The Face He Stole From His Brother: I Fell For The Wrong Twin

Damon took the last two steps in one jump.

"Get your hands off her."

He grabbed my elbow and yanked. My hip slammed into the railing, and the cold metal bit through my dress. For a second, he had me. His fingers dug in hard, the same way they did whenever I tried to walk out of an argument.

"Lila. Come upstairs. We'll talk."

"We're done talking."

"You're upset. You're not thinking straight."

"I'm thinking fine." I twisted my arm until his grip broke. "We broke up, Damon. Five minutes ago. Up there, in your bedroom. So I can kiss whoever I want."

His mouth fell open.

Then he laughed. It was short and mean, and he aimed it at his brother instead of me.

"Whoever you want? You don't even know him."

"I know he doesn't cheat on me."

"Because he's had you for thirty seconds."

Kian said nothing. He bent and picked up his helmet, and he brushed a smear of frosting off the visor with his sleeve. He was so calm about it. That seemed to make Damon angrier than anything I'd said.

"You think this is funny?" Damon jabbed a finger at him. "You crawl back into town, and the first thing you do is put your hands on my girlfriend?"

"She put hers on me," Kian said. "I'm just standing here."

"Ex-girlfriend," I added.

Damon's face turned a dark, blotchy red. Upstairs, a door creaked. The blonde's voice floated down the stairwell, thin and whiny.

"Damon? Babe? Are you coming back?"

Nobody moved.

I looked up at Kian. "Can you take me home?"

His eyes flicked to mine. They were gray-green, exactly like his brother's, but they didn't dart away. They held still.

"Yeah," he said. "I can."

"Lila, if you walk out that door with him—"

"What?" I turned on the step. "You'll what, Damon? Cheat on me again?"

He didn't have an answer for that. I didn't wait for one.

---

I'd driven there myself, but my hands were shaking too badly to hold my keys. Kian took them from me without a word. He left his motorcycle chained by the curb and folded himself into the driver's seat of my little hatchback. His knees nearly hit the steering wheel.

He didn't ask for directions. He just waited.

"Maple Street," I said. "Off Fifth."

He pulled into traffic.

For six blocks, neither of us spoke. The frosting on my shoes had started to dry and crack. I picked at it with my thumbnail until a piece flaked onto the floor mat.

"You don't have to be nice to me," I said finally.

"I'm driving a car. That's not nice. That's basic."

"You know what I mean." I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, wrecked dress and all. "That kiss. It didn't mean anything. I just wanted him to feel it. The way I felt it when I opened that door."

"I figured."

"I used you."

"I know."

I turned and stared at him. "That's it? You're not mad?"

His thumb tapped once against the wheel. A red light glowed through the windshield and painted half his face. He stopped the car, and he didn't look at me.

"Did it work?" he asked.

"What?"

"The revenge. Did he feel it?"

I thought of Damon's face going white on the stairs. Of the choked sound he'd made behind me.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "I think he did."

"Then it wasn't for nothing."

The light turned green. He didn't move.

A horn honked behind us. Kian ignored it.

"Can I ask you something, Lila?"

His voice had changed. It was flatter now. Careful, like he was stepping onto ice.

"Okay."

"I've got the same face he does." He finally turned his head. "The same eyes, the same everything. So why didn't you pick me back then?"

I blinked at him.

"Back when?"

The horn behind us blared again, long and angry.

Kian studied me for one more second. He looked at my eyes, then my mouth, then my eyes again, like he was hunting for something he'd lost. Whatever he was searching for, he didn't find it.

His jaw set. Then it eased.

"Never mind," he said, and he drove.

"No, wait. What do you mean, back then? Kian, I met you an hour ago."

"Sure."

"Don't sure me. Have we met before?"

"You'd remember if we had." He flicked on the turn signal for Maple. "Wouldn't you?"

That wasn't an answer. We both knew it wasn't. But he pulled up in front of my building and cut the engine, and suddenly I was too tired to fight anyone else tonight.

He set my keys in my palm and closed my fingers over them.

"Lock your door," he said. "My brother doesn't like losing things."

"I'm not a thing."

"No." Something flickered across his face, fast enough that I almost missed it. "You're not."

He was already calling a ride on his phone as I climbed out. I didn't look back. I wanted to, and that scared me a little.

---

My mailbox was stuffed. Bills, a coupon flyer, and the glossy business monthly my office kept sending to my home address by mistake.

I almost tossed it in the recycling bin.

Then I saw the cover.

He was wearing a charcoal suit instead of a leather jacket, and his hair was slicked back. But it was the same jaw, and the same steady eyes that didn't dart away.

**THE GHOST OF NORTHGATE COMES HOME.**

My bag slid off my shoulder and hit the floor.

I sank onto the arm of the couch and flipped the pages so fast that one of them tore.

*Kian Mercer, 29, founder and CEO of Northgate Holdings, has spent five years running a global empire from overseas. He has never given an interview and has never been photographed at a public event. Last week, he quietly returned to the city. Insiders say he has already bought controlling stakes in three local firms.*

Three local firms.

My stomach turned over. I knew one of those names.

It was Mercer & Lowe, Damon's company. Damon had complained for a month about some mystery buyer who was circling the board.

I read the paragraph three times. Then I grabbed my phone and scrolled back through two years of photos. Holidays. His parents' anniversary dinner. Thanksgiving at his mother's house, where the dining room had one empty chair nobody ever sat in.

I had asked about that chair once. Damon had told me it was nothing.

Five years. His brother had been gone for five years, and he'd never said a word. He had buried him completely, as if Kian had never existed.

And the brother he'd buried was richer than him. More powerful.

And now he was home.

I turned to the last page of the article. There was a single pull quote, printed in bold under a blurry photo of Kian stepping out of a black car.

*"Why did I come back? Someone took something from me a long time ago. I'm here to collect."*

My phone buzzed against the couch cushion.

I didn't recognize the number.