Randall tipped his head to one side. “Some of the…suggestions are more compelling than others.”
“Like what?” she prodded, feeling more irritated than anything else. The producers were making something out of nothing. She turned back to see if Duke had come out of the beach house yet; he was probably furious.
“Some people have taken clips from the Lion’s Den,” Randall said, “and placed them side-by-side with footage from the wedding. They say Duke’s dimple is more noticeable than Zander’s. Their voices are almost impossible to distinguish, but they speak differently, you know? The words they use…the way they carry themselves. That type of thing.”
Kat studied Randall as a realization came to mind. “You think they’re right.” It came out in a whisper.
He shrugged, tugged at his vest a little more. “I think they have a good case,” he said. “Which is why we’re here. To see what he has to say about it.”
“He’s going to be mad,” Kat assured. “It’s bad enough that perfect strangers are accusing him of lying. But you guys?” She shook her head and came to a stand. “I better go see how he’s doing.”
Sure, she hadn’t had a lot of time to sort out what Randall had shared, but she didn’t need it. Unlike everyone on that social media page, Kat had spent every waking moment with Duke. Heck, they’d only just declared their love for one another. She would know if he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
“Why don’t you wait for them to finish up in there,” Randall hollered from behind.
But Kat only walked on. Marsha Langford could be a real shark. She was probably pinning Duke and his family with all sorts of financial threats over the whole thing. Plus, he might be worried that Kat actually believed this crap. She didn’t, and the sooner she let him know that, the better.
Yet even as she headed toward the beach house, ready to get the answer she knew would come, hints of that tsunami rumbled low in her gut. And as much as she wanted to dismiss it, that rumble felt an awful lot like a warning.
Chapter 20
“Listen,” Marsha said, leaning a hand against the tree trunk by her side. She glanced toward the front of the beach house for a blink before setting her gaze back on Zander.
“This isn’t exactly new—the Benton family showing up in social media and tabloids. There was that incident between your brother James and the private chef. Videos replaying the mishap went viral, mainly because he’d been dating a vicious super model at the time, but still.
“Then your sister goes off and asks one of New York’s hottest bachelors to propose to her on live TV, all to get back at an old high school nemesis who’d suggested she’d end up a spinster.
“When Kat matched up with the profile so well, I had no choice but to select her. Let’s face it—the Benton family gets noticed. You’re all attractive. You’re billionaires, for crying out loud. America is fascinated. They want to see what will happen next.”
Zander followed Marsha’s gaze to see if Kat had come looking for him yet. She hadn’t. He ducked further beneath the trees and motioned for Marsha to come under its cover as well.
“So you’re saying they’re just creating something out of nothing here? They’re used to scandals surrounding us, so…”
Already Marsha was shaking her head. She squared a hard look at him, her green eyes piercing. “Listen, I showed you the page to see if you’d come clean. You’re not, so let me just put it this way…” She followed his lead, further into the brush and out of sight.
Sparks of fire-hot heat prickled Zander just beneath the skin. He gripped hold of a nearby branch to steady himself; he couldn’t let the guise unravel. Not yet. Not before he had the chance to tell Kat.
Better hidden from plain sight now, Marsha set her gaze back on Zander. “I’ve been on to you since day one,” she said.
Zander’s grip on the branch tightened.
“I know the difference between you and your twin. Your personalities are like night and day. From someone who spoke with Duke multiple times throughout this process, watched his video submissions along the way, it was obvious to me that you weren’t him.”
Zander stifled a curse. It felt like someone had set his skin ablaze. Full-on flames were moving from his palms, up the insides of his wrists, through his arms and straight to his heart.
“Kat’s going to see this page,” Marsha assured. “So you might as well take a look at some of these.” She scrolled past side-by-side shots from Zander at the wedding and Zander from The Lion’s Den. The words same exact hair scrolled beneath. Others showed montages of Duke sporting his man bun, attaching quotes about how much he loved the thing.
She paused at a video and tapped the screen. “This is from the page’s creator,” Marsha said.
A middle-aged woman with red hair sat centered behind the lens. “INDIZ stands for It’s Not Duke, It’s Zander. And guys, trust this super fan of all things Benton—it is Zander, not Duke. I encourage you to use our acronym in your feeds and posts in place of the words in this. Example…” She cleared her throat. “INDIZ world, if you marry an identical twin, you never know which one you’re going to get. But let’s face it—any woman in her right mind would gladly take either one of those twins, even if they were lying about who they were.”
There was no stifling the next curse that came to his lips. Zander clenched his eyes shut and groaned. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
He was surprised to feel a hand on his arm. “Are you falling in love with Kat?” Marsha asked.
“Yes.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you walk down the aisle instead of Duke?”
