Twin Deception: A BWWM Billionaire Romance Read online

  Twin Deception

  Published By IzabellaBrooks, 2016

  ©2016 Izabella Brooks

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.

  Kindle Edition

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  chapter 15

  chapter 16

  Chapter 1

  Sadi sat in the black leather high back chair, watching the news as the chemical in her hair set under the dryer. God knew she hated going through this every couple weeks, but Luke liked blonde hair. She had heard that as a passing comment when she had been little more than an admin assistant at his company, Pearson and Pearson.

  Sadi had set her sights on the boss and she wasn't going to stop until she had him. She had died her hair blonde, spent what little money she had on better, more expensive clothing which fit her just right. She had used her long legs and curves for all they were worth. She had started working out four times a week and drinking more water. And she had dyed her long auburn hair a platinum blonde that she had always hated on other women.

  Apparently whatever she had done had worked. Luke Pearson had noticed her within a couple days of the transformation. He had stopped in front of her desk, arms crossed across his chest, grinning that familiar Pearson grin which never failed to make Sadi’s heart stop.

  She frowned. At least it never used to fail. Now.... she was engaged to a successful, wealthy, attractive man. The rock on her finger cost more than what most people made in a year. She had a huge house complete with a pool, tennis court, and sauna, a black sports car and a red one too, a personal trainer, a dietician, a hair stylist, a personal shopper, a cook, and a cleaner. She didn't have to do a damn thing if she didn't want to.

  Sadi picked up a magazine and glanced at it absently. She wondered why none of those things made her happy anymore. They had at the beginning. She had loved when Luke courted her, taking her out to expensive restaurants, fancy clubs, plays and shows. She had loved his house and all his cars, the giant pool in the backyard, and the fact she never had to cook or clean or grocery shop if she didn't feel like it. She didn’t even have to work.

  She used to have a purpose beyond getting herself to her latest appointment. She didn't even have to do that if she didn't want to do so. They had a driver who would take her. She supposed she could use her upcoming wedding to give her life meaning, but even that fell flat, just like her relationship.

  Lately she and Luke hadn’t had the spark they used to have. They hadn't made love in months. Sadi still found Luke attractive. He was tall with a physique to die for. All the time Luke spent working out had left him with a god-like physique. Well toned muscles, rock hard abs. His sandy blonde hair and grey blue eyes topped everything off.

  He ate healthy and his skin glowed. He still looked like a god to Sadi, yet they hadn't so much as touched each other in weeks. He had seemed too busy with work to even notice her. At least Sadi assumed that’s what kept him busy. She hadn't asked about his hobbies or his business in a very long time, though she used to work at Pearson and Pearson and she should have cared.

  Luke used to plan getaways for the two of them, little romantic liaisons stolen when his demanding schedule would allow, but even those had faded into the background as well.

  Sadi missed the man Luke used to be. She flipped a page in the magazine and stared at the shiny lipstick covering the perfect model’s lips on the glossy paper in front of her. It wasn’t right to put the blame all on Luke. If Sadi were honest with herself, she missed the woman she used to be. She knew it was true what everyone said. That money couldn't bring you happiness. It could buy you nice things and give you a comfortable life, but it left a hollow spot in her chest that she couldn’t seem to fill.

  She watched the bad news images flash across the TV screen in the corner, and shifted uncomfortably in her chair under the dryer, the smell of chemicals burning her nose. No wonder they made her scalp itch and burn like fire. The stuff felt completely toxic.

  Setting the magazine aside, Sadi thought about her upcoming wedding. She knew deep down inside that she should break off her engagement to Luke. He was a good man and she liked to think she was a good person as well. Lately though, she doubted it.

  She knew she wasn't happy, but she was unwilling to go back to a one bedroom apartment and a minimum wage job. Getting engaged to Luke had been like winning the lottery. Sadi just wished she could find some light in the current darkness in which she was stumbling around.

  Part of her wanted to marry Luke because at one time she had loved him. Then there was the other, far less proud part of herself that selfishly wanted to be looked after. Sadi hated that weak part of herself. Hated that she had been raised in squalor and poverty and feared going back to it like she had never feared anything in her life.

  Sadi thought the one thing that could save her if she married Luke was to have children. She could live for them. Raise them and love them, even if she no longer loved Luke. Many people stayed married long after the spark faded. People lived together unhappily for years and it wasn’t like there was a noticeable rift between them yet. Luke had never said he wanted children. The thought made Sadi sad. She loved babies. Maybe she could find a way to change Luke’s mind. Likely he would give her what she wanted if it came down to it. He always had before.

  The wedding was only weeks away. Sadi hated herself for not having the courage to do what was right and break off the engagement, but going back to her old life- in debt and living in a dank apartment- filled her with fear. When she had moved in with Luke it had been the first time in Sadi’s life that she felt safe.

  Her mother had been a single mom, working hard to make sure that Sadi had enough to eat and clothes to wear, yet no matter how hard her mother worked, it always seemed like they were being evicted and that Sadi was going to school with hunger pains in her belly and wearing tattered old clothing that no longer fit.

  Sadi knew that her mother loved her. At least, she thought she had. She had always been a good mother and had always tried so hard to make ends meet. When Sadi turned eighteen, her mother must have figured she was now old enough to fend for herself. Sadi had come home from school one afternoon to find the apartment stripped of her mother’s belongings. After eighteen years, her mother had finally broken. She had left to find the freedom she craved. Sadi hadn’t heard from her since. Part of her wanted to know if her mother was still alive, and yet part of her was still too wounded over being left alone to imagine tracking her mother down.

  At least that was something she and Luke still had in common. His parents had left Luke and his twin brother, Connor, with an established business, an education, and more money than they could ever spend. The boys had been raised by one nanny after another.

  Luke hardly had any memories of his parents. If pressed, Sadi knew that he didn’t even know what
they looked like, then or now. Like Sadi, Luke had no idea where his mother and father were now. They hadn’t contacted him in years.

  Sadi couldn’t imagine having a child and leaving. Never reaching out and caring about what happened to them. The thought broke her heart and brought a lump to her throat.

  She had wondered for years what she had done to make her mother abandon her until she finally realized that she herself couldn’t imagine being so broken she would do such a thing. She knew there were depths of emotion, sorrow, pain and blackness that she had no idea how to comprehend. Sadi preferred to think there was something wrong with her mother that had made her leave. She needed to believe it. It hurt so much less that way.

  She had worked two jobs and finished high school. She had kept the wretched apartment where she and her mother had survived and lived there for another eight years after her mother left. She had applied at Pearson and Pearson for an admin assistant position on a whim. She never thought she would get the job, even though she had experience. But she didn’t have any post-secondary to back it up. She was surprised when she got the phone call the next day, offering her the position. Sadi never guessed how her life would change.

  She had started at Pearson and Pearson, unsure what to expect. It was a prestigious company, though it sounded more like a law firm. She had heard of Luke and Connor Pearson, the identical twin brothers who were taking the business world by storm. She had heard they were kind and caring people who cared deeply about bettering the communities in which they did business.

  Sadi wasn’t sure whether it was Luke or Connor she had first seen. She still couldn’t tell them apart, even after years of dating Luke. She remembered thinking that whichever brother it was, he was handsome. Both brothers were tall, with sandy blonde hair and eyes the colour of the sea on a cloudy day; a storm tossed blue that sparkled with all the emotion of life. The brothers were tall, yet not tall enough to be intimidating. It was clear they worked out, judging from their broad shoulders and trim waists.

  Sadi could tell they were still in the prime of their youth, their skin bronzed with tans from the outdoor activities they loved. It was beyond Sadi how two brothers, even twins, could look so alike as adults. It blew her mind that not only did they have similar features but they had the same physique as well.

  She had asked after Luke, as he was the brother she thought she had seen first. The other girls in her department had trouble telling the brothers apart as well, but the first name Sadi had heard had been Luke's. She had stared at him from across the way when she thought he wasn’t looking. She had found him attractive. More than attractive actually. Sadi had observed the way Luke carried himself, his poise and his athletic grace. She thought he looked like a god. A bolt of desire had shivered through her stomach at the thought of what it would be like to be seduced by him. At what it would be like to press her lips against his perfectly shaped ones, to feel the rigid muscles she knew were hidden under the polo shirts he wore to work.

  One girl had mentioned that Luke only dated blondes. Sadi had immediately been turned off at the suggestion. She knew the kind of women men such as Luke liked. She was so far from that she knew she wouldn’t even be on his radar. Though Sadi told herself she found fake, ditsy women distasteful, it didn’t stop her from dying her hair blonde a week later and making changes to her wardrobe and her diet. She had hoped Luke would notice. And he had. She had been lucky enough to be asked out to dinner a week later.

  Sadi shifted under the dryer again, touching the tin foil in her hair in an effort to quell the itch of the bleach. How had she come so far from those early giddy days where even the slightest touch could send shivers of passion racing through her body? Even the smallest smile Luke sent her way never failed to brighten her day. Now Sadi felt like she was living someone else’s life. She felt as if she were using Luke. Sadi felt like she was adrift, floating in a sea of apathy and being swallowed by the waves of a meaningless life.

  She turned her attention back to the television when a large red banner flashed across the screen. The TV was on mute and Sadi couldn't hear anything, but she could read what the neat tiny white writing said as it flashed along the bottom of the screen.

  Bombing. Pearson and Pearson.

  Sadi felt like she had been punched in the gut. She was completely winded. She watched in horror, pinned to the chair, hair dryer continuing on, blissfully unaware that Sadi's world was collapsing in around her.

  Chapter 2

  She watched the wretched pictures flash across the screen. The building on fire. Flames spouting and roaring out of busted windows. Shards of glass sprayed all over the street. A giant hole gaping like a wounded toothless mouth in the side of the building. The side on which Luke's office was located. Oh Jesus. Luke.

  Sadi finally spurred herself into action. She slid from under the hot blowing air, ripped the black salon covering off and tore off through the front entrance. It did dawn on her that she should pay, but she couldn't wait one second longer.

  Was this really what her life had boiled down to? Thoughts of paying for a half finished dye job she didn't even want in the first place shouldn’t enter her head alongside the worry about her fiancé and everyone else she knew in that building. She had worked there for over a year. She knew at least half of the employees.

  Sadi said a prayer for the first time in as long as she could remember. She vowed that if Luke had survived, no matter what happened to him, she would marry him and do her damn best to try and help them find their way back to where they had been in the beginning.

  When they had been in love. She would cherish Luke like she should. She would never take one single thing for granted again.

  Sadi had felt so numb for so long she had thought that her love for Luke was dead, but the thought of him lying injured or worse brought it back in a rush.

  Every single feeling and emotion, every joy and sorrow, every memory from their relationship came flooding back. How could she have wasted so many minutes, hours, days, months? Precious time she had with Luke that she hadn't even been grateful for.

  Sadi felt ashamed as she rammed her car in gear and sped away from the stupid salon. It was true that her life had become all but meaningless, but she had been wrong to blame Luke for what had happened.

  The choices she made were hers alone. She had done nothing but waste the money and opportunity she had been given when she had met Luke. She knew there were many people who made it their life's mission to ensure their money was well spent on philanthropic endeavours. They lived to help others. Sadi had lived to get her hair dyed every twenty one days without fail.

  She glanced in the mirror. She could see the tin foil sticking out all over her hair. Far worse, Sadi didn't even recognize herself anymore. Where was that girl who had grown up rough and tumble? Who didn't care about perfectly manicured nails or if a dark root was showing? Who didn't need designer clothing and fast cars to define her self-worth?

  It was going to change. All of it. Sadi needed it to. If Luke had survived, she knew it was a message. It was a wakeup call, a second chance.

  A chance to get to know her husband. To fall back in love with him. To find that girl she had been when she had been proud of herself. Sadi wasn't going to squander it. If Luke was alive, Sadi knew it would be nothing short of a miracle. She had never believed in miracles before, but she wanted to now. She needed to.

  Sadi pulled as close as she could get to Pearson and Pearson. The street was a mess of swirling sirens, ambulances, police cars, specially marked vehicles… everything. She got out of her sports car and left it with the door hanging wide open. In the back of her mind Sadi thought she should shut it but she didn’t. She just left it. She did have the foresight to grab her purse.

  She approached the scene with trepidation. The building didn’t look half as bad as it had on TV. The hole that had been blown in the side was much smaller, but it filled her with dread all the same. It was as she thought- the side of the building that Luke�
�s office was on.

  Sadi approached one of the uniformed officers who was holding back the swarming crowds and media frenzy. There were people holding cameras and people recording everything on cell phones.

  Sadi was disgusted. This was the scene of a tragedy for her and many others, yet to some it was just something to gawk at; a video to upload to the internet for a quick viral buzz. The thought that there may have been people killed, and certainly injured in the blast, filled her with rage. Who could do such a thing? And why Pearson and Person? Luke and Connor were good men who did a great deal for their community. Who would want to hurt them?

  “I’m looking for Luke Pearson,” Sadi said, alarmed at how hysterical her voice was. “I’m his fiancé.”

  The officer turned to look at her but shook his head. “Sorry miss. We aren’t allowing anyone past this line.” He motioned to the yellow tape that cordoned off the area.

  “But I’m his fiancé,” Sadi insisted.

  The officer just shook his head. Sadi could feel her frustration growing. She felt it bubble up from the pit of her stomach, choking her with rage. “God, he could be dead! I want to know what happened to him! Let me through!” Sadi screamed. She tried to push past the officer but he held fast. Another man came over to help. The second officer was much younger than the first and he looked at Sadi with compassionate eyes.

  “I’m very sorry miss, but you really can’t come across this line. It isn’t safe. The best bet would be to try the closest hospital and see if he was brought there. Most of the ambulances have already left with survivors.”

  Survivors. Oh god. Sadi closed her eyes, fearing for a moment that she was going to be sick. She let the younger officer steer her back in the direction of her car, all the while fighting back bile that rose in the back of her throat. Survivors. The word kept playing over and over in her mind.