She had no idea how she lived through the torturous dance with Alexander. Each sinuous, slow movement threw her against his muscled strength, with the pulsating energy between them winding her up, the scent of him seeping into her every pore. Her muscles groaned at her stiff posture by the time the dance came to an end. Only the enticing prospect of sinking into the claw-foot bathtub with numerous silver faucets she had spied back in Kim’s suite kept her standing.
Just as she released a breath of relief and untangled herself from Alexander the front man of the lively native band announced the bride’s dance with her father.
No, no, no.
Olivia froze midway on the polished lacquer floor, feeling the color leach out of her face. Fear gripped her insides in an unforgiving knot, and the corseted bodice of her gown was crushing her lungs as her father walked toward her, a genial smile on his handsome face, the very image of a loving father, his stride purposeful as ever.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t dance with him—not without the whole pretense blowing up in her face. She shivered, sliding into the skin of that clumsy fifteen-year-old forced to dance with her father on her birthday. Stand up tall and look me in the eye. She could still hear the caustic hiss of his disapproval when she had accidentally trod on his toe, could still feel the painful, cutting press of his fingers on the skin of her shoulders, eroding another piece of her.
The more he criticized, the more she had faltered. He would have gone on forever except Kim had intervened, claiming her turn, and proceeded to pacify him with her perfection. Always. Kim had done it to divert their father’s attention from her. Liv knew that. But in the end her twin’s perfection had only showcased Olivia’s failure even more.
The memory coursed through her like acid, eating away at the armor she had grown, exposing wounds that she had thought covered, if not healed. She gasped for breath when a guest stopped her father. She hadn’t talked to him in six years and she couldn’t now. He would know in a nanosecond that she wasn’t Kim. And he wouldn’t even go along with it until she could explain. No, he would bring holy hell down upon her right there, until the whole world gleefully concluded that Olivia Stanton had once again screwed up—and this time her own sister’s life.
Pain sliced through her, robbing her of breath. The very intensity of it was still so raw. She wanted to be able to look him in the eye, not to flinch when she saw the corroding disappointment in his gaze. But she couldn’t, because nothing had changed. She just wasn’t good enough—not now, not ever. Not even to be a stand-in for her perfect sister.
She rubbed her forehead with trembling hands and turned toward the exit, her legs rubbery. “My head feels awful. Please apologize to my father,” she threw at Alexander.
She could feel his razor-sharp gaze drill into her back until she stepped out of the banquet hall. But she couldn’t look back. Right now, all she needed was to escape.
* * *
Picking up a champagne flute from a passing waiter, Alexander stilled and stared at Kim’s retreating form. She looked pale and intensely troubled, her hurried gait anything but graceful. And even as he watched she tottered on those heels. The doubts that had been niggling at him all evening crystallized into irrefutable truth, shock stunting his movements.
The woman running away as though the devil was on her heels was Olivia Stanton, the embodiment of everything he despised in a woman—selfish, impulsive and scandalous—who could wreck everything: his reputation, his sister’s care. With one reckless word or action.
Kim would have never run at the sight of her father. No, it was Olivia who couldn’t run fast enough. After all, the rift between Jeremiah Stanton and his younger daughter was continuing fodder for the tabloids, among other things.
Fury washed up through him in tidal waves, an incessant drumbeat drowning out the innocent chatter around him. Why had they switched? When had they switched?
The answer came to him with crushing clarity. He had slipped the wedding ring onto Olivia’s finger, his gaze snagging on her lips, fascinated by the blood-red lipstick, wondering how he had missed this side of a woman he had known for six months.
Everything he had worked for his entire life now rested in the hands of a good-for-nothing party girl who didn’t know the meaning of responsibility.
The crack of the champagne flute in his hand pulled him out of the red mist. Ignoring Jeremiah’s concern, he took a turn toward the exit.
He made his way to the suite that Kim had occupied since her arrival at his mansion a week ago, his steps unhurried in contrast to the blistering anger coursing through him.