Zane, relieved beyond words, buried his face in Vicki’s neck and held on like he’d never let go.
CHAPTER 21
The last thing Vicki had expected was to hear Zane’s voice at the door, and the second-last thing she’d expected was for him to pour out a heartfelt apology to her brother’s girlfriend. For the first few seconds she’d been too surprised to move, and for the next minute or two after that, joy and relief had blossomed in her as he spilled all the explanation to a woman whom he’d never met before. Chris tried once to interrupt—so did Marguerite, for that matter—but Vicki waved him off, more interested in the apology than who he was delivering it to. Finally, as Zane started to peter out, Chrisdidinterrupt, and Vicki could almost audibly hear Zane nearly expiring of embarrassment.
That, she thought, was enough groveling for one apology. She ducked past her brother and into Zane’s arms, and knew, without a doubt, that she never really wanted to be anywhere else in her life. He held on so hard, still whispering apologies, until she stopped him with a kiss and whispered, “I didn’t believe anything bad at first, I really didn’t. It’s just, then I couldn’t get hold of you, and it all started to seem so awful, and…it’s okay, though. It’s fine. We’re okay. Come on in. Chris, I thinkyoushouldorder room service, Zane looks like he’s going to pass out.”
“Zaneisgoing to pass out,” Zane announced as Chris backed up and let them into his suite. “Zane is very, very confused. Zane is also going to stop talking about himself in the third person now. Why does she keep calling you—no, wait, I know your real name is Chris. I just forgot.How is Benton Sinclair your brother, Vicki? And why is his girlfriend in your dress?”
“Well, I didn’t want to wear it after all this, did I? And I knew Marge and I were the same size, so we thought we’d just switch dresses because Ialsowasn’t going to just slink away and not go to the ball because I wasn’t going to let you win—” Vicki tugged Zane to the sitting area of the suite, which had soft suede couches in delicious burnt oranges and deep browns, and sat with him while his gaze bounced from one person to another in confused delight.
“Start at the beginning,” he said hopefully. “Start with ‘Benton Sinclair is my brother.’”
Chris sprawled on the other couch—his incredibly dashing velvet coat was much more forgiving than the pink sheath dress Vicki was wearing—and laughed. “Stepbrother, technically. Our parents got married when we were kids.”
“You said that!” Zane said to Vicki, almost accusingly. “But you didn’t say your brother was Benton Sinclair!”
“Mybrotheris Chris Sinclair,” she said dryly. “‘Benton ‘my friends call me Ben’ Sinclair’ is a big shot Hollywood movie star, and I absolutely never would have begged him to come rescue me except in this exact situation, where having an A-lister sibling was the only thing that was going to distract the press from thecomplete humiliationof my sort-of-boyfriend?—”
“Definitely boyfriend,” Zane said, and Vicki beamed, but continued without stopping.
“—having hooked up with a starlet ten years younger than me.”
“I had no idea Nora had it in her,” Chris admitted. “She always seemed so sweet, on set.”
“Sure.” Marguerite sat beside Chris in a froth of skirts. “You were potentially useful to her. She’d never be nasty to you.”
“But brother!” Zane said. “Tell me! How?!”
“Mom and I kept her name when she and Dad got married,” Vicki said. “We’re Hawthornes. They’re Sinclairs.”
“And I was advised to change my name because there are so many Hollywood Chrises,” Chris said with a shrug. “So I chose Benton, after Dr. Benton in ER. He was my favorite character, and I thought ‘Benton Sinclair’ sounded really posh. Basically anybody who met me after I turned, what, twenty, Vic? Calls me Benton. Or Ben.”
“I think you were nineteen. You’d done those commercials, but when you got the part in EastEnders they told you to change your name. ‘Ben.’”
“That’s why you thought ‘my friends call me Ben’ was funny!” Zane said to Vicki, semi-accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Chris loves attention and I don’t! I’ve spent my whole lifenotdrawing attention to the fact that my big brother is a world-famous movie star! That’s actually part of why I came back to the States,” Vicki admitted. “All our friends back in London knew, obviously, and there were a bunch of skeezy types who kept trying to cozy up to me so they could get to Chris. Coming back here, though, I was just Vicki Hawthorne with no obvious connection to Star Captain.”
“I wasn’t Star Captain then,” Chris objected, but Vicki brushed it away, and he grinned in acknowledgement.
“And you—helicopter?!?”
Vicki actually felt a little sheepish, but Chris gave a belly laugh. “Look, when Star Captain’s little sister calls him in tearsasking to be rescued, you go all out, okay? The whole point was to be so flashy it would distract from you and Nora, so I hired a private helicopter and flew up. I only wish I actually had a pilot’s license so I could have Harrison-Forded it, but I’m not quite that cool.”
“He did, however, sign up for flying lessons on the flight,” Marguerite said with a grin. “So he’llbethat cool, eventually.”
“Nobody is that cool,” Chris disagreed. “But I’ll do my best. Anyway, so the plan was to bring Vicki to the ball and blow your little scandal out of the water, but, uh, look, not that I was eavesdropping or anything, but did you say you shouldn’t have doubted yourwolf?”
A look of pure panic came over Zane’s face, and Vicki, without missing a beat, said, “He’s a furry.”
Both Chris and Madge blinked at that, neither of them able to find words until Marguerite eventually said, “You must have afantasticfursuit.”
Vicki, straight-faced, said, “You have no idea,” and struggled not to laugh as Zane threw her a look that was equal parts grateful and dismayed. He obviously realized he was going to have to make a fursuit now, and Vicki honestly couldn’t wait to see it.
“Look, though.” Chris had a thoughtful expression as he frowned at the two of them. “Your lives are seriously incompatible. Is this thing, like, real? I mean, that apology sounded real.”
Vicki snuck her hand into Zane’s and nodded. “It’s real. And…I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she admitted with an ache in her chest. “You’re right. Our livesareincompatible. But we’ll have to figure something out.”
