Page 218 of Daddy, Take Me Away
My sister frowns. “I know. And I’m so sorry. Can’t we just forget it and be sisters again?”
I growl, looking away. “Forget it? You want me to forget how you betrayed me, stole my fiancé, and then my wedding because, ‘Why not? The deposits were already made?’”
“Don’t make it sound so tawdry. We fell in love by accident.”
“By accident, in the middle of a national park, in front of our family, during a trip to secure the location for our wedding ceremony,” I say in a mumble under my breath.
“Neither of us meant for it to happen,” Mark says, and Fiona looks up at him.
“But it’s the best thing that has ever happened to us…” She takes Mark’s hand. “And I need my sister’s support.”
I look away, angry tears burning behind my eyes. My sister, who’s physically identical to me in every way, is living my life better than I could, because Mark never looked at me the way he’s looking at Fiona.
“Mark had nothing to do with it. He told me not to, actually. He said you needed space, but he’s never had a twin, he doesn’t know how close we are.” Now she looks at me. “How much we need each other.”
Were. How close we were. Which was never close enough to share a fiancé, by the way.
Fiona’s love-sick, moony eyes make my stomach churn, because not that long ago, I had the same look when I stared at Mark.
“You’re my other half and I can’t stand us fighting.”
“I thought I was your other half,” Mark pipes up, feigning hurt.
“No, you’re my better half,” Fiona soothes, rubbing her face along his side like she’s part feline.
“That’s too many halves, silly.”
Rubbing the heel of my hand across my forehead, I try to think of something, anything, to escape them. But I can’t, because I’m about to meet Amadeo Pellegrino, of The Pellegrino Group, an international luxury resort chain, that while stuck in the nineties when it comes to social media presence—think My Space—still owns six of the top ten resorts in the world.
And as if that’s not enough, I’m crushing on Amadeo like I’m a tween and he’s in a boy band. I frown, a thought hitting me.
“How on earth did you book this place?” My statement comes out louder than I intend, so I whisper. “It’s always booked solid.”
“Don’t be mad, Zo. Please.” Fiona catches her bottom lip between her teeth, her thick brows worrying as they knit between her eyes.
Oh shit. What did she do?
“I sent an email as you, sort of demanding The Pellegrino find us a room.”
“You what?” There goes blood rushing through my arteries like a kayak in the Colorado river. “How the hell did you do that?”
She shrugs. “We’re identical, Zoë. My face opens your phone as easily as your own.”
“I’m innocent. I told her she shouldn’t.” Mark holds up his hands as if it’s some joke that I’m unstable and likely to freak out. When I’ve been so stable over all this shit, Mother Teresa would be proud.
Zoë Wayz™ started as a project for my digital marketing class when I was nineteen years old. It was one of those projects worth eighty percent of your grade, and I was aiming for the dean’s list, so I wanted to go above and beyond.
Since my generation was more into experiences than things, vacations over Viché, so to speak, I’d started Zoë Wayz Adventures.
All of my classmates used existing businesses, but I’d wanted to model how the strategies we’d learned in class could grow something from nothing. I thought if nothing else, it might make a great portfolio project to show future employers.
And because as a kid I’d spent hours reading true stories about other people’s adventures, wanting to do those things myself when I grew up, I already had a good knowledge base, even if I was terrified to actually do those things as an adult.
Somehow, while earning an A plus and successfully getting on the dean’s list that year, my socials grew an audience over two hundred thousand.And I’d never even had one real adventure. They were all fake, written from memories of other’s stories.
That’s why Mark’s words hurt so badly. They were true. I was basic. Zoë Wayz, The Fake.
After earning my degree, the brand kept growing and I knew if I wanted to see where it could go, I needed to start having real adventures of my own. Especially when I started getting offers for all-expense-paid trips and paid sponsorships.
