Faked (Ward Family #2)(2)

Or reached out to her.

She'd lost that privilege years ago.

Even though I knew it wouldn't actually make me feel better or even distract me much from Finn, I found myself scrolling down her page.

My heart and my head warred mightily when I studied the last few pictures she'd posted. I wasn't furious at the thought of her; it was hard to be when we had such a happy life in her absence. But I didn't feel nothing either.

Sometimes, I wanted to punch her.

Sometimes, I wanted to hug her. Most of all, I wanted to sit across from Brooke Ashley Huntington-Ward and pick apart her brain. That was the most desperate feeling of them all, fighting for first place in my head. I wanted to understand why, and it drove me abso-friggin-lutely batshit crazy that I might never have that understanding.

As I scrolled through, counting five pictures posted in the past three years, my twin sister's phone lit up on the desk next to me where it was charging. My eyes cut to the screen, a force of habit because it was often a group text from one of our other sisters or Paige.

It wasn't from any of them, though. What appeared was a text from Finn, and like I'd trained my body to do it, my heart sped up at the sight of his stupid name.



Finn: Lia, PLEASE, I'll owe you a million favors if you help me out.



"I'll help you," I mumbled miserably. It didn't even matter what he needed help with. I'd do it.

But I didn't close my eyes because picturing my twin sister's best friend was another thing that made my head and heart war mightily. And every single time, my head won.

Leave him alone.

It would be too weird.

He doesn't even look at you that way.

Those were all the things I told myself when my crush on Finn flared out of control. And it had helped for years. It had helped all day.

"Text from Finn," I yelled.

"What does he want?" Lia called from the kitchen.

I swallowed heavily as I read the text again. "Help. He'll owe you a million favors."

Lia groaned. "He could offer two million, and I still wouldn't be able to do it."

"What does he need your help with?"

"Some fancy-pants dinner and award ceremony on Friday night. He needs a plus one, and since he refuses to find himself a date, his mom practically demanded that I go with. I think she actually put my name on the guest list because she assumed I wouldn't say no."

My heart clenched with unwelcome jealousy. "It's just dinner. Why not go?"

"I can't. There's this amazing guest lecture that same evening, and I am not missing it. I've wanted to hear her speak for years." She waved her hand. "He thinks I'm just being stubborn, but this is about my education."

"Of course, it is," I muttered.

Lia was physically incapable of admitting when she was being stubborn, which was about ninety-two percent of her existence.

The sound of her footsteps approached my doorway, quick and loud. Determined. Those were determined Lia steps, and it made me nervous. "Wait," she said.

I spun my chair to face her. "What?"

Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it, a frantic voice chanted in my head. Because I knew.

A devious smile spread over her face.

"No," I said instantly. Twin telepathy, y'all. It was a real thing.

"Oh, yes." She rubbed her hands together. "We haven't done a twin swap in years, Claire. Come on, won't it be fun?"

While my head tried desperately to wrap around the idea of pretending to be my sister for the first time since high school, it was a faint whisper compared to what my heart was doing.

That particular organ buried in my chest was roaring and thrashing, screaming at me to do this one thing that would grant me my greatest unfulfilled wish.

Time with Finn.

"I can't," I told her. "I hate lying. Not only do I hate it but I'm also terrible at it."

Lia clasped her hands in front of her. "Please."

"I know you love school, Lee, but it's one lecture. How much more English Lit does one need to be lectured on?"

She gave me a look because even though our majors were sun and moon different, we both loved school with equal intensity. Sometimes, I worried that the youngest Ward sisters would forever be enrolled in college because we just loved learning.

Our brother, Logan, often said if anything put him into debt, it would be the multiple doctorates he feared the two of us would acquire and never use for anything.

"It's not just a lecture." She put on her pleading face. "It's Catherine Atwood from Oxford."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"

Lia shrugged helplessly. "No, but ugh, she's like ... everything. She's a freaking rock star to anyone who's ever studied the Bront? sisters. Her dissertation on Religion, Gender, and Authority in the novels of Charlotte Bront? is basically my bible."

I rolled my eyes. "Only mildly sacrilegious, but okay. Why do I have to pretend to be you? Why can't you just tell Finn you can't go?"

Lia ignored my questions. "She's from Oxford, C. She rarely does guest lectures, and she's in the States for the first time in years, and she's here at UDub." Her eyes widened. "It was meant to be."