“Not when I’m on my feet eighteen hours a day.” But in spite of what she said, Sasha was happy to see her and gave her a warm hug. She had been gone for almost two weeks. “I missed you. How long will you be in Japan?”

“Three or four days. I’m going to meet Jean-Pierre in Dubai on the way back, for the weekend. He has business there.”

“What exactly does he do?” Sasha asked, sounding concerned, as Valentina helped herself to the banana and said it was all she wanted for lunch, with a sip of Sasha’s Diet Coke. She had to work in a few days, and she always ate very little before she did. “He’s not a drug dealer, is he?” There had been one or two in the past ten years, high-end ones, and one of them had gone to jail. Valentina had never been in trouble with the law, but the men in her life sometimes were.

“Of course not. He’s completely respectable. He’s a businessman. He doesn’t like to talk about his work.”

“That’s never a good sign,” Sasha reminded her, but Valentina brushed her off. She told her all about St. Bart’s, the movie stars and important people she’d met. It wasn’t new to Valentina, in her line of work, but she was always impressed. And she said Jean-Pierre had the biggest plane she’d ever seen. Sasha laughed, and said innocently, “I thought you were going to say the biggest something else.”

“That too,” Valentina said, looking far less innocent. She was a fiercely sexual being, and she liked her men a little kinky and on the edge, which had never appealed to Sasha.

Sasha got a text then from labor and delivery and said she had to go back to work. They had only had half an hour together, but it was better than nothing.

“When are you coming back?” Sasha asked her as they walked out of the cafeteria with Valentina in the leopard coat. All heads turned, not so much because of the protected species, since most people would think it was a fake, but because Valentina was a very striking woman and looked ten feet tall in the high heels.

“In about a week, depending on how long we stay in Dubai. I’ll introduce you to Jean-Pierre when we come home.” Sasha wasn’t sure she’d enjoy the meeting and doubted that she would, but she wanted to see who her sister was going out with, and what she thought of him. She had a more discerning and critical eye than her twin, who was willing to overlook almost anything once she was interested in a man. And she sounded besotted with Jean-Pierre.

They were hugging each other goodbye, when Alex came down the hall on his way to the cafeteria for lunch, and he smiled the minute he saw Sasha. But he was startled by the outfit and her scarlet lips, and she seemed to have grown about a foot.

“Sasha?”

“Hi, Alex,” the Sasha he knew responded, while his eyes were riveted to her twin, and they stood side by side, as he suddenly realized there were two of them.

“Holy shit!” was all he could say at first, staring from one to the other. It was the same face, the same green eyes and blond hair, but one of them looked like she was dressed for Halloween, or the cover of Vogue in 1956.

Sasha introduced them, and he scolded her for not telling him that her sister was an identical twin. Both girls laughed at what he said and at the stunned expression on his face. Valentina was vastly amused. He looked shocked. And admittedly, her outfit was a jolt, like an electric charge. For Valentina, it was tame.

“I forgot you didn’t know.” Sasha smiled at him. He had just gotten a full-on dose of her twin. One picture was worth a thousand words.

“How was I supposed to know?” he said to her and then turned to her twin. “Well, I’m very happy to meet you,” he said sincerely. “Maybe the three of us can have dinner sometime.”

“That would be nice,” Valentina said politely. She had no idea who he was or if he meant anything to her sister. Sasha hadn’t told her about him. “I’ll be in Tokyo and Dubai this week. Maybe when I get back.”

“Of course,” he said, impressed. Sasha had to go then, and the two women left Alex to eat his lunch and ponder the creature he had met. With their two very different styles, despite their identical faces and bodies, at least he couldn’t get them confused.

Sasha walked her through the lobby and kissed her again at the revolving door. “Take care of yourself,” she said to her, sounding like the older sister that she technically was, even if only by three minutes. But she had always been the sensible one. “And don’t get too deep into it with Jean-Pierre until you know more about him.”

“Don’t be such an old lady,” Valentina scoffed at her. “I know all I need to know. He’s a terrific guy. And a billionaire,” she added for good measure.

“Not everything is what it seems. You don’t know him yet.”

“Don’t be such a wiener,” she said to her sister, and Sasha laughed. Valentina was a little crazy and had always been wild, but they loved each other unconditionally. “See you in a week,” she called out to Sasha as she stepped into the revolving door, and then strode across the sidewalk to hail a cab and disappeared as it sped away. Sasha went back upstairs, and a few minutes later Alex came to find her, when she was outside a labor room checking a chart.

“How could you not tell me you have an identical twin?”

“Maybe I just assumed you knew. She’s a character, isn’t she? She used to drive me nuts when we were kids, and embarrass the hell out of me. She always used to get me into trouble with our parents. She blamed everything on me. She and my mom are still pretty close. My father is on to her, and they don’t get along. And she hates his wife and kids.”

“She’s a handful,” Alex said, still looking shocked. She had made a big impression on him with the leopard coat, the bright red lipstick, and the towering high heels. “At least I’ll be able to tell you apart, unless she puts on clogs and scrubs.”

“She does that too. She loves confusing people. She used to love driving my roommates nuts, pretending to be me. Claire is the only one who can tell us apart. No one else can, not even our parents, they never could. It was kind of fun being a twin, except when I was taking the rap for her. I’m glad you met her before she left town.”

“Me too,” he said, but was still a little rattled by it when they both went back to work. Valentina was definitely something else. There was no question in his mind which twin he was falling in love with, and it wasn’t the supermodel in the leopard coat.

—

After sending Claire another amazing bouquet of flowers, George started calling her. He was very smooth. He called her several times, just to say hello and see how she was, before he asked her out. And then finally after a week of calls and flowers, he invited her to dinner and she gently explained to him that she had to work. His pursuit of her was so determined that she was scared. He was a force to be reckoned with when he wanted something. It was written all over him, and he wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. He just tried again.

“What are you afraid of, Claire?” he finally asked her one night on the phone. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to have dinner with you and get to know you.” But they both knew that what he said wasn’t true. He might hurt her, if she fell in love with him, or disappoint her. She didn’t want to take the chance. And she didn’t want anything to interfere with her work. If she fell for him, it might dilute her energy or alter her focus and jeopardize her work, which was what had happened to her mother. She had let a man rob her of a promising career. Claire was never going to let that happen to her. She had decided that as a young girl. And George was much too seductive. It was easy to imagine falling for him, with all his generous attention and lavish gifts.

“I’m too busy to go out,” she said quietly. “I’m working on our spring line.”

“You have to eat,” he reminded her, slightly tongue in cheek, “to keep up your strength. I promise we won’t stay out late. I just want to enjoy an evening with you. Something tells me this could be important for both of us.” He was incredibly convincing, and infinitely charming, and the following day, when he made her laugh through an entire conversation, using a lighter touch, she succumbed, and agreed to have dinner with him the following night. She was furious with herself and terrified when she hung up. He was much better at the game than she. He was a master at it. And he always got his way.

She wore a simple black dress for their date, and a gorgeous pair of high heels. Her blond hair was in a sleek bun, with a tiny pair of diamond studs on her ears that she had bought herself. She looked simple and elegant and very striking when he picked her up.

“Wow” was all he could say at first, which was hard to believe, since he had been dating well-known actresses and supermodels for twenty years. He was a pro at this, but Claire was so impeccably put together, and her natural beauty shone like a beacon at the restaurant. He picked her up in the black Ferrari he drove to work every day, and took her to his favorite uptown restaurant, La Grenouille, for a fabulous meal. He asked her a million questions at dinner. He wanted to know everything about her, and he was impressed by how dedicated she was to her career. She didn’t tell him about her mother, and why she considered any serious relationship a threat to her goals. After her second glass of champagne, she asked him why he hadn’t married yet, and he was pensive for a minute.

“To be honest, I think I’ve been looking for the perfect woman. My father left my mother when I was an infant, and she died when I was five. I think my memory of her was as the ideal woman, and I’ve been searching for that all my life, and I’ve never found it.”

“How awful for you,” Claire said, about his losing his mother as a five-year-old. “Who did you grow up with?”

“My grandmother, who was fabulous. She was widowed at an early age, and she died the summer I graduated from high school. I was on my own after that. It made me very independent, and maybe a little bit afraid to get too involved, unless it was with the right person. I’ve never met that right person.” And then he added so softly she could barely hear him, “…Maybe until now.” He looked deep into her eyes then, with a serious expression. “Something happened to me the night I met you with Morgan. I don’t know what it was, but I felt as though the world had turned upside down. I’ve never met anyone like you. You light up from inside. I don’t know if we’ll be the right people for each other, or what will happen between us, but I know that I’ve never come as close to perfect as you. My heart stopped the moment we met.” He held her hand quietly under the table then.

Her heart nearly skipped a beat as she listened to him. She was terrified. What if he meant it? What if he was the “right one” for her, and they fell in love? What would she have to give up? She almost cried as they held hands. But you couldn’t ignore the power of what he said. He was a man who had lost everyone he’d ever loved, and his entire family by the time he was eighteen, and he was willing to admit that he had never fully given his heart ever since, and now he was tentatively offering it to her. She had no idea what to do, and her first instinct was to run, but he was so loving and so gentle and so kind to her that all she wanted to do was melt into his arms.

He told her funny stories after that, and made her laugh, as though he had never made the serious confession he had a while before. And he put her totally at ease. They had a wonderful evening, and an exquisite dinner, and then he drove her back to Hell’s Kitchen in the Ferrari, and she felt special just being with him. Everything about him drew her to him, and the pull of it was intense. He said nothing more about his feelings for her, but kissed her tenderly on the lips, and then walked her to her door. He hadn’t touched her, he didn’t want to rush her, and he kissed her again at her front door, but kissing him was like making love. And then he hurried back down the stairs as she walked into the apartment in a daze.

It was after midnight, and everyone had gone to bed. She sat at her drawing board for a while, trying to focus on the sketches she had left there, and all she could see was his face. She wanted to tell him to go away, not to tempt her, not to pull her into his life, but she wanted to be with him. She turned off the lights and went to bed, thinking of him and the way he kissed her.

She lay on her bed in a half sleep, and all she could think of was George. He was both her fondest hope and her worst nightmare all rolled into one.