Something inside my brain hiccups like I’m having déjà vu.
And not because I keep repeatingdoggy daycare.
There’s something about Mr. Cartwright that feels familiar and wrong.
I swallow thehe’s going through a phase where if I’d left him at home, he’d have eaten my dirty laundryexcuse that my new boss doesnotwant to hear, and instead, dive back into the script I’ve rehearsed in my head ten thousand times since I found out my cousin sold our family café. “Mr. Cartwright, can I ask why you bought Bean & Nugget? My family is grateful for the problems you’ve solved for my cousin, but we were surprised since we’d never heard of you before.”
He doesn’t answer me right away.
Instead, he stares at me like I’m the world’s largest idiot, which I can see more and more clearly as the lights in the dining room come up.
And as my eyes register what my brain’s been trying to tell me, heat starts at my nape and travels up and over my scalp, down my forehead and nose, and leaves me sweating in my cheeks while my jaw unhinges itself.
Yay, playtime!my vagina cheers.
She’s a little primitive. Definitely not picking up on the vibes he’s throwing down. She’s only remembering what he did in that bed. And against that wall. And in that bathroom.
“Duke?” I choke out.
Oh, no.
Oh, no no no no no.
My brain tries to tell me what’s going on here while simultaneously telling me that this isn’t possible.
It’shim.
His hands.
Large hands.
Long fingers.
The voice.
The déjà vu.
I know him.
I know him.
But unlike the man I knew briefly in Hawaii, this man has no warmth.
Not like he had in Hawaii.
And his eyes—he stares at me with flat, unamused blue eyes and a grumpy scowl lingering on his lips. No dimple. No fun. Not even the slightest hint at that occasionalawkward.
I try to shut my mouth and I can’t.
My Hawaiian one-night stand is sitting in the chair where my new boss is supposed to be.
“How do you know about Duke?” Zen asks somewhere behind me.
Wait.
Wait. “Oh my god, you’re not Duke. You’re his twin! Are you the good twin? You can’t be the good twin. He was the good twin. He didn’t tell me he had a twin. But how—why—”
Zen chokes on air.
