Breathless (8 page)

The phone buzzed against the side of my face, and I forced in a breath that crushed my ribcage. He had hung up on me. He had called me to rile me up only to cut the call short on his terms. An animalistic growl tore from the back of my throat.

“What the—” Anxiety bubbled up from my stomach to settle in the back of my throat, choking my words. Dropping the phone on the carpet beside me, I pressed my fist against my mouth and bit down on one of my knuckles. It was the only thing I could do to hold back the inevitable scream. And the vomit.

What the hell just happened?

I scrubbed my hands back and forth over my face before pushing my hair away from my flushed cheeks, tucking the straight locks behind my ears. Staring across the room and letting the tears flood my vision and fall unchecked, I started the messy process of trying to decipher the cryptic words from the stranger’s phone call.

He’d claimed there was more behind my father’s death. And then he’d insinuated that I shouldn’t be so sure that my dad, with all his money and power, had left me with nothing. Whether the call was a joke or not, I felt like the scabs had been ripped right off old wounds, exposing all my vulnerabilities to the world.

Releasing a tremulous breath that seemed to take some of the pressure off my chest, I focused on the watercolor painting depicting one of my favorite movie kisses. Thanks to my tears, Buttercup and Westley had morphed into something unrecognizable. I ran the back of my hand over my eyes. Hobbling to my feet, I fisted my hands and counted to ten. I was never much of a crier—emotional, yes, but never one to sob—yet here I was giving a man I didn’t know the power to render me speechless.

“Pull yourself together,” I admonished myself as I crept down the narrow hall to the bathroom. I splashed a handful of cold water onto my face and laid my palms to my cheeks. My skin was still on fire. “It
had
to be a joke.”

I returned to my living room, powering off the TV as soon as I saw the headline about Margaret Emerson hobnobbing with an infamous editor at a fashion show in New York. Normally, I wouldn’t let it bother me too much. Tonight, however, I couldn’t handle looking at my former stepmother’s smug expression after having my brain thoroughly bent over and screwed.

“Oh, déjà vu, you nasty bitch,” I muttered as I threw the remote toward my couch. It landed right side up on the sable brown knit throw blanket I’d bought at Pottery Barn a couple months ago. Crossing the room, I swooped up my phone from where I had left it by the front door, and then, just for good measure, I checked the locks once more.

As I padded toward the bathroom to take a hot bath to calm my nerves, I couldn’t resist taking a peek at my call history. I shook my head in disbelief. The idiot hadn’t blocked his number. There it was, nine-digits right in front of me, practically begging to be called.

Tapping the green icon in the center of my screen, I temporarily gave up on the bath and slammed down on the couch. “I’ll figure out the truth,” I gloated, “I’ll figure out the—”

“Thank you for calling Emerson & Taylor, this is Claire. How may I direct your call?” a saccharine-sweet, female voice chirped.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t quite figure out what to say over my sudden shortness of breath and the icy cold fingers of shock stroking my spine. Finally, perhaps perturbed by my silence, the receptionist introduced herself again.

“Emerson & Taylor, Claire speaking. Can I help you?”

“I-I’m so sorry.” There was the stuttering again. “Wrong number,” I managed, disconnecting the call before she could get another word in.

I folded my arms over my stomach, leaning forward. It did nothing to help the harsh churning, but thankfully, there were no tears this time. Maybe I was too numb for that, though.

Whoever had called me
wanted
me to have the number.

He’d wanted me to call him back, so I would know whom the number belonged to.

And, most importantly, he wanted me to know that it was from Emerson & Taylor—the fashion company. The company that, before his death fourteen years ago, had belonged to my father.

Part 1

Uncover

verb
\ ən’kəvər

Discover (something previously secret or unknown).

“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.”

-Michel de Montaigne

Chapter 1

“Are you sure you want to go through with this, Gemma?” my closest friend implored for the second time since she stomped into my new apartment a couple minutes ago. Seated right in front of me on the ottoman, Pen sifted her fingers through her mess of wavy brown hair before releasing it to fall around the brilliant peacock tattoos gracing her shoulders. “It’s not too late to back down.”

“This is something I
need
to do for myself.”

Besides, she was wrong—it
was
too late. It had been ever since I received the call four months ago.
“Everything you’ve been told about your story, your father’s story, is a lie. It’s up to you to uncover the truth.”

Although I hadn’t contacted Emerson & Taylor to search for him—because really, who would have believed me—my caller had gotten his wish. His words ignited something within me, a frenzied need for closure that I’d somehow shoved to the far corners of my mind. For days, weeks even, the memory of his gruff voice was a constant distraction, a weight on my body and mind. And though I’d promised myself long ago that I had put all things concerning my father behind me, I soon found that nothing could stop me from searching around in my history ... his history.

Not even Penelope Connelly—the woman who’d been my closest confidant for the last six years.

When I finally broke down and told her about the call from Emerson & Taylor, I hadn’t planned to ask for help. My intentions were to go to Los Angeles to confront my stepmother on my own because I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even sleep without my caller’s words affecting me. But then Pen had reminded me of what happened the last time I attempted to contact my dad’s third, and final, wife. I was sixteen at the time, my father had been dead for seven years, and I’d just lost my mom six months before. Maybe I’d hoped to find some semblance of normality with my stepmother—I was fragile and young and woefully ignorant—but I didn’t get the chance to meet Margaret in person. Instead, she’d sent a lawyer to deal with me.

I could barely remember the attorney’s face, or his name, but what he’d said to me had stuck to me like glue.

“Your name is nowhere in your father’s will, and Margaret has informed me that you and your mother have been aware of that since he passed away. You are more than welcome to contest the will, Ms. Emerson, but I’m going to warn you—you’ll feel the crushing reality of all the legal fees before you can bat your pretty brown eyes. Now, Margaret is prepared to settle with you ... as long as you don’t come back with your hand stretched out. You understand what I’m saying, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Whenever I read an article about my stepmother, or saw her son on TV, that lawyer’s words oozed into my thoughts, and the night I told Pen about the call was no different. Like always, my best friend had immediately pulled me from that dark place.

“I think I have an idea.” She had run her tongue over the tiny gap between her front teeth and leaned into me so nobody else in the crowded bar would hear. “But we’ll need to be …
creative
.”

Her definition of
creative
turned out to be straightforward—she would step out of her “ethical zone” and get me directly into Emerson & Taylor. She would bypass their security system and add me as a new hire, taking care of everything from the background check to a squeaky-clean work history that didn’t include phone sex and escorting under the pseudonym Alice. I’d be given a temporary identity with a single purpose.

Uncover, expose, and then get the hell out of there.

The moment I got the call from the company’s corporate headquarters offering me a job, I turned in my notice at the agency I’d been working at and set up my life in L.A. so quickly, my head was still reeling from the whirlwind apartment search and ensuing move.

I thought I was ready.

Except now, I got the impression Pen was having second thoughts. Why else would she have surprised me by showing up at my door first thing this morning? Las Vegas wasn’t exactly a hop and a skip away.

“Pen,” I spoke up, my voice barely audible, “I understand if you can’t help me.” She had already done so much for me I couldn’t imagine asking for more. Scooting forward on the couch, I covered her fingers with mine and gave them a firm squeeze. “I know how angry Linc will be if he finds out you’re hacking again.”

At the mention of her older brother, she jerked out of my grip and narrowed her slate blue eyes. “Don’t even go there, Gem. The only way he’ll find out
anything
is if you tell him. And if you do, I’ll hurt you.” But she bit the corner of her lip teasingly. “Besides, I’m like Lisbeth Salander and Neal Caffrey mixed up in one big-boobed package. I’m not worried at all—at least not about myself.”

My eyebrow jerked up in confusion. “Neal Caffrey and Lisbeth Salander?” I purposely ignored her concern for me. Combined with my own doubts, they were probably enough to do me in.

“They’re—” Tilting her head to the side, she changed her direction and said, “You know what? They don’t matter right now.” She hooked her hand around my slim upper arm and drew us both to our full height, mine just a couple inches shy of her five-foot-six. It was a lame running joke between us that she was always two ahead of me—two months older, two cup sizes bigger, and two inches taller.

“What matters is that you need to get through E & T’s security, then march your ass to HR and pick up your badge—”

Every muscle in my body tensed as she essentially gave me a rundown of the message I’d received from the human resources director. “You
hacked
my email,” I groaned, palming the bridge of my nose for a few seconds. “Dammit, Pen, really?”

She stepped backwards, her thin silver bangles clanging together as she threw up her hands defensively. “Calm your tits, woman! I just logged into the Lizzie email. I mean, I set it up, remember?” At the shallow jerk of my head, she said, “Look, I’m just staying in the loop ... if you still want to go through with it, of course.”

“I’m
not
backing down.” Darting past her, I strode around the couch and across my open living room to the front door; my nude Michael Kors pumps a heavy drum on the laminate planks. Time was not on my side this morning, and arguing wouldn’t help.

Pausing at the table in the foyer, I glanced up at the framed mirror hanging directly in front of me. I caught Pen’s reflection—her arms crossed stubbornly over her chest and her Jolie-esque lips worked together in a frown—and I plastered on a self-assured smile.

“Whenever you ask me if I’m still going through with working at E & T to get closer to Margaret, you know I’m going to counter with this: I
have
to get into that company. I haven’t gotten anything done since I received that call, and I won’t accomplish much else until I get this out of my system.”

Her mouth parted in response, but I powered on. “I know the risk I’m taking. But I just need to know if there’s any truth to—” I gripped the table in support, the blunt angles digging into my palms. “My dad left me nothing. It hurt like hell then, but I brushed it off because I was a child. Now, I want to know why. It’s not about the money. I just need to know if something changed.”

“Just wanted to make sure.” Resigned, she snatched the remote from the ottoman and threw herself on the couch, her mid-back length hair hanging over the armrest. “You can do this.”

“I
can
. It’ll be simple,” I repeated while I examined my appearance one final time. I looked nothing like the little girl Margaret had last seen at my father’s funeral, and not all that much like the young woman her lawyer turned away seven years ago, but I was still terrified she would know. That she’d immediately spot the word
IMPOSTOR
branded all over me—from the straight blond hair that I’d worked into a sleek ponytail, to my heart-shaped face with its small nose and full cheeks, and finally my eyes. Brown with amber flecks—eyes that looked ... terrified.

For a damn good reason.

If this ended badly, if I was found out, so much ugly would be unleashed I couldn’t even stand to think about it without strings weaving tightly through my ribcage and suffocating me.

I could go to prison for this.

Smoothing back a nonexistent stray wisp of platinum hair, I spun away from the mirror. I faced Pen with my hands fisted by my side. She glanced up from the DVR’d episode of
Sleepy Hollow
and smiled encouragingly. “You have this. Get in there—”

“And take that bitch down,” I finished breathlessly, and she pumped her fist.

“That’s my girl. I’ll stick around for the day, just in case you need me. As long as you don’t mind, that is?”

Picking up my purse and keys, I shook my head. “Make yourself at home.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” She returned her attention to the TV, but before I left the apartment, she cleared her throat tentatively. Lowering my hand from the doorknob, I looked back at her.

“You’re not Gemma there. Don’t forget that,” she gently reminded. “You’re Lizzie.”

It was something I couldn’t forget. I’d crammed that reminder into my brain ever since she and I came up with this crazy, messy plan. My name was Lizzie Connelly, not Gemma Emerson. Gemma Emerson didn’t exist—at least, not where Lizzie was concerned.

Clearing the lump of hysteria from the back of my throat, I bobbed my head briskly, and Pen’s shoulders relaxed. “I remembered to be Lizzie a couple weeks ago when I met with HR, so you don’t need to worry. Besides, this’ll be
simple
.”

As I drove from the seaside Marina del Rey apartment in my leased Mini Cooper, I continued to tell myself that.

***

Up until a week and a half ago, I hadn’t stepped foot in Los Angeles since I was sixteen—when I hopped a Greyhound bus from Vegas with the intent of meeting with my stepmother. My parents had divorced when I was seven, and the moment everything was finalized my tall, dark-eyed mother had promptly departed the city with me in tow. She was a model, which was how she met my father, and at first, we moved wherever her work took her—New York, Miami, Chicago, but never back to Los Angeles. By the time I was thirteen, I’d lived in more places than most people visited in their lifetime, but I welcomed it.