My Fake Boyfriend Is My Ex‑Fiancé’s Twin Brother

"What thing?" I'd asked him.

"Tomorrow," Eli had said. "You've had enough for one night."

He was right. I'd had enough of everything. So when he went to take a phone call on the balcony, I found the whiskey in his kitchen cabinet and poured myself a glass. Then another.

By the fourth, Evan's face had stopped hurting so much.

By the sixth, I couldn't tell which brother I was looking at.

---

Sunlight woke me. It was sharp and white and stabbed straight through my eyelids.

I groaned and rolled over. The sheets were gray. Soft. Not mine.

My eyes flew open.

A bare back rose and fell beside me. Broad shoulders. A scratch, red and fresh, curved down from one shoulder blade.

I looked at my own hand. My nails.

Oh, God.

I lifted the sheet an inch. Nothing underneath. Not the camisole, not my bra, not a single thread.

The night came back in pieces. My mouth on his neck. His voice saying *Ivy, you're drunk* and me saying *I know what I want*. His hands, careful at first, and then not careful at all.

I clapped a hand over my mouth.

Slowly, I slid one leg out from under the covers. Then the other. The floor was freezing against my feet. My camisole was hanging off a lamp. My skirt was halfway across the room, inside out.

I grabbed it. I grabbed the camisole. I couldn't find my underwear and decided I didn't care.

*Get dressed. Get out. Never come back.*

I was tugging the skirt up over my hips when someone pounded on the front door.

Three hard knocks.

"Eli."

Every muscle in my body turned to stone.

That voice. I'd fallen asleep to that voice on the phone for three years. I'd know it through ten walls.

Evan.

The skirt slipped out of my fingers and pooled at my ankles.

Behind me, the sheets rustled.

I didn't turn around. I didn't have to. Warm arms wrapped around my waist from behind and pulled me back against a hard, bare chest. His skin was hot. Mine was ice.

"Morning," Eli murmured.

"Let me—" I hissed. "He's *here*."

"I noticed."

"Why is he here?"

"No idea." His chin settled on my shoulder like this was nothing. Like his brother wasn't fifteen feet away. "But you've got two choices, sweetheart."

His breath brushed the curve of my ear. My knees went weak, and I hated myself for it.

"You can open that door right now and walk out like this," he whispered. "Give him the shock of his life."

I shook my head hard.

"Or," he went on, "you stay right here. Quiet. In my arms. And you do what I say."

Another knock. Louder this time. The door rattled on its hinges.

"Eli, I know you're in there. Your car's downstairs."

I pressed my lips together until they hurt. I didn't dare breathe.

Eli's hand drifted up my stomach, slow, until his fingers settled under my chin.

"Smart girl," he said.

He turned my face toward him.

I saw his eyes for one second. Evan's eyes. But not Evan's. There was heat in them that Evan had never once aimed at me.

Then he kissed me.

I froze. I tried to pull back, but his palm cradled my jaw and held me there. The kiss wasn't rough. It was slow, almost lazy. Like he had all the time in the world and no brother pounding on his door.

The door was so thin I could hear Evan shifting his weight on the other side.

I curled my fingers into Eli's forearm. A warning. A plea.

He smiled against my mouth and kept going.

"Eli." Evan's voice cut through again, flat and impatient. "Open the door. We need to talk about last night."

My heart slammed into my ribs.

*Last night.*

Did he know? Had someone seen us leave the concert hall? Had someone seen *me*?

Eli broke the kiss just long enough to look at me. His thumb dragged across my bottom lip.

Then he lifted his head toward the door and raised his voice. Loud. Clear. Every word crisp enough to carry into the hall.

"Can't right now. I'm kissing the woman I love."

My stomach dropped through the floor.

I stared at him. He didn't look at me. He kept his eyes on the door, calm and steady, his arm locked around my waist.

On the other side, nothing.

No knock. No voice. Not even the creak of a floorboard.

The silence stretched so long my lungs started to burn. I could picture Evan standing there, one hand still raised, that perfect face going blank.

*The woman I love.*

Eli didn't even know me. Two nights ago I'd been a stranger crying in a hallway. Why would he say that? Why say it to *Evan*?

Then I heard it.

A footstep. Then another. Moving away from the door. Slow at first, then faster, until the ding of the elevator echoed down the hall and the doors slid shut.

He was gone.

My whole body sagged. If Eli hadn't been holding me, I would've hit the floor.

"You're insane," I breathed. "You're completely insane."

"You said that already."

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" I twisted in his arms and shoved at his chest. He didn't budge. "He'll come back. He'll ask questions. He'll want to know who—"

"He won't come back today."

"How do you *know* that?"

Eli finally looked down at me. His face was unreadable, but something was moving under the surface. Something I couldn't name.

"Because I know my brother," he said. "He's not angry."

I blinked. "What?"

"Did you hear his voice?" Eli brushed a strand of hair off my forehead. "He's not angry, Ivy."

A chill crept down my spine.

"Then what is he?"

Eli let go of my waist. He crossed the room, bent down, and picked something up from the floor beside the bed. Something small and silver that caught the sunlight.

A cufflink. Shaped like a tiny piano key.

My cufflink. The one Evan had left on the vanity like trash.

He turned it over so I could see the engraving. *E & I.*

"He's scared," Eli said quietly. "Because last night, he sent someone to bring this back to you. And they followed you here."