Page 2 of Taken by the Twins (Sombra Demons #7)

CHAPTER 2

NEW YEAR’S EVE

TANDY

W henever Jared Turner starts texting me out of nowhere, I immediately have this need to check and see what my old friend Sierra’s up to.

It’s been like that ever since the two of us—Jared and me—fucked-up our lives so badly, we both lost something super important to us. For me, it was my spot as a member of the all-girl singing group Thr33peat. And, of course, Jared’s relationship with Sierra was over the second he convinced me that she’d grown too successful for his level of fame as a boybander, and that he chose me over her.

It’s been twelve years since I stupidly, stupidly believed him. Twelve years since I fell into bed with one of my best friend’s boyfriends, and twelve years since my life imploded for the first time, but definitely not the last.

I loved him. Stupid to admit it after how everything went down, but I did once. With Sierra working toward becoming Whiskey Rose, I knew our days as ‘One’, ‘Two’, and ‘Three’ were numbered. She was going to break out and go solo, and already believing I was being left behind, I turned to Jared. He turned to me. We ‘fell in love’, only I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who really did.

I was twenty then. My rep as the sultry redhead with the soprano voice only got worse when news broke that I slept with Sierra’s long-term boyfriend behind her back.

I was the slut. The homewrecker. The replacement.

Sierra’s career took off almost right away. She wrote a song after she dumped Jared, and once ‘Heart Barely Used’ went, like, triple platinum, everyone in the fucking world knew who Whiskey Rose was.

She’s the most famous popstar of our generation. And Tandy Lewis? I’m the most infamous tramp in our circle.

I’m thirty-two now. Once Sierra became Whiskey and Jared regretted getting some side action, he’s spent the last twelve years chasing her. He wants her back desperately, though he’ll never admit he will, and whenever he starts chasing me again, the reason why inevitably leads back to her.

I have a party to get ready to go to. Christmas when you’re on tour—no friends, no family, and decade-old gossip still following you wherever you go—really sucks. My hotel has a Christmas tree in the lobby and old-fashioned carols piped in through the halls, but that was the extent of my celebration. I got drinks with a couple of girls in the show on Christmas Eve, but when Moira—a one-hit wonder who peaked five years ago—asked me if I have had a threesome with Jared Turner and Whiskey Rose, I paid my part of the tab and went back to an empty room.

That wasn’t the plan. Though I’ve never been able to outrun that rep, it makes finding a bedmate for the night pretty damn easy. My ‘fuck me’ green eyes and styled red hair—as natural as my tits, thank you very much—has never left me alone in bed for long, but considering Jared Turner was my last real relationship… yeah.

And now, a week later as I get ready to try again for New Year’s, that rat is slinking out of the shadows again.

Jared T (don’t answer)

Hey, babe. You got a date for New Year’s?

I’m in town through the third and got a night off. What do you think?

I miss you, Tandy.

I miss that ass. That mouth.

Baby, please.

Call me.

No, thanks.

Though, I have to say, like most everything else that’s gone wrong in my life, Jared’s whining and pleading is my fault. I used to joke that, once a guy got a taste of Tandy Lewis, he could never get over me. I tend to linger in their memories, like they’re wondering if sex with me was just that good. It would explain the handful of exes that didn’t take it all that well when I inevitably dumped them, though that might also be because they rarely saw it coming.

I have this thing with commitment. As in, I don’t ever expect it, and I’m not about it. I could blame Jared for that, for how he promised me the world after Sierra ended things for good with him, and for how he didn’t keep any of those promises. I thought I loved him. Obviously, I was wrong, but when Jared didn’t even have the decency to dump me before he moved on to his next conquest, it messed me up.

And I know that you can’t expect much from a playboy like Jared Turner. Like, once a cheater, always a cheater, right? I helped him betray Sierra, even though I honestly believed at the time that the two of them had broken up before I ever fell for any of Jared’s cheesy come-on lines. It was probably just karma that Jared cheated on me with Molly May, the nineteen-year-old supermodel, while Thr33peat was in the middle of disbanding.

But it’s twelve years later mow, and as much as I want to believe that Jared still holds a torch for me, I know better. As though both of us are still stuck in the heyday of our teenage years, Jared is absolutely obsessed with Sierra. Between being proud that her break-out hit, ‘Heart Barely Used’, was written about him, and secretly aggravated that—as her alternate persona, Whiskey Rose—she became untouchably famous after they broke up, he’s determined to win her back.

Sometimes it works. Gossips in our circle always start whispering whenever Jared and Sierra have another of their random hook-ups over the years, but despite the occasional invite into her bed, Sierra has never invited him back into her life, and that frustrates the hell out of him.

That makes me the fallback guy. What’s worse is that, over the years, I’ve been desperate enough to fuck him when I had no one else. He’s never come out and said that I’m the backup plan when Sierra’s avoiding him, but when it’s obvious, it’s obvious—and tonight, it’s obvious .

Of course he needs a date for New Year’s. If I thought my need to get laid to compensate for my overwhelming loneliness was bad, that’s nothing compared to Jared. He, at least, has some level of success. Me? I’m the most famous has-been there is these days, even if I’m trying to make something of myself.

And that does not include starting my new year full of regret. Fucking Jared Turner out of pure desperation? It might feel good in the moment, but I’ll definitely regret that on January 1st.

So instead of answering him, I leave the horndog on read.

The party I got a last-minute invite to starts at nine. It’s the sort of shindig that you don’t show up on time to, so though it’s about eight-thirty now, I was just finishing up my make-up and checking to make sure that the little black dress I bought on clearance was perfectly revealing when Jared’s first text came through.

There’s time to at least humor my own curiosity. Closing the messages app and flicking open my search engine, I type in ‘Whiskey Rose’ and wait to see that she’s singing live tonight in Times Square, or that she’s been named the number one pop singer by Billboard for the third years in a row, or her latest movie made billions?—

Holy shit.

Sierra is pregnant ?

Everywhere I’ve gone these last few days, all I see is red.

Well, red and green, but that makes sense. I’ve been in Manhattan since the beginning of December, headlining this nostalgia show one of the midtown clubs run four nights a week—and twice on Saturday—to sucker in all the cash from the increased number of tourists who visit the city for the holiday season. As a former member of the hit girl group, Thr33peat, I have the prestigious position of closing out the show, singing a couple of our old hits with the help of a few backup singers.

It’s New Year’s Eve. It takes me longer to get across town than I want it to, but that’s to be expected. The ball drops at the stroke of midnight so that all of New York can celebrate ringing in the new year. It’s crawling with those same tourists, and though my home base in central Jersey these days, I like to think of myself as a city girl at heart.

I know the tricks. I know the shortcuts. I sure as hell know how to get to the Dorado, though I’ve only been here a handful of times.

Sierra has the entire floor below the penthouse. A building full of celebrities, if it wasn’t for the fact that Billie Bickles—‘Two’ in Thr33peat, another one of my best friends, and the only one who gave me the tiniest benefit of the doubt that I wanted to hurt Sierra when I hooked up with Jared—invited me in before while Sierra was busy, I’d never have known how exclusive of an apartment building it is.

Billie is Sierra’s manager these days. The two are crazy close, and Billie made it clear that she will choose Sierra’s side no matter what. At the same time, she fucking hates Jared, and once I presented my side of the story, she at least didn’t hate me .

Then the strangest thing happened. About six months or so ago, last summer when I was taking a break between the two cruise tours I’d been hired on at to sing, Sierra reached out to me.

Honestly? After twelve years, I never thought she would talk to me again. I wouldn’t blame her, either. Whatever my reasons were at the time, the truth is that I did fuck her boyfriend. When it came out that Jared hadn’t quite ended things with her while he was sleeping with me, she dumped him and I… I didn’t. We stayed together until Jared moved on to the next girl, and by the time I realized how much I messed up, she refused to hear me out.

I would’ve done the same thing. Oh, I tried to explain—but how could I? I was wrong. I’ve paid the price for it a million times over now, watching Whiskey Rose soar while Tandy jumped from gig to gig, guy to guy, all while carrying around the black mark of what I’d done as a reckless twenty-year-old kid.

And then Sierra reached out through Billie, and though she invited me to sit down with her at her place, meet face to face in the privacy of her fancy apartment in the city, I couldn’t bring myself to go.

Part of that had to do with most of the publicity surrounding Sierra. About two years ago or so, some whackjob tried to go after her with a gun. Then she had a very public meltdown on her latest tour before disappearing from the public eye for a while at the end of last year.

Since then, she’s come back with a vengeance. She starred in her third movie, won all these awards, and started prep on her next album. I couldn’t imagine why now, out of nowhere, she felt like we needed closure or to work things out, but I came up with excuse after excuse to avoid meeting in person.

We talked on the phone. I finally got the chance to apologize, she seemed to accept it, and though there wasn’t any scuttlebutt about her having a man after another one of her crazed fans broke into her apartment, she must be a pro at hiding her private life because, right there as part of Pop News’s breaking story, was a picture of a visibly pregnant Sierra.

It had to be snapped by a pap. She’s walking down the street, with our old head of security Roy right at her elbow, and it doesn’t matter that she’s wearing a coat to ward off the December chill. She’s got a bump, and I have questions.

Is it my business? Of course not. But we were the best of friends growing up. From fifteen to twenty, we were closer than sisters. Nearly every black mark on my record—in this country and countless others—is because I did something with Sierra that Billie always ended up rescuing us from. So we had a falling out. In the last few months, it almost seemed like we were friends again.

For fuck’s sake, Sierra even sent me a Christmas card to the club where I’ve been performing these last few weeks. Of course she was too busy to catch the hour-long performance, but a card signed by Sierra Landry—hand-signed, too, not a replication—has to count for something, right?

And now I discover she’s pregnant because Jared is freaking out. She’s pregnant and she didn’t tell me?

On the downtime during those long ago tours, we would talk about what our future husbands and children would be like. As far as I knew, Billie’s latest relationship ended badly and she’s off communing with nature or some shit to get over it. Sierra’s tete-a-tetes are worldwide news nowadays, but at least I’m pretty sure she hasn’t secretly gotten married.

Me? I’m perennially single, with no hope of having any kids unless my birth control fails—and I’m careful enough that that will never happen.

But Sierra… maybe it’s the loneliness of the recent holiday getting to me. Maybe it’s my new year resolution to make amends with Sierra, find a steady job, and maybe search for a real relationship instead of another fling… whatever it is, I don’t head toward the party I’m supposed to be going to. Instead, I make my way to the Dorado.

I might have fallen out of the limelight over the last couple of years, but I still have connections. My face is still pretty recognizable. And, sure, I expect to be reminded of my youthful indiscretions whenever someone figures out that I’m the Tandy Lewis, but after talking to the night doorman and concierge at Sierra’s building, none of that is necessary.

He takes one look at me, nods, and says, “Evening, Ms. Lewis. Take the elevator on the left. Go straight up. Ms. Landry has been expecting you.”

She has ?

I’m not the type to look a gift horse in the mouth. If that guy thinks Sierra’s going to be pleased I’m dropping in unannounced on New Year’s Eve without an express invitation, I’m not going to be the one to correct him.

Taking his advice, I tuck my clutch under my arm and press the ‘up’ button. Stepping inside the mirrored elevator, I fluff my hair as I make my way to the top.

The elevator deposits me in a narrow hall that leads to Sierra’s front door. I form a fist, ready to knock, then remember that the man at the desk said she’s waiting for me. I’m still surprised by that, but even more surprised that the famous Whiskey Rose is staying home on New Year’s freaking Eve.

Grabbing the knob, I turn it. My eyebrows wing up.

The door’s unlocked.

Weird. I guess, since the Dorado has a doorman and a concierge down below, Sierra doesn’t worry about security. The elevator needs to be keyed in to get to her floor, so even if one of the other residents decided to go around and check if the doors were open, they couldn’t. In that case, she could leave it open if she wants—which makes it easier for me.

Letting myself into the apartment, telling myself that Sierra would expect nothing less from Tandy Lewis—who could’ve tried calling her but, nope, she made an unexpected appearance instead—I walk in.

“Hello?”

No answer.

My heels clack against her floor. I raise my voice. “Sierra? Billie? You guys here?”

Still nothing.

None of the lights are on. I find one switch and flip it. The room off of the hallway is a fancy living room, complete with a chaise lounge and a mantelpiece full of every sort of award an entertainer in my industry can win.

No Sierra, though.

Just in case, I step into the room. Looking around, I double-check that she’s not hiding in a corner—I don’t know why, it makes sense at the time—before I turn, ready to see if she’s hanging out in the kitchen.

However, right as I do, something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye.

What’s that?