The Wrong Twin He Buried

The chapel smelled like lilies and panic.

Celeste was hyperventilating in her Vera Wang, one hand clawing at her throat, the other shoving her phone in my face. The screen showed a man in a bartender's apron, grinning. _Marco_. The wedding planner.

"I can't do it, Elise. I can't marry him," she gasped. "I love Marco. We're leaving for Lisbon tonight."

Our father was having a stroke in the hallway. I could hear him through the door: "Sixty million dollars, Celeste! If Kaine pulls out of the merger, we lose the company. We lose the _house_."

I looked at my sister. Same face. Same dark hair. Same scar on our left eyebrow from when we fell off the swing at nine. The only difference was that Celeste had been born five minutes first, and that was enough for Dad to decide she was the heir. I was the spare. The forger. The one who signed her name on bad report cards so she wouldn't get cut off.

"You want me to do it," I said. It wasn't a question.

Celeste grabbed my wrists. Her engagement ring dug into my skin. Eight carats. Cold. "He won't know. Damian's met me twice. Both times I was drunk. You're better at being me than I am."

The wedding coordinator knocked. "Two minutes, Miss Kaine."

Dad burst in, his face purple. "Celeste Marie, if you walk out that door-"

"She's having a anxiety attack," I said, stepping between them. My voice came out low, bored, exactly like Celeste's. I'd been practicing for years. "I'll go calm her down. Stall."

He didn't even look at me. He never did. "Fine. Fix her."

The second he left, Celeste started ripping off the veil. "Take it. Take the dress. Just walk down the aisle and say 'I do.' By the time he realizes, the papers will be signed. The merger goes through. Then we'll figure it out. Please, El. You've always cleaned up my messes."

This wasn't a mess. This was a life. Damian Kaine wasn't some stranger. He was _The Wall Street Wolf_ on every business cover. Thirty-two. Ruthless. The kind of man who bought companies for fun and fired CEOs before the ink dried.

But Dad's face when he lost the company would be worse. I'd seen it once, when Mom died. Empty. Like he'd already buried us too.

"Fine," I said.

Celeste froze. "Really?"

I was already unzipping my bridesmaid dress. "But you owe me. For everything."

She helped me into the gown like we were kids playing dress-up again. The veil smelled like her perfume - jasmine and bad decisions. She pressed the bouquet into my hands. White roses. Celeste's favorite. I hated roses. They gave me hives.

"Remember," she whispered as the music started, "you hate coffee. You're allergic to shellfish. And you call him 'Dame' in private. He likes that."

The doors opened.

Two hundred people. Cameras. A billion-dollar merger riding on my "I do."

And at the end of the aisle, Damian Kaine.

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking at his watch. Irritated. Like I was a late board meeting. His suit was black, his eyes colder. He had a scar through his left eyebrow.

The reception was a business merger with champagne.

Nobody danced. They networked. Old men in Brioni suits clinked glasses with Dad while he sweated through his tuxedo, looking ten years younger now that Kaine Corp's money was legally tied to ours. Celeste was already gone. A text from her burner phone: _At airport. Thank you. I'll make it up to you._

Liar. She never did.

Damian hadn't said a word to me since the "I do." He was three conversations deep with a senator, one hand resting on the small of my back. Not possessive. Possessive would imply affection. This was marking territory. Like I was a new acquisition he hadn't audited yet.

"Mrs. Kaine," a waiter offered me a tray. "Champagne?"

I took it. I don't even like champagne. But Celeste drinks it like water. I was going to need to be very, very drunk to survive tonight.

"Celeste doesn't drink," Damian said without looking at me. He plucked the glass from my hand and set it back on the tray. "Allergic to sulfites. You told me. Three years ago."

The champagne sloshed. My heart didn't.

_Three years ago._

I forced a laugh. The one Celeste uses when she's caught in a lie - high, brittle. "God, Dame. You remember everything. I was testing you."

He finally looked at me then. Really looked. His eyes were gray, like a frozen lake. Nothing moved in them. "Were you?"

A photographer called, "Mr. and Mrs. Kaine! Kiss for the cover of Forbes!"

Damian's hand slid from my back to my jaw. He tilted my face up. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, and for a second I thought he was going to expose me right there. Instead, he kissed me.

It wasn't a kiss. It was a cross-examination. Clinical. Measuring. He pulled back before I could even decide if I hated it.

"Perfect," the photographer said.

The second we were alone, Damian guided me to our table. No one else sat there. Just two place settings, two water glasses, and one black coffee, steam curling up from it.

He pushed the coffee toward me. "You've been trying to quit. For the wedding. New habit?"

Celeste drank four cups before noon. Black. No sugar. She said it was the only thing that kept her awake during Dad's board meetings. I drank tea. Chamomile. Because coffee made my hands shake.

I stared at the cup. If I refused, the game was up. If I drank it, I'd be jittery and sick on my wedding night.

I picked it up.

Damian watched. Not my face. My hands.

The coffee touched my lips. Bitter. Burnt. I swallowed.

And didn't shake.

Because I'd been practicing. Every morning for a month, after Celeste got engaged, I'd choked down black coffee until my body stopped betraying me. Just in case. Just in case she ran. Just in case I had to be her.

I set the cup down. Empty. "Habit's dead," I said, using Celeste's words. "Took you three years to notice."

Something flickered in his eyes. Not surprise. Satisfaction.

He leaned across the table, close enough that I could smell his cologne. Something expensive and sharp, like cedar and cold cash. "It did," he said quietly. "Three years ago, you told me you'd quit the day you stopped loving me."

My fingers went numb.

Celeste had never been in love with Damian. She'd called him "the human spreadsheet" and slept with Marco the night of the engagement party.

So who the hell had he been talking to for three years?

Before I could answer, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then stood. "Stay here. I have a gift for you."

He walked off. No explanation. No kiss goodbye. Just command.

I sat there, heart hammering against my ribs, staring at the empty coffee cup. My phone buzzed in the bouquet.

Unknown number: _Good girl. You passed the first test. But Lucien was always the better actor. Don't let Damian find out why he's really dead. - A friend_

Lucien. Damian's twin. The one the news said died in a boating accident two years ago.

I looked up.

Damian was across the ballroom, watching me. He raised his own coffee cup in a mock toast.

He hadn't taken a sip of it all night.

The "gift" was a penthouse.

Fifty-seventh floor. Glass walls. A view of Manhattan that cost more than my dad's entire company used to be worth. The bedroom was already full of clothes in my size. Not Celeste's size - _my_ size. Dresses I'd liked on Instagram and never bought. A sketchbook with my initials. A copy of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ with the corners dog-eared at my favorite chapters.

I was standing in the middle of it, still in the wedding dress, when I found the safe.

Biometric. Thumbprint.

I pressed mine to it without thinking.

It opened.

Inside: a stack of cash, a passport, and a red leather diary. _Property of C. Kaine_ stamped on the cover in gold. Celeste's. I'd seen her write in it when we were kids. She stopped after Mom died. Said writing things down made them real.

The first page was dated three years ago.

_January 12th_

_I met him today. Not Dame - the other one. Lucien. He was at the Kaine Foundation gala, standing by the ice sculpture like he wanted to stab it. He doesn't look like his photos. He's thinner. Meaner. He called me Celeste and I didn't correct him. He said, "You hate these things too, don't you?" And I did. I really did._

My stomach dropped.

I flipped pages.

_February 3rd_

_Lucien kissed me behind the fundraiser tent. He tastes like whiskey and bad decisions. He thinks I'm engaged to his brother. I haven't told him. I can't. Dame looks at me like I'm a contract. Lucien looks at me like I'm a fire._

_March 19th_

_D knows. I don't know how, but he knows. He came to my apartment. Didn't yell. Just said, "You have two choices. End it, or I end him." He said it like he was discussing a stock split._

_April 1st_

_Lucien's gone. Boat accident. They said it was an accident. D told Dad it was a tragedy. He didn't even come to the funeral. He sent flowers. White roses. I hate roses. They give Elise hives._

I slammed the diary shut.

He knew. Damian knew Celeste was in love with Lucien. He knew three years ago. And he'd just told me, _"You said you'd quit the day you stopped loving me."_

But Celeste never loved him.

So who was he talking to?

A floorboard creaked behind me.

I spun, the diary clutched to my chest. Damian stood in the doorway, tie loosened, jacket off. He looked human for the first time all day. Tired.

"You found it," he said. Not a question.

"I wasn't-"

"Looking for it?" He stepped inside, shut the door. The lock clicked. "No. You were looking for her. You always are."

He knew. He knew I wasn't Celeste.

The room tilted. "Damian, I can explain-"

"Can you?" He crossed to the bar, poured two fingers of scotch. Didn't offer me one. "Explain why you've been forging her signature since you were sixteen? Explain why you took the fall for her DUI? Explain why you're wearing her dress, but you're standing in _your_ bedroom?"

Every word was a bullet. He'd counted them all.

"How long have you-"

"Known?" He drank. "Since the engagement party. You spilled red wine on your dress and didn't flinch. Celeste would have screamed. She hates merlot. You hate being embarrassed."

He set the glass down. "I proposed to her anyway."

"Why?" The word tore out of me. "If you knew she loved Lucien, if you knew I was-"

"Because she would have said no." He walked to me, slow, deliberate. Stopped a foot away. I could see the scar through his eyebrow now. It wasn't like mine. Mine was from the swing. His was surgical. Precise. "And I didn't want Celeste."

His thumb brushed my cheekbone, right under the scar. Same spot he'd touched during the kiss.

"I wanted the girl who took her punishments. The girl who memorized her coffee order. The girl who learned to drink it black, just in case."

My breath stopped.

"I wanted you, Elise."

The diary slipped from my hands.

He caught it before it hit the floor. Opened it to the last entry. One I hadn't read yet.

Dated yesterday. In handwriting I didn't recognize.

_She said yes. Finally. Get the papers ready. If Celeste runs, Elise will take her place. She always does. -D_

Yesterday. Before Celeste ran. Before I put on the dress.

He'd planned this.

The door to the penthouse slammed open.

"Hey, brother," a voice drawled from the living room. "Meet the woman who buried me."

Damian didn't even turn. "Right on time."

A man leaned against the doorframe. Same face as Damian. Same cold gray eyes. But his hair was longer. His suit was cheaper. And he had a grin that cut like a knife.

Lucien Kaine. Alive.

He looked straight at me and winked.

"You must be Elise. I've heard so much about you."