“He hasn’t bothered in the past twenty years. Why start now?” I mutter, not bothering to keep the disdain from my voice.
Lizzy knows how I feel about her fiancé’s lack of interest in her life aside from his obligatory monthly phone call and form thank-you note each year in acknowledgment of her thoughtfully crafted Christmas present.
“Because his mother will be there to make sure of it,” Lizzy replies. “And I do my best work in isolation, Bree. You know that. So there’s only one possible solution.”
“And that is?”
“You take my place,” Lizzy says, making me snort.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” she whispers.
I snap my head her way, eyes going wide as I realize that she is, indeed, serious.
Dead serious.
Chapter Two
Sabrina
I make a stunned, squawking sound, but Lizzy hurries on before I can recover. “Not for the entire marriage, just for the engagement celebration. Just pretend to be me for one month, Bree. Give me time to finish what I’ve started, and I’ll take over on the wedding day.”
I shake my head, sending my frizzy, been-on-the-mountain-all-day hair flying around my face. “That’s insane, Lizzy. No! There’s no way Andrew is going to believe I’m you.”
“Why not? We’re identical twins!”
“But our personalities aren’t identical, and there are—”
“No, they aren’t, but it doesn’t matter,” Lizzy counters. “You know me better than anyone, Bree. You can pretend to be me. And even if you slip up and act more like you, Andrew and I have never met, so he won’t know the difference.”
“You’ve met,” I scoff. “You spent an entire month together when we were little, and there was that one time.” I snap my fingers, searching my shell-shocked thoughts. She can’t be serious about this. She just can’t. “You know. That other time, when you went to his parents’ anniversary thing with Mama and Papa.”
“I was thirteen, and it was only a long weekend,” she says, pushing into a sitting position and crossing her legs. “And Andrew barely looked at me the entire time. He won’t be able to tell us apart. No doubt in my mind.” Her lips curve in a determined smile.
I would be cheered by the fact that she’s upright and grinning if she weren’t still talking like a crazy person.
“We haven’t even talked on the phone in months,” she continues. “Andrew has no idea what I’m like in real life. And if it weren’t for his PicsWithFriends account, I wouldn’t have a clue about him, either.”
I curl my lip. “Ugh. That account is so gross. Once you’re married and he’s sworn in as king, you have to make him shut it down. No monarch worthy of ruling his people should be posting that many pictures of his butt online.”
“Some of the pictures are of his brothers’ butts,” Lizzy says in a surprisingly reasonable tone. “And at least they’re all wearing pants. Or swimsuits.”
“They’re all cheesy and stupid is what they are,” I say, scrunching my features into a dubious knot. “Don’t tell me you’re okay with that nonsense?”
She shrugs a slim shoulder. “Well, all the money they earn from the Royal Package goes to charity. That’s a good thing.”
“They’d earn just as much money posting tasteful images,” I counter, not about to let Prince Douchebag off the hook. “They’re three drop-dead gorgeous men in line to rule a country. Women would be falling all over themselves for pictures of them eating cereal. Or getting their eyes checked. Or picking their noses.”
“They don’t need glasses. Or contacts. They’ve got great genes, remember?”
I settle cross-legged onto the floor by my sister with a hard eye roll. “Yes, I remember.”
The “great genes” bit is one of my mother’s major selling points for Lizzy’s betrothal to a stranger—their kids will be genetically superior. The fact that my sister will also marry into two lavishly furnished castles, the power to rule should Andrew pass away, and access to the kind of money that will make an earth-shattering difference to her poor relations back at home isn’t mentioned.
But that reality is always there, hovering unspoken over Lizzy’s head every time a castle repair threatens to leave us destitute.
We’ve been one home-related disaster away from losing everything more times than I can count. But I would still rather see Lizzy marry for love.
“You can still call it off.” I rest a gentle hand on her knee. “Seriously, if it’s about the money, we’ll find a way to make it work. I can start taking bigger groups or figure out how to make that winter camping thing work or…something.”
“No, you won’t,” Lizzy whispers. “Papa never paid for Zan’s boarding school tuition, Bree.”
I blink. “What?” All three of us are turning twenty-six this December. Zan hasn’t been in boarding school for close to seven years.
“He signed up for a payment plan,” Lizzy says, “but stopped paying after Zan graduated. I found the collection notices while I was cleaning his office. I’ve been talking to the school, trying to work something out, but if we don’t take care of the outstanding balance soon, they say they’ll have no choice but to sue.”