privileged to be given some enchanted serum at birth when his brother was not. His eyes danced with it. His skin practically glowed with it. Even the way he moved was blessed with some otherworldly grace. For all those reasons and more, I found it impossible to take my eyes off him even for a second, as hard as I tried.

“...found you screaming at that poor girl,” his last words suddenly echoed in the corner of my mind.

Robert’s eyes bulged as his face turned an angry shade of puce. He spluttered and stammered for a moment before throwing a hand up between them. “That poor girl had it coming. You don’t know what you’re talking about, James. You would have done better to just stay out of it, but you always find that impossible, don’t you?”

For the first time, James showed a bit of life. His eyes began to flash with some volatile emotion, but he quickly managed to get his temper safely under control. “Stay out of it?” he quoted, cocking his head sardonically to the side. “Even after she passed out on the floor?”

To his credit, Robert at least had the decency to blush, but that was where his humanity ended. He threw his hands in the air and began pacing again, not gifted with the ability to control his frustration as his brother could. “That kind of drama is just the tip of the iceberg with this one. Trust me, with Della, it’s just one crazy thing after—”

“Della?” James said my name slowly, like a caress, his eyes softening and illuminating once again as he tried it out for the first time. “So she does have a name.”

So he does remember.

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