Page 85 of Morally Black Betrothal

“His dad was a patient of mine at the hospital,” I said, practicing the speech I was going to have to give a thousand times over to Brendan’s friends, coworkers, and family. Brendan and I had agreed to stick to checkable facts as much as possible. Maybe love at first sight was a lie, but the rest of the story wasn’t. If I could convince my twin, maybe this would work. “I was watching over him when Brendan came to visit. We, um, connected. Quickly.”

At least I didn’t have to lie about that part either. Especially when I thought about the way Brendan had talked to me in the bar that one night, or when he had kissed me in this very apartment. The way his palms had molded around my waist, then to my backside while his tongue twisted around mine in a wicked embrace.

Good Lord, the man could kiss. Maybe he had a black heart, but there was a red-hot streak of passion running through him.

Even now, I found myself a bit short of breath.

Selena didn’t notice at all. “I guess that do-gooder crap finally paid off.” She examined another photo. “And he’s hot too? Damn, Simmy, you get all the luck. Money and a bod. He have any brothers?”

He did, but I certainly wasn’t going to mention them. “It’s not like that. I don’t care about his money. He’s a good person.”

Again, not a lie. Not completely. I had made a deal with Brendan for his money, yes, but I hadn’t initially talked to him because of it. Or let him kiss me because of it.

Or kissed him back, now that I was actually admitting things to myself.

He had tasted like strawberries. The sweet, small ones that fruit for a week at the beginning of June.

“Come on. You don’t like the money even a little?”

I ignored the question as I pulled out another dress from the back of my closet.

“Is that Mom’s?”

I turned around, the dress held up to my body. “Oh, um. Yes.”

The royal blue silk floated to my knees and was sprigged with white flowers. Not the fanciest thing in the world, but one of our mother’s favorites.

Selena studied the dress for a moment. “That’s the dress Mom wore on her first date with Daddy.”

“Oh, huh. You’re right, it is.” I did my best to pretend I wasn’t aware of that even though it was why I had tried on literally everything else in this closet until now.

When we were growing up, there had been a Polaroid pinned to our fridge showing our parents on that night. It was snapped in the back of Dad’s old pickup when he took Mom to a bonfire party on a neighbor’s farm. The fire had played off her laughing features and cast her caramel-colored hair with gold.

She had looked so beautiful, and both of them had looked incredibly in love and happy.

Something about wearing the dress tonight for a fake date felt very wrong.

And yet, right too.

It was all very confusing.

Selena’s blue eyes met mine, an uncanny mirror full of new awareness. “Wow. You must really be in love with him if you’re going to wear that.”

Something thick was lodged in my throat. But everything—everything—I was trying to do for my family relied on this moment. I didn’t want to lie to my sister, my twin. But I had to in order to save her.

It was that simple.

“Yeah,” I said just as softly. “I am.”

It wasn’t as hard to say out loud as I’d imagined.

In fact, it was downright easy.

Don’t fall in love, Brendan had said.

I wouldn’t. Iwouldn’t.

Not that I even knew what that felt like.