Double Take Read Free

swarthy, but he had brown hair heavily sun-streaked with gold. In his tuxedo, he’d been at once elegant and virile, another unusual combination. A coworker had then suggested his name some time later when they’d been given the account for the charity event. Oddly, Kait had been filled with excitement at the idea of contacting Coleman. She did her homework and learned he had been recently widowed. And he had seemed amenable to the idea over the phone; in fact, the conversation had turned friendly and almost personal in the end, leaving Kait foolishly breathless. She had anticipated their business meeting, speculating about what he might be like in person, and as foolishly had taken hours to decide the night before what to wear, but in the end, they had never made a deal. He hadn’t shown up for their lunch meeting. She had waited for him at Le Cirque for well over an hour in her brand-new Sergio Rossi mules and a simple black sheath. He hadn’t even bothered to cancel. Kait had been annoyed. She had also been slightly humiliated, sitting there at the five-star restaurant sipping Perrier like a jilted girlfriend, not like a publicist wasting her valuable time.
    She had wound up using a smaller but very picturesque estate on the Hudson River instead.
    And now Lana was his wife. And she, Kait, was on the verge of walking into her sister’s life in order to pretend to be Coleman’s wife and Marni’s mother. It was wrong in every possible way, and Kait’s very nature rebelled against what she was about to do, but there was simply no choice.
    Kait dug into the pocket of her pale beige wool trousers, extracting Lana’s letter. She unfolded the crumpled pages and read it again, the words blurring and fading before her eyes.
    Dear Kait,
    I have so many regrets, and the biggest one is my failure to be the sister you have always wanted and deserved. Yes, Kait, I know you as well as you know yourself, and I know you have always wanted my love, and deliberately I have withheld it from you. You see, Kait, I have always been jealous of you, because you were the perfect student and the perfect daughter, because Mom and Dad always loved you the most. But no more. Kait, I swear to you, that when this is over, I am going to make up for every single moment we have lost. When this is over, we are going to finally have the chance to be real sisters and best friends.
    Kait blinked back hot tears, still stunned to learn that Lana—whom she had always admired so, who’d had all the boys, who had always been one of the most popular girls in school—had been jealous of her, and read on.
    I’m in trouble, Kait. Serious, deadly trouble. I borrowed a tremendous amount of money behind my husband’s back in order to stave off his creditors and to prevent foreclosure on Fox Hollow, our country estate. While that was accomplished, it seems that I went to the wrong people and now Paul Corelli has threatened not just my life but that of my daughter’s if I don’t pay him back by the end of this week. There is someone who I haven’t seen in years, someone I was once close to, who I believe will help me out of the dilemma I now face. I only need two days for you to cover for me. It will work because I haven’t told anyone about you. No one knows I have an identical twin, so no one will ever suspect the switch. And when I return, when I pay off Corelli, I will introduce you to my family and we can start over—if you will allow that.
    Kait hung on to the fence, the wrinkled letter in her hand, still trembling. As far as she could see, fading green hills rolled and spilled away, framed by the flaming orange and yellows of the turning oaks and elm trees of fall. In the distance and to her right was a dark blue lake, a bevy of ducks flying above it; several broodmares that were clearly in foal were grazing by the lake. The sky above her was brilliantly blue, making it a picture-perfect day.
    Not only was Lana’s life in danger, but so was