Skating With The Wrong Twin

Chapter 5 Isla's Pov

Why the hell am I here? I wondered as I looked around the bar where I was.

The bar sat on the wrong side of town beneath a flickering red sign, wedged between a closed pawnshop and a laundromat with cracked windows. Rain slicked the pavement. Cigarette smoke clung to the doorway. Every sensible instinct I had left told me to get back into the cab and return to Tessa’s apartment.

But the voice from the phone would not leave my head.

My brother is using you.

And you are in danger.

Brother.

That word had dragged me here.

When I pushed the door open, the bar was dim, narrow and almost empty. Bad music hummed from old speakers. Men with hard eyes looked up, decided I was either trouble or attached to it then looked away.

I found him in the back booth.

For one suspended second, my body thought it was Cade.

Same height. Same broad shoulders. Same dark blond hair. Same hard jaw. Same grey eyes watching me from beneath a low-hanging lamp.

Then he smiled. And I knew he was different.

Cade’s mouth moved like it had to be forced into softness. This man’s smile was sharper. Dirtier. A little too pleased with danger.

“Isla Bennett,” he said. “You look just like your pictures.”

I stopped beside the booth. “That is not comforting to know, you know.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Who are you?”

He relaxed his body back. “Vaughn Harrington.”

My throat tightened. “Harrington.”

His smile widened. “Cade did not tell you he had a twin?”

I said nothing.

“Of course not.” Vaughn lifted his glass. “Prison records tend to complicate the golden boy image.”

“Golden boy?” I laughed dryly. “Your brother is famous for breaking people.”

“Publicly, yes.” His eyes moved over my face. “Privately, people still forgive men like him.”

I slid into the booth across from him, keeping my bag in my lap and my phone in my hand.

“You said I was in danger.”

“You are.”

“From Cade?”

“From everyone around him.”

“That is conveniently vague, I must tell you.”

“That is because you are still deciding whether to run, scream or throw that glass at my face.”

My eyes dropped to the water glass.

He smiled. “See? I’m learning you already.”

“Talk.”

Vaughn dropped a folder onto the table and the sound made my pulse jump.

He tapped the folder. “Open it.”

I did.

The first photograph showed Cade outside a restaurant months earlier, snow gathered near the curb. He was facing a woman in a cream coat.

It was Vivian.

My hand froze in shock.

The next photo showed Cade and Vivian in a hotel lobby.

Another showed them sitting close in a private restaurant corner.

Another showed Vivian touching Cade’s arm.

“These were taken before Marcus’s injury,” Vaughn said.

I shook my head but the denial was useless. Cade had been the monster on the ice. Vivian had been my family’s rot. What were they doing together ? I wondered hazily.

Vaughn drew his body forward. “My brother has been circling your family for over a year. That hit on Marcus? Planned. Your one-night stand?” His eyes darkened. “I doubt that was spontaneous too.”

The hotel room flashed through my mind and I gritted my teeth as I asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because whatever Cade is planning will hurt you.” His smile vanished. “And I am tired of cleaning up his messes.”

“That sounds noble of you,” I said dryly.

“I’m not noble.”

“Trust me, we actually agree on that.”

Something like amusement flickered in his eyes. Then he slid another photo across the table.

“Then maybe this will interest you.”

The photograph showed Cade entering a fertility clinic.

The date stamp was from two months ago.

Another showed him leaving the same building.

Another from one month before.

Another from three months earlier.

My fingers went numb.

“Why does a single hockey player need fertility treatments?” Vaughn asked softly as I looked at the photos.

The room tilted and my hand moved to my stomach before I could stop it.

Vaughn saw the contact immediately and his expression changed at once.

“Oh f**k,” he said.

I snatched my hand away and looked at him morosely.

He stared at me. “You’re pregnant.”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed despite my denial. “Does Cade know?”

I stood, my legs unsteady. “This was a mistake.”

“Isla.”

“I’m leaving.”

The bar door slammed open just then. And every head turned.

Cade Harrington stood in the entrance, rain darkening his black coat, fury carved into every line of his face.

Seeing both men in one place made my mind stumble.

Cade at the door.

Vaughn in the booth.

The same face split into two different dangers.

Cade’s eyes locked on me first. Then on Vaughn.

“Get away from her,” he said with a growl.

Vaughn leaned back, delighted. “Look who finally arrived.”

“I said get away from her.”

“Relax. I was only introducing myself to your fake girlfriend.” Vaughn’s gaze cut to me. “Or is she fake?”

Cade crossed the room with the kind of contained violence that made men at nearby tables lower their eyes.

“Outside,” he said to me.

“No,” I said steadily even though I didn't feel anything like it.

His jaw flexed. “Isla.”

“You do not get to order me around.”

Vaughn laughed softly. “She learns fast.”

Cade turned on him. “Shut up.”

“Or what? You’ll hit me in public too?”

The air sharpened just them

Standing between them, I finally saw the difference between both men.

Cade’s violence was locked behind discipline so tight it looked like coldness.

Vaughn’s violence smiled bright and fierce and unconfined.

Cade reached for my arm, then stopped himself before touching me.

“Whatever he told you is a lie,” he said. “He is a con artist and a convicted felon.”

“See?” Vaughn said, delighted. “He always leads with the prison part when he wants people to forget he lies better than I ever did.”

I looked at Cade.

“Were you at that hotel bar because of me?” I asked him.

Cade went still.

That was answer enough, I thought as pain shot through my heart.

My chest tightened. “What did you do?”

“Isla,” he said quietly.

“No. Tell me.”

Vaughn leaned forward. “He means nothing in your life is as accidental as you keep pretending.”

Cade moved like lightning.

One second, Vaughn was smiling.

The next, Cade had him by the collar, half-dragged across the table. Glasses tipped. The folder slid to the floor. Photographs scattered across sticky wood.

“Say one more word,” Cade said with a growl.

Vaughn grinned up at him. “There he is.”

I looked at them, while wondering how in hell I had gotten here.

“Stop!” I suddenly shouted and both brothers stopped to look at me.

“I am done,” I said after exhaling deeply.

Cade released Vaughn slowly.

“Isla—”

“No.” My voice shook. “The deal with you is off.”

Cade’s face changed to that of terror. “You do not understand what that will cost.”

“I understand exactly that men like you think women should pay for your secrets.”

After saying that, I turned toward the exit.

Then Vaughn spoke casually,

“The baby is not his, by the way.”

I stopped just then even as the bar went quiet. Slowly, I turned.

Cade’s face had gone utterly still with fear.

Vaughn looked at me, then at his brother, and smiled with vicious satisfaction.

“Cade is infertile. Has been for three years, since an accident.” His eyes dropped to my stomach. “So either you cheated on Marcus with someone else that night, or…”

He let the sentence hang.

Cade’s voice came quietly just then. “What baby?”

I didn't really hear him. The room had seemed to disappear right in front of me. All I could see was Cade’s face beneath the dirty neon light.

It was white and filled with astonishment at what Vaughn had said.

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed. It was from an unknown number. A video file appeared on the screen and my hands felt distant from my body as I opened it.

The footage was from inside the hotel room.

The angle was high, hidden, obscene.

There was white sheets. My body beneath a man’s. His face was turned away.

Then he lifted his head and a mirror caught his reflection.

My breath stopped as I looked at the reflection.

The reflection did not have Cade’s scar.

It did not have Cade’s stillness.

It was Vaughn.

Somehow, impossibly, cruelly, I knew it was Vaughn in that mirror, in that hotel bar.

Then a message appeared beneath the video before I could comprehend what I was seeing.

Surprise, sweetheart. You slept with the wrong brother. And now you are carrying my baby. We should talk about custody.

My knees gave out.

The last thing I saw before the floor rushed up to meet me was Cade turning on Vaughn with murder in his eyes.