The Rebound - Stefanie London Page 0,9

what you’re talking about.” She bites down on her lip. “You must be mixing me up with my sister.”

The lie tells me that she knows exactly who I am. We’re standing outside 21 Love Street, the golden warmth from the foyer spilling out into the drizzly grey evening. Somehow, wearing way more than the last time I saw her, Presley looks even sexier. Her hair is a little wild, her eyes even wilder.

“Why did you respond when I called out Presley, then?”

“We’re identical twins. People mix us up all the time, so we always respond to each other’s names.” There’s a challenge in her tone, as if she’s daring me to call her a liar.

Too bad for Presley, I don’t plan on going home empty handed.

“I’m not mixing you up,” I continue. “You see, I waited out here for you for a good while after I dropped you off. Long enough that I got a raging call from my father, who’s now not speaking to me because he thinks I bailed on my stepbrother’s wedding.”

Guilt streaks across her face. This woman is the runaway bride, no doubt in my mind.

“I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Don’t insult me,” I say, taking a step forward. “I’ll admit, you got me good the day of the wedding. It didn’t even occur to me that you might be pulling a bait-and-switch.”

She looks at me, her eyes tracking my face as if searching for something. But she doesn’t say a word. A few metres away, a tram whizzes along Clarendon Street, bells dinging. Music from a nearby beer garden floats along the air, and the evening is alive with life. I let the silence stretch on for a few beats longer than is comfortable.

“What do you want?” she asks eventually, wrapping her arms around herself. On top, she’s wearing a leather jacket and it hugs her slim shoulders perfectly.

“How about that drink ‘we’ were going to have at the wedding?” I’m not going to launch into my demands in the middle of the street, and I figure getting her to let her guard down first will give me a better chance of convincing her to dish the dirt.

Presley considers me, her expression telling me she trusts me as much as a dog with a Beware sign hanging above its head. She’s right not to trust me. I absolutely came here with a personal agenda and I plan on executing it.

“Why the hell not?” She tosses her hands up in the air with a frustrated huff. “I was planning on drowning my sorrows anyway.”

I grin. “Misery does love company.”

I’ll turn this disaster around, no matter what.

CHAPTER FIVE

Presley

WHY THE HELL am I going for a drink with my ex’s stepbrother?

Don’t you mean your getaway driver?

I feel guilty that I caused Sebastian and his dad to have a fight. I’d been so focused on my great escape that I didn’t consider the consequences for the man who saved me. Honestly, I only had brainpower for my own problems that day. I’d been so consumed by my own shame and humiliation, and my desperation to get the hell out of there, that I’d acted selfishly.

Not my finest moment.

“What was the plan for drowning your sorrows?” Sebastian asks as we walk down the street.

I try not to be too obvious as I watch him out of the corner of my eye but, if we’re being honest, this man is impossible not to look at. I’m no shortie, but he towers over me—six feet three...maybe four. He’s broad yet lean, his muscular thighs hugged by soft, fitted denim. It’s his face that has me staring, though—rich coffee-coloured eyes with lashes thick enough to star in a Maybelline ad. Dark hair with a natural wave, causing it to kink around his collar. Starkly masculine facial features that are only softened by an amused smile that seems to hover just out of reach.

“No specific plans,” I say, thinking about my conversation with Drew earlier. “Just the requisite breakup ingredients—cheap booze that burns a little on the way down to remind me that I’m an idiot. Oh, and music loud enough to drown out my thoughts.”

Sebastian laughs. It’s a dry, sharp sound that has an appreciative edge to it, like he knows exactly what I mean. “I can only assume my stepbrother is the idiot in this scenario, because he lost you and that seems like a dumb move to me.”

“Smooth. He told me you were like that.”

What he’d actually said was that Sebastian