Lisa Dyson - Resorting To The Truth

“Start talking.” When he finally spoke, his words confused Charlotte.

She shifted in her seat. “What would you like me to say?”

He laughed, a choking sound that lacked humor. He stood quickly and pounded a fist on his desk, making everything on it vibrate. Then he leaned in so close to Charlotte that she could differentiate the dark blue rings surrounding his lighter blue irises.

“We had an agreement.” He spoke slowly through gritted teeth, but his self-control was back.

“An agreement?” Maybe she could get him to elaborate.

“Don’t be coy. We both know you’re too conniving to play the innocent.”

Conniving. No one had ever called Charlotte that. “Maybe you can be more specific.” She kept her tone even, hoping to cajole rather than anger him. For some reason, she refused to blurt out she wasn’t Allie—maybe because the details were really none of his business.

“Specific?” He straightened to his full height and paced in the small space. He stopped behind his desk. “You want specific? I’ll give you specific. We agreed we’d never lay eyes on each other again in this lifetime.” He flattened both hands on his desk when he leaned over it, his eyes venomous. “Is that specific enough for you?”

Tears built behind her eyes. She fought them with every bit of self-control she possessed. No one had ever been this angry at her before. Even if Sam thought she was Allie, at this particular moment, his rage was directed at Charlotte.

“That’s easy to do.” She stood, head held high, smoothed her skirt and turned to leave his office.

“Sit down!” This time he shouted. “I ought to call Security and have them detain you until I can figure out how to get you off this island.”

She grabbed at the arms of the chair to steady herself and did as she was told. This was not the vacation she’d expected. Her heart pounded in her chest as she came to a decision. Maybe when he heard the truth, he would calm down. “I’m not who you think I am.”

He snickered.

“Really, I’m not Allie Miller.”

“So I’m supposed to believe you’re not Alley Cat—excuse me, Allie Miller—even though you look and sound exactly like her and you’re at an advertising conference?”

This wasn’t going well. “She’s my twin sister.”

“Ha! That’s a good one. Not as good as the scheme you came up with back in Charleston, but certainly worth hearing about.” He sat in his desk chair, leaned back with fingers laced behind his head and spoke to the ceiling. “Go on. This should be interesting.”

Scheme? What kind of scheme? Nothing Allie had shared with her. Charlotte sat dumbfounded.

“I’m waiting.” Sam’s tone made it clear he would brook no more deceit.

Where to begin? “My name is Charlotte, and Allie Miller is my twin sister.”

“Charlotte? As in ‘rhymes with harlot?’” His words burned her like acid.

“You’re being unfair, as well as rude.” She spoke as firmly as she was able. “Please let me explain before you pass judgment.”

He went back to contemplating the ceiling. “Go on.”

“Allie and I are identical twins who were adopted by two different families as newborns. We met a few months ago.”

Sam guffawed.

“It’s true.” Charlotte cleared her throat, needing to sound truthful to both Sam and herself. “Our birth mother delivered us in a prison hospital and her greedy lawyer brokered separate private adoptions. Neither of us knew we had a sister, let alone a twin.” But her mother knew. A stab in her heart from another direction.

“Nice touch, mother gave birth behind bars.”

“It’s the truth.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this, since he obviously didn’t want to believe her.

“Why are you here and not your other personality, I mean your ‘twin’?” His use of finger quotes was when her patience ended.

She stood, making herself as tall as possible, her neck straining at the effort. “That’s it. You have no right to keep me here. You don’t believe a word I’ve said, so I’m leaving.” She crossed the small office to the closed door.

Before she could grasp the handle, he dashed around the desk, knocking his chair back into the window ledge. He slapped his palm on his closed office door above her head.

She turned to confront him, not realizing how close he was. He hovered mere inches away. She placed her palm on his chest, planning to push him back.

Instead, she stopped when his warmth penetrated her hand, then spread up her arm and through the rest of her body. Confused, she gazed at him.

His pupils dilated. In that instant, crazy as it sounded, she knew his physical reaction mirrored hers.

Before she could protest, his mouth was on hers and his chest pressed her against the door. His kiss was angry. And erotic. Instead of fighting him, and without thinking, she slid her arms around his waist to the firm muscles of his back. She wanted him closer, as close as two people could get.

He moved his mouth to her neck, shoving her sweater from her shoulder to nibble on her bare skin. Then he hiked up her long skirt while his mouth traveled to nip sharply at her earlobe. He whispered, “Is this what you came here for, Alley Cat? To finish what you started in Charleston?”

* * *

THE WOMAN CALLING herself Charlotte struggled to push him away. Sam backed off at once. Reason had returned. What had gotten into him? His physical pull to her was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. But he’d never forced himself on a woman, and he wasn’t about to start now.

He walked to the window and leaned on the sill with both hands. The sun was a mere sliver from being completely set over the calm ocean.

His office door opened and closed. He didn’t need to turn around to know the woman was gone.

What was wrong with him? One minute he was angry, the next he was turned on. He’d never had that reaction to her back in South Carolina, although she’d tried her best to seduce him. That had been part of her plan. Keep him close so he wouldn’t figure out what she and her boyfriend were up to.

What kind of scam was she running now? Twin sister? He laughed. That wasn’t very inventive.

Why had she risked coming here? She had to know he’d be here. He’d been offered the promotion to manager at the Grand Peacock right before they’d agreed to steer clear of each other.

That had been what, four years ago? As assistant manager of the resort’s Charleston property, he’d been tasked to work with Allie. Back then, she worked for a small cosmetics firm out of Wilmington, Delaware. She made regular visits to the resort’s boutique that carried the cosmetics.

She’d come on to him soon after they met, insinuating she could be quite discreet. He hadn’t been attracted to her, and besides, he never got involved with business associates or resort guests. His goal to rise to the top within Blaise Enterprises came second only to his children.

Allie had taken his rebuttal in stride, leaving him perplexed and with a slightly bruised ego. Not until he discovered her real scheme did he ever think of her as anything but an attractive hustler trying to claw her way into power.

He went to his computer to see what he could find out about Allie, using her current alias. Was she using the same last name? She’d conveniently given him only a first name. He didn’t find anything under Charlotte Miller that fit the woman he had just met.

There was a knock on his office door.

“Come in.” Had she come back?

His assistant, Gayle, opened the door and stuck her head in. “Mr. Briton?” Her unexpected appearance outside his office was never a good sign.

“What is it?” Adrenaline made his skin tingle. Now what?