The Outlaw Prince's Captive - Holly Rayner Page 0,45

him and then realize that I’m not,” the stranger said. “You were disappointed. You thought you were about to meet sexy Viggo Lindström, and instead you get me. The watered-down knockoff version.”

It wasn’t something Francesca would have put into words, but she couldn’t deny that he was right. Viggo was attractive in a way that this man just wasn’t. It was as if someone had had all the ingredients necessary to build a copy of Viggo, but they had put the pieces together slightly wrong and had ruined the entire puzzle in the process.

“I don’t think you’re unattractive,” she managed.

He rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Just take my advice. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from Viggo Lindström.”

The light changed, and the man set off across the street.

Francesca stood, stunned, watching him go. What are the odds I would meet a lookalike who knew so much about Viggo?

Then something seemed to fall into place in her head. A lookalike. What were the odds?

She knew she couldn’t allow him to see what she was doing. She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her leggings and pretended she was sending a text message.

The man reached the other side of the street and turned, ready to cross the other half of the intersection. Now she was looking at him in profile.

She raised her phone camera and took a quick snapshot. Then she stuffed the phone back into her pocket before he could turn back and set off jogging toward home, at a faster pace than she had set out. She needed to get back as quickly as possible and let Viggo know everything that had happened this morning.

When she reached the apartment, completely out of breath from hurrying home and from running up the stairs, she found him awake and in the kitchen, frying eggs.

“I assumed you’d just gone out to the store,” he said, eyeing her. “But it never occurred to me that you had gone for a run! I didn’t know you were the type. I like a morning run myself, but of course it’s not an option for me right now.”

He looked mournful, but there was no time to worry about such things. Francesca waved her hand. “Never mind that. I need to show you something.”

He turned off the stove and came to sit at the table. Francesca pulled up the picture she had taken on her phone and showed it to him.

“He knew who you were,” she said. “And he knew about the hit-and-run. And…I don’t know quite how to explain it, but there was something suspicious about it all. The way, as soon as I said I’d mistaken him for someone else, he immediately knew I meant you. As if you were foremost in his mind.”

Viggo was squinting at the picture.

“I know this man,” he said.

Francesca was floored. “You do?”

Viggo nodded. “This is Jean Fabron. He and I attended the same boarding school, in Switzerland. I lost track of him for many years, but he recently moved to New York as well. I think he runs some kind of business here too.”

“You don’t know?”

“We’re not close,” Viggo said. “We have friends in common, so we do see one another from time to time, but he and I don’t go out of our way to socialize with each other. And we weren’t friends in school either. Not really.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Francesca asked, her excitement mounting. Her theory was becoming more and more plausible.

Viggo hesitated. “Actually,” he said, his gaze far away, “I think he was at the club the night of the accident.”

“Are you serious?” Francesca’s heart rate sped up.

“Yes, he definitely was.” Viggo’s voice had become more certain. “We had an argument. I remember now. He spilled a drink on me, and I told him to watch where he was going. Jean never liked to be corrected. He acted as if I was completely unreasonable to want him to watch his step.”

“Were you rude to him?” Francesca asked.

“Maybe a little,” Viggo said. “He didn’t need to make a scene about it.”

“He strikes me as a scene-making kind of guy,” Francesca said. “You should have heard him go off when I mistook him for you. He was angry.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. He was always like that.”

“Like what? An angry person?”

“Not especially,” Viggo said. “But it was always clear that he had a problem with me.”

“What problem could he have with you?”

“You’re not the first person to