Page 21 of Twins for the Enemy

I whisk the eggs as the pan sizzles from the butter. I pour the mixture into the pan. After I chop up part of a pepper, I curve the spatula around the edges of the pan. The outside is cooking much faster than the inside.

“Move over,” Farah says, bouncing off her stool and striding over to my side. “You should have heated up the pan before you started cooking. It’s also better to add a bit of milk. I’d also cook the peppers first before starting the omelet, but we can just add it in.”

I hand her the spatula. Under most circumstances, I’d have fought against someone taking over, but being that close to her, I can smell the shampoo and soap I left in her bathroom. I’d tried to get the same jasmine scent she’d had when we met, but this one is slightly less sweet. It doesn’t change the way it brings me back to that night.

“Did you have some secret culinary degree?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

She turns down the heat under the pan. “No, my brother taught me.”

“It must have been your father’s job to teach you to not commit arson.”

She snorts. “No. My father wasn’t a good person. He didn’t teach me anything.”

I don’t recall much about my biological parents—a tantrum from my father as he knocked down the cradle in a desperate attempt to find his stash and a flash of my mother draped in a chair with a glassy look inher eyes—but the edge in her voice reminds me of some of my foster parents.

But I didn’t leave anyone to burn in a building.

“Daddy issues,” I say. “That fits.”

She glares at me as she flips over the omelet. She sprinkles some cheese and the chopped pepper into it.

The truth is I’ve made hundreds of omelets in my life. Ellie loves them with sautéed mushrooms. But Farah’s making me incompetent. She’s twisted me around so much that even things that should be instinctive are forgotten.

I should be focusing on her cooking, but watching her is sensual in a way that makes me think I’ve never seen sensuality. Her movements are graceful, swaying between the stove, the cabinet drawers, and the refrigerator. It’s like her feet barely touch the ground. The faintest smile tugs at her lips with a subtle pink in her cheeks. Her brow is furrowed—not in confusion, but in intense concentration. It’s not like a woman who would smash down a door just to prove a point.

But, if I’m honest with myself, I also find that side provocative.

“I don’t know how you expect to raise the twins together,” she says, drying her hands off. She throws that hand towel at me. “If you’re always going to treat me like an enemy.”

I toss the hand towel on the counter.

“I’d take that more seriously if you hadn’t just broken down my door.”

“I wouldn’t have broken down the door if you hadn’t locked me inside the room.”

“Do you want to remember why I locked you in a room?”

“Because you’re a self-righteous ass.”

She opens the refrigerator. I shut it, twisting her around to pin her against the stainless steel. It’s not rage at her insult, but the indifferent attitude toward burning Ellie. Looking straight at her, seeing the coldness in her eyes, should make that rage grow, but it’s not coldness I see. Defiance, yes, but a gentlenessdominates her features. Even when she’s trying to appear aggressive, it’s like a vicious fawn. My injured, vicious fawn.

Her eyes soften more as she looks at me. It pierces a hook through me—the most transparent bait that I’ve bitten into.

“So, why didn’t you run?” I ask. “Do you plan on continuing to steal from me? Or do you plan to set my house on fire?”

“You’ve made it clear that you have the money and influence to track me down,” she says. “You also made your point by nailing down my windows—every time I escape, my situation gets worse. I’m capable of making a rational decision.”

I narrow my eyes. Her chest is rising and falling, pressing against my chest in a way that’s getting increasingly hard to ignore. But I have to, because she’s a liar.

“You’re also capable of scheming,” I say. “I’d say you’re more capable of that than rational decisions.”

“I would never scheme,” she scoffs. “You must be thinking of a man who would buy an old house, simply to trap a pregnant woman who works as a cleaner.”

Defiance hardens her expression. I think about how that mouth could be softened—by harsh words or something more rigid than that—her expression changes. The green of her eyes gets brighter as her eyes widen. Fear. Then panic.

The hooks tear through my chest as I consider my place in triggering that fear.

Then, I see the flicker of light in the reflection of her eyes.

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