His First Choice

At Kacey’s urging, Lacey had left her hair down that day. It hung even longer than Kacey’s and had the same loose natural curls, giving it body. But where Kacey’s hair glistened and hung sexily around her face, Lacey’s looked dull and hung in her eyes. She didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that.

It didn’t matter if they both went to the same stylist, used the exact same product and washed their hair at exactly the same time... Kacey’s hair had more glow.

Kacey kicked up sand with her bare toes and then turned to the water, standing and facing the horizon as her toes sank into the sand.

Waiting for a middle-aged couple who were holding hands to pass, Lacey joined her at the water’s edge. She’d worn shorts, too. The six-inch ones she always wore. Black, that day. And a sleeveless, button-up white blouse with a little lace collar.

“I love my job,” Kacey was saying. “I just don’t like my life.”

Kacey loved the condo she’d bought when they’d both received a healthy royalty check for a year’s worth of commercials they’d done their last year of high school. Lacey had used the money to pay for college.

“You don’t like the men in your life.” Lacey homed in on the real problem, the one most difficult for her to talk about with her sister.

If ever there was a sore spot between the two of them, men would be it. Which was why Lacey usually kept her mouth shut on the subject.

With a sideways glance at Lacey, Kacey made a face. “You’re right, I don’t. But it’s more than that. Being here...with you...it’s making it all so much more clear to me.”

“Being with me? Why?” Lacey frowned at her sister. Truly perplexed. Yeah, they shared a bond that was stronger than life. But they didn’t have to be together to have it. It just was. Like their identical features.

“Just being here,” Kacey said, shrugging.

A pair of twentysomething guys passed by. Closely. As though they’d made the trek down the beach specifically to get close to them. To Kacey. Neither one of them tried to meet Lacey’s gaze, which was fine with her. She’d learned a long time before that life was about a lot more than looks.

“You’ve got a great life, Lace. Full, like you don’t get home until after dark, and when you do, you’re tired, but it’s a good tired. Like you spent your day doing things that make you feel worthy. They fill you up. And...your house—it’s like a real home. You have your own yard, a driveway.”

“You can more than afford a house in Beverly Hills, Kacey. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“I know.”

The guys passed by a second time, making eye contact with Kacey. She turned back to the water.

“It’s just...your house, your life...it feels like...substance, you know?”

“I live alone,” she pointed out. “It’s you being here that’s giving my house all that substance and life you’re talking about. Picture me coming home every night, to an empty house with no lights on, unless I failed to turn one off in the morning, with no dinner cooking and laundry to do. You’ll be liking your life a whole lot better. At least you have hall lights and a doorman to greet you every night. You have people at the pool who greet you when you go down. Same for the gym on the third floor.”

Lacey would still pick her house in Santa Raquel, but that was beside the point.

“Are you going to tell me about him?”

“About who?”

“Whatever guy’s finally managed to snag your interest.”

Lacey moved her foot in the sand sinking beneath her feet and almost lost her balance. “There’s no guy in my life,” she said quite clearly. “I haven’t been on a date in over a year.”

And then it had been a date Kacey had set her up on. Not that she was going to admit that to her.

Knowing the truth about the differences between her and her identical twin was one thing, looking pathetic because of them was another.

“I could date if I wanted to,” she added, a tad bit defensively. She’d been asked out. She just hadn’t wanted to go.

“Of course you could—you’re gorgeous.” Kacey was looking at her and then turned her head just a fraction. Lacey didn’t need to turn around to know the two men had returned.

Her sister smiled, but then turned back around. “It’s not a matter of you being capable of finding a date, Lace. It’s a matter of you being open to finding a date.”

She didn’t want to talk about it.

“And something tells me that you’ve met someone.”