"My parents caught them when we were just shy of eighteen, and they threatened to send her away. She ran away, with him, and I understood not telling our parents or our brother, but me? It nearly killed me.
"She was gone for almost two years, and she came back pregnant and married. My family refused to speak with her, but I did.
"Eric was teaching again at the University of Minnesota. I transferred there and moved in with them. I was young, and stupid, and I made a horrible mistake. I slept with Eric one night, and Vicky found us.
"There was a bad snowstorm, and she took off, crying hysterically, damning me. She slid off a bridge and died on impact. What they say about twins is true; I felt it, the very instant she died. It felt like a part of me died too.
"My family came, but when Eric got drunk he told them what happened. They blamed me, and I understood. I was young, confused, I wanted to leave, but Eric convinced me to stay. Rent free, all I had to do was help look after my niece.
"I looked like her mother, I looked like his wife. It was a matter of time. We began to have a relationship, and I lost myself. Not the way people say; I truly lost myself. I became Vicky, wearing her clothes, living in her house, sleeping with her husband.
"She'd published a book, at least gotten a deal. They asked me to help with the editing and I did. For marketing they suggested putting it under my name, letting me do her interviews, taking credit.
"I agreed, but I put all the profits into an account for my niece Beth, I was custodian. By then Eric and I were engaged, and some stupid little reporter found out about Vicky and the contract.
"Eric wanted Vicky's money then. I had ended up rewriting almost all the book and didn't take a cent, and he wanted the money. Things were rough by then, Beth was calling me mommy, my family was telling stories to the media, my life wasn't my own.
"I sold my own first book and then Eric and I separated. He sued me, and I won, but at great personal cost. I never got to see Beth again, nor my family. I vowed that day I'd never let anyone get close to me, I'd never risk another chance at losing myself.
"I started to drink and write, and until you came along, that's all I knew."
I took a deep breath as he pulled into my hotel and parked. His hand had been on my thigh for long minutes and I turned to him, shaking inside.
"Nicky, I'd never want anything from you. I won't demand, I won't take, I won't change anything about you. If staying up all night with whiskey and a computer is who you are, that's the woman I love."
My heart ached and I grabbed him and pressed my lips to his. The kiss was gentle, smooth, and I tried to put my feelings into it. His arms slipped around me and pressed me close, the gearshift between us, but that was all.
He pulled back with a smile and stroked my hair back. "Now what do you want to show me?"
***
My hotel room was messy. Clothes were strewn about attesting to how many outfit changes I'd gone through, there were reference and grammar books all over, and I'd left the TV on HBO.
I turned it off and started to looking for the latest printout of the manuscript. "I realized that writing was a strange kind of therapy. My character, the hit woman Liz, was me. The people she killed were my demons, real and imagined. Here it is!"
I produced the giant stack of five hundred pages with flourish and he smiled. "What is that?"
"My latest book. I wrote it here. I want you read this last part."
He sat on the bed as I handed him the pages and swiped his dark hair back, though it refused to obey.
I bit at my cuticles as he read, nervous. No one but Helen or my American editor read these pages before it went to print.
He was reading the last scene of the series. Liz had just pulled off the impossible; she'd killed herself. That left her free to become Elizabeth again, and she and Donovan could ride off and start fresh.
Not the happy note I'd once thought of ending the series on, but the only note I had in my heart now.
"Nicky, does this mean what I think it does?" He asked quietly when he finished.
I sat next to him and put my trembling hands between my legs to hide the shaking. "I can't ask you to deal with the press. I can't ask you to be patient with my nerves and paranoia. I can't ask anything except you forgive me, and give me a chance."
He dropped the pages to the floor, letting them scatter, and cupped my face. "We've both been asses, but there's nothing to forgive. And if you can handle my hectic schedule and my son who thinks you're the neatest person alive, then there's nothing left to say."
I kissed him, and he leaned me back, and all five hundred pages along with half my wardrobe we thrown to the ground, but I didn't care. I cared for nothing but the second chance life had given me.
At long last I knew the game was over, and we'd both won.
