MisMatch (A Humorous Contemporary Romance) (26 page)

Something slithered down her back. She'd
done what she came to do. She had interrupted his painting session
after all—the man had a point, and him working was good for both of
them. They could discuss logistics later. “Uh, right, of course, I
wasn't thinking. I woke up, knew I'd almost lost you, and ran right
over. I didn’t think properly. I should have figured you'd be
working.”

“It's okay. I'm always happy to see you.
Give me an hour. I'll meet you at Sabella's. We'll celebrate
properly after I’ve had a shower.”

Her heart sank. “Yeah, okay.” Except that
wasn't okay. In the fucking movies, it was always so romantic. A
person realized they were an idiot and made a grand gesture, then
the other swept them up and they kissed and presumably made love
like bunnies, or like the way Eli had made love to her the other
day, like a caged animal who'd been let out of his pen. This Eli
was so contained, so aloof. Eli was restrained about everything
but
her.

“I’ll see you at Sabella's.”

“And Babes?”

There it was again. Eli didn’t call her
Babes. She ground her teeth. No, Izzy would tell her she was
looking for a reason to self-sabotage again. She got what she
wanted. Her gallery was saved, she had the hottest client, and she
had her man. “Yes, Samson?” She expected a flinch at the deliberate
use of his artistic name and nothing. He was in working mode, that
was all.

“You’ve made me so happy.”

She gave him a small smile. “Glad to hear
it. Hurry up.” She turned to go, then almost thought better of it.
She could give her man a kiss and not look like an idiot. Not
allowing her to second guess herself, she jogged right up to him,
flung her arms around his neck, and planted a kiss on him.

He stiffened, and she held on. If she wished
it hard enough, it would come true—she deserved it. His hands
hesitated at her waist before slowly looping around. His response
wasn’t the quick flash of heat, more of a confused yielding. She
drew her head back and stared at him. “Eli—”

“What the fuck is going on here?”

A shiver ran through her spine as Eli
immediately dropped her.

Jessica craned her neck, afraid of what
she'd see. Every fiber in her body told her what she already knew.
She wasn’t kissing her Eli. Her Eli was at the door, furious. She
knew his voice, his tone. But that meant she was kissing someone
who looked just like Eli. She shoved Samson away.

Shaking, she stared at Eli, then back at the
imposter, then back at Eli. “Something you forgot to mention,
asshole?”

He took a step toward her. “Sassy.”

“Shut the fuck up. There is no way to
explain yourself out of this fucking mess.”

“Jessica, wait, it's not his fault, I—” The
imposter reached for her, too.

“Oh, no you don’t, whoever the fuck you are,
nobody touch me.” She bee-lined straight for the door and ran as
fast as her Weitzman’s could carry her. Curse all those
spunky-chick-ass-kicking shows for making it seem like running in
heels was at all a possibility.

Her brain kept running the scenario of
does not compute
over and over again. The
same face, voice, mannerisms. Eli had even talked about his fucking
brother. She hadn’t thought to ask if they were twins, but who
thinks to ask that? Her stomach rolled,
oh no,
no, no, no, no
. She would not vomit on the sidewalk like
some still drunken walk-of-shamer.
Get your ass
in gear, sweetheart, or you’re about to have a very public
fight.

Unfortunately, stilettos and quick getaways
did not mix. She eventually stopped, tugged them off, and sprinted
toward her car.
Great, now you really look like a
walk of shame.
Unfortunately for her, Eli was a lot taller
and faster.

He caught up to her with ease. “Sassy—”

She whirled on him. “Don’t you dare.”

He put up his hands. “Okay. Sorry, Jessica.
Shit, I'm so sorry.”

She yanked open her car door and threw her
useless shoes inside. “What part are you sorry about? That you did
it, or that you got caught?”

“Sassy, I'm sorry. I never should have let
it go on this long. It was an innocent mistake the first time. Then
Samson asked me to go in his place, and it wasn’t supposed to
happen, and I thought I’d never see you again, and we obviously, we
uh, the chemistry thing, so I couldn’t stay away. Then I thought
you would stop helping Samson, and he needed this break, and I kept
digging the hole and digging the hole, and I tried to tell you last
night, and then you broke up with me. I never thought I'd find you
with him.”

The last part of his sentence came out on a
growl. He reached for her.

“Don’t you put your hands on me! Who the
fuck was I kissing?”

Eli shoved his hands in his pockets, tipped
his head back and slammed his eyes shut. “That was my brother,
Samson, the artist.”

“You’d be surprised how often I have to ask
this question. Who the fuck are you?”

“I'm Eli, his twin.”

She started waving her arms around. “Yeah, I
gathered that.” Enlightenment dawning, she smacked her forehead.
“That was you that day in the studio when I came to see his work.”
Furious, she narrowed her eyes at Eli. “Have I been sleeping with
both of you? Do you tag out when one of you is too tired?”

“Sassy stop. Sam tried to play match maker.
I didn't realize how we'd be together. I thought I’d have better
control.”

“You freaked out on me when I called you
Samson.” She watched as his jaw worked.

“I couldn't stomach you kissing me and using
his name.”

“So you lied. Instead of coming clean then,
you lied.” She tried to climb into her car.

He held on to the door frame. “Jess, you
have to listen to me. I'm so sorry. Shit. I wish…fuck. I never
should have lied.”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.” Smacking his
hands off the door frame, she slammed the door shut. “Just my luck
that I still need you for the gallery opening. But I’ll be getting
you another point of contact. You and I are done.”

“Any luck finding her?”

Eli paused abruptly in his doorway, keys
still in the lock. In his living room, perched on his sectional,
sat his brother. Eli tossed his keys on the sideboard and made his
way into the kitchen. He grabbed two sodas before joining Samson.
He didn’t sit, but tossed one of the sodas in Sam's direction.
Samson caught it one-handed.

“No. She's not in Malibu, and she's not at
her mother’s. I can’t find her.” He glared at his brother. “You
want to tell me what you’re doing here? How'd you get in?”

Sam nodded and hung his head as he played
with the tab of the can. “Already forgot you gave me the key to
this place? Nice.” Then more contrite, he added, “Damn, Eli, I'm
sorry I let shit get so fucked up for you. I feel completely
responsible.”

Eli cracked his neck. As much as he would
like to blame Samson for all the trouble he was in, Jessica was
right; he could have pulled the plug at any time. Could have told
her the truth from the start, but he didn't. He'd made the choices
not to. “Yeah, well, it's not your fault. I fucked it up every way
I could think of.”

Samson narrowed his eyes. “You going to do
the Atlas bit here? You put everything on your shoulders again,
man?”

Eli barked out a mirthless chuckle. “Nope,
this time I'm going to share some of the blame.”

“Eli, I'm so fucking sorry I kissed her. I
shouldn’t have, and I didn't at first, but then I was still so
fucking mad at you for thinking I'd relapse like that and not call
Jocelyn or you. It sucked. And there she was kissing me, and it
sort of happened.”

“It sort of happened? Story of your fucking
life. You know what? Fuck you, Samson.”

“No, fuck you, Elijah. It’s not like I
wanted this to happen.”

“Yeah, your favors have a way of costing
me.”

Sam pushed to his feet and glared. “Dude,
ever since we were kids, you had this way about you. Like you
always had to take care of me or something. Maybe you should have
let me figure some things out for myself.”

“Oh, yeah, and stood by while that landed
you in the morgue?”

Samson scrubbed at the day-old beard growing
in on his jaw. “I will always be grateful to you for saving my
life, but it's my life. You have to let me live it. You’re not
responsible for my future. You’re not responsible if I fuck up.
You're not responsible for getting me my next job. You don’t have
to hold it all together. If I fall down, I’ll get back up. That's
kind of the thing about recovery. I have to learn how to get back
up.”

“Enough, Samson.”

“No, not enough, Eli. You keep thinking it's
your job to keep me out of trouble, and it's not. Let me fail if
I'm going to fail.”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because it's my fault you ended up where
you did. I was supposed to look out for you, and I didn't. I was a
jealous and self-centered little shit. When I looked up, you were
already so far gone. I should have helped you sooner. All those
times you called, and I was too busy with my own shit.”

Sam let his arms fall to his sides as he
shook his head. “No, Eli, the only person to blame was Dad and
myself. You had nothing to do with it. The old man fucked me up bad
not being able to see you or Mom. You weren't responsible for the
divorce. You weren’t responsible for him being a gambling addict
and con man. You have to let that shit go. It's been eating you
alive for too long.”

Eli swallowed around the lump in his throat.
“There has to be something I could have done differently.”

“No. Everything that happened was supposed
to lead me to this spot. I'm alive and painting and happy. I have
you, my family, and that's all that matters. I don’t want to look
back. I don’t want you eating yourself alive trying to protect me
anymore. You should have told Vince as soon as you suspected I'd
forged the paintings. You’re putting your career in jeopardy to
save my skin. It's like when you tried to claim you’d done the
forgeries so it would keep me out of jail. You have to stop.”

Eli flinched. He was exhausted. When the
Feds had come to his house to question him and his mother about
Samson, it had been a knee-jerk reaction to claim the paintings as
his. He’d tried to say they were for a project. He hadn’t counted
on the agents testing him. He didn’t have Samson’s skill and he’d
failed the test. “I should probably tell you that I'm getting
closer to figuring out what's going on.”

“That would be great news if I thought you
had some back up. Look, I didn't kick heroine and that other shit
just to watch you get taken out by some scum. Did you tell
Vince?”

Eli nodded. “He's on it, but I had a run in
with Jessica’s step-dad to be. He knows about your past.”

Samson didn’t even flinch. “Any idea how he
found out?”

“Not a clue. But the douchebag was
suggesting that I might want to start playing nice with him if I
wanted to keep my new career. I've got vice pulling his prints now.
I know we know him from somewhere. I just wish I could place his
fucking face.”

“You’ll figure it out. In the meantime, are
we good?”

“We’ll get there.”

“Fair enough. Look, about Jessica. I wasn’t
really trying to kiss her. For what it's worth. She loves you, Eli.
Not me.”

Pain radiated in Eli’s chest. “Well, up
until twenty-four hours ago, she thought we were the same
person.”

Sam shrugged before levering himself back
onto the couch. “Not exactly. When she came to the studio
yesterday, and I tried to get her out of there so I could call you,
she knew right away that I wasn’t you. She kept looking at me funny
and eventually stopped calling me Eli and started calling me
Samson.”

“You’re saying she knew?”

“Not exactly, but she knew something was
off. At the very least, she probably thought you had dissociative
personality disorder or something.”

Eli huffed out a breath. “Great, she thought
I was crazy.”

“Well, crazy or not, she told me and I
quote, ‘I love my Eli.’”

Sassy
. Shit, the
lump in his throat started morphing from golf ball into beach
ball.

“You really don't have any idea where she
is?”

“I’ve looked everywhere I can think of.
There’s always the chance that her friend Izzy is lying, and
Jessica is there, but her car isn’t in Malibu.”

Sam raised a brow. “How do you know her car
isn’t in Malibu?”

“I had Vince run a GPS tracer on it.”

“Dude.”

“What? It's not like I’m stalking her. She
told me she had GPS installed in case the thing ever got stolen. So
I had him hack her GPS...” He let his voice trail. “Okay, so I’m a
little bit of a stalker.”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” Sam grinned. “It's good
to see you like this. Not so buttoned-up”

Eli rolled his shoulders. “I'm not
buttoned-up. Didn’t you hear? I’m an artist.”

Sam grinned. “That's right. My brother, the
sculptor. I want to commission a piece, by the way, to replace the
one you sold out from under me.”

“Bullshit, you put it into the exhibition so
it would sell.”

Sam shrugged. “Maybe. But you have to admit
that you are an artist. Maybe I got more attention for it when we
were kids, but you were every bit as talented. You weren’t nearly
as outspoken or brash. You preferred to sit with your clay and
quietly build stuff.”

“You ran around the house with a paint brush
screaming, ‘look at me.’”

“Hey, we each have our talents.” Sam nursed
his soda. “So what are you going to do about Jessica?”

“Find her. Explain. Beg her to forgive
me.”

“You really love her, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You should see the look on your face when
you talk about her.”