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Air e

M y stomach lurched. I wanted to jump into the water and disappear. She caught me. She knew. What was she going to do? Tell Nolan? And then Nolan would ask for an annulment and cancel the deal. Grandfather would be angry at me and revoke his debt payments. And I will be broke again. The boat began moving. It seemed unsteady. Or was that in my head?

Darcy rushed over to me and caught me at the waist as I stumbled. She directed to the nearest chair, a loveseat. "Sit."I obliged, my knees giving way and buckling as I landed on the plush leather seat .

"Are you okay?"

She didn't sound confrontational. If anything, she looked concerned. I nodded. She drew back in the chair and looked me over, assessing with the same scrutiny she's shown before. "You look like her, though. Are you sisters or something?"

"Cousins." There was no use lying or trying to act in denial. She knew I was an imposter. Probably knew for quite some time.

"Still. Were your parents sets of twins? I could have sworn you were her twin."

I shook my head. "I had plastic surgery to look like her. Nothing much, just a rhinoplasty." As well as going on an excruciating diet.

Darcy frowned, peering closer. "I see it. But your cheekbones are different. Yours are better. When I first saw you, I thought that's what Aelin had changed. Funny that."

"A-Are you going to tell Nolan?"

Darcy's eyebrows shot up. "You're telling me he doesn't know?"

"No."

She sat back more animated than before. Crossing her arms and legs, she said. "Oh, that's interesting. So why are you," she waved around me, "pretending to be Aelin?"

Should I tell her? The cat was out of the bag, so was there any harm? "Aelin was supposed to marry him, but she ran away before my grandfather could make her do it. Currently, she's hiding in a rehab somewhere in Europe. Or at least that's what she said the last time I spoke to her."

Darcy leaned forward. "No way. And stepped into her place? Why not just marry him as…"

"Aire. Because she's the one who inherits the family fortune."

"Aire…" she tested the name on her tongue, then she frowned. "Are you sure you two are not twins?"

"We did look a lot alike. People used to mistake us when we were kids. But Aelin is a few months older than me."

"Wow. So why did you agree?"

I scoffed. "My grandfather promised me to take care of my student debt."

"Student debt? Should I ask… you know what? I won't. I've met a fair number of stingy billionaires to know those people love to dole out their money after being kissed in the butthole more than a few times. Let me guess, your parents did something to anger your grandfather, so he cut them off."

It was my turn to be surprised. "How did you know?"

She folded her arms confidently. "There's something different about you. You don't act like a typical snotty rich kid. You certainly don't act like a spoiled one, either. "

She was very astute. No wonder she caught me so earlier. "Are you going to tell people?"

"Oh no," she waved me off. "This isn't my story to tell. It's not like I care about Aelin anyway, and Nolan is a big boy. He can take care of himself. I have to say," she sighed. "I wanted to blow your cover today. It's the reason I even attended the race. Not a fan of boats in general. But after I saw you save Lake, I realized you're not the person I thought you were. You are certainly better than Aelin."

Relief washed over me. "Really? I thought you were friends with Aelin."

"Friends! Your cousin doesn't have friends , but we do see each other at Lake Trenwood. Hugh loves it there, and she's usually around whenever we vacation. Damn it."

"What?"

"Keeping your secret means I've just lost another bet."

***

"Are you okay?" Nolan asked for the third time. "We can have a doctor do a checkup on you to make sure you didn't catch pneumonia or something."

"I'm fine." His concern was touching. "Like I said before, I was only in the water for less than a minute. If anyone you should fuss over is the kid who drowned."

"He has two loving parents. He'll be fine."

"So am I." Minus the two loving parents. "So stop fretting." Nolan and I were standing at the far end of the aft deck of Darcy's yacht. Or should I say, Darcy's friend's yacht. Everyone had somehow congregated here and something of an impromptu celebration party had begun. Levi, Damien, Ivy and Nolan had been fussy when he saw me again. Asking if I was okay constantly. It was odd to have someone give me so much attention. I felt like I was a princess in a storybook. And after my talk with Darcy, my nerves had calmed. Now that I wasn't constantly worrying about her, she was a pretty cool person.

She and Thalia were on the other end of the deck, trying to pop a champagne bottle with a knife. Their attempt finally yielded a result when Thaliapopped the bottle and frothy wine shot out. They ran to Carey, who had his back to them while talking to Levi, and poured it on him. They all laughed at his shocked surprise. He turned on Thalia, took the bottle, and attempted to pour the rest of the contents on her, but she ran away laughing.

Nolan shook his head.

"What?"

"You know he wasn't like that before they were together. Heck, even after they were together. "

"Love changes people, I guess."

He scoffed. "Love is a fleeting emotion."

"You think it will fade?"

"He's obsessed with her, that's all. Has been ever since they were kids."

I shook my head. "You're too much of a cynic."

He tilted his head to the side. "And you believe in it? I've never taken you for a sentimentalist."

I've never questioned the concept before. "Everyone falls in love. Everyone has at least someone they love."

"And who do you love?"

"My mother. I loved her a lot."

"What happened?"

"She died in a helicopter crash."

His features softened. "Ay, I am sorry."

"It's fine." I wasn't the only one who lost someone that day. My father loved my mother so much that he was never himself. He took to the bottle and never let go. It was hard living with him and his alcoholism hadn't helped. A few years after the crash that changed our lives, he took his own life.

The cynicism that was there before returned. "And what about your father?"

I was about to tell him about the suicide until I stopped myself. Aelin and my mom had died in the same helicopter crash, but Aelin didn't have a father. Or at least her mom had not told the family who the father was. "I never knew him," I said, feeling crushing pain for lying about my father. But one could say I never knew my father. He had been different in his last days. Harsh. Angry and bitter. I turned the question on him to avoid my conflicted feelings.

"What about you? You can't say there's no one you love. Not even your mother."

"That's because you haven't met her. She only thinks of herself and how much money her son can give her. When she divorced my father, she gave away all her parental rights to my father for a larger divorce settlement. Then she married him again when the money ran out. If there was love in her heart, it disappeared a long time ago. So tell me, how can someone love a person like that?"

"That's…" I couldn't imagine someone selling off their child for money. No wonder he had a bitter heart. "And your father? Surely you loved him." As far as I recall from the few news articles I read about Nolan senior and junior, the father had groomed him from a young age to take over the company. Nolan's father had brought his son to work even when he was a child.

Nolan scoffed. "My father saw me as a continuation of his legacy, that's it."

No wonder he was a cynic. His parents failed him. "Fine. What about your siblings?"

His face changed, taken aback by the question. "That's different. They're family." Got him.

"So are your parents. "

Lazily, he took my hand and drew me to him. "Why are we even talking about my snooty family, anyway? Somewhere along the line, we got lost. I meant to say," he bent his head, our foreheads touching, "there's more to life than love. There are more interesting and pleasurable feelings than the overrated one."

My breath caught in my throat. "Like what?"

"Desire. Passion. Lust." He dragged each word, his eyes focused on my lips.

"Those are the same thing."

"Are they?" he caught my lips with his and kissed me with a hunger that turned my insides into knots. When he let go, I swayed, and I was sure I would have fallen if he wasn't holding me."That's desire." He kissed me again, this time his lips caressing, searching, his tongue dancing along my lips, making my knees buckle. My entire body responded to his kiss. His hands never wandered, nor did he let me move mine. He wanted me to lose my mind with just his kisses, and it was working. "That," he said against my lips, "is passion. And this."It was getting close to dusk and his face was illuminated by the golden sun, making him look like a bronze god. Blindly, I leaned forward for the next kiss, but it didn't come. Feeling frustrated, I asked, my voice almost a whisper, "And what is lust like?"

He drew back and let me go. A gust of wind passed by, rocking the water around us and cooling down my feverish body. "That you'd have to find out later. It's not necessarily a PG-13 lesson." I glanced around, remembering where we were, the screams of the children running around the yacht bringing me back to reality. Nolan had a knowing smirk that made me want to wipe off with a slap. Or with a kiss. Fuck this man for making me feel so hot and bothered in public.