Marrying the Wrong Twin
By: Nicole Casey
A Billionaire Marriage Mistake Romance
Prologue
ASHA
Sometimes, when my mother looked at me, I forgot that I was a woman. Under her withering steel eyes, I was reverted back to a toddler of four whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar.
She liked it that way, though, I could tell. It gave her the feeling of absolute power over me. Daddy was easier to deal with and I was regretting my decision to tell her my plight instead of him. Although in this particular case, I couldn’t be sure that I’d be any better off.
He’s going to learn about it sooner or later, I reasoned.
“I knew this was going to happen,” Mom hissed, her gaze locked on me. “I warned your father a year ago that this was the road you were heading down.”
“Mom,” I muttered. “I—"
“I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth, Asha. You sprout nothing but lies. We tried to raise you right but I knew it. You’re spoiled, impulsive and have no regard for anyone else but yourself.”
Leave it to Mom to make this about her.
Her grey eyes were identical to mine and yet when I met her pointed stare, I saw nothing of myself in her face. She was harder than me, the lines around her eyes proof of the endless stresses she seemed to take upon herself.
“I’ll figure it out,” I mumbled. I heard how hollow the words sounded as they left my lips but I didn’t know what else to say.
“You’ll figure it out?” The scorn in her voice was tangible and struck me like a physical blow. “YOU’LL FIGURE IT OUT?!”
“Collette, what are you screaming about in here?”
Enter Dad.
So much for keeping it under wraps until I could come up with a solution.
Mom didn’t pull her eyes from my face even though I darted my sooty eyes desperately toward my father. As if he could really help me.
I let my black hair fall over my face, realizing, perhaps for the first time that I was not getting out of this unscathed. Until that moment, I had clung to some childish optimism that maybe I’d wake up from under my mother’s nearly violent gaze and be in my canopied bed upstairs, shielded by the sheer curtains.
Maybe, in my sixteen-year-old, underdeveloped brain, I wasn’t really there but at a sleepover with the other cheerleaders, having a bad dream. Any second now, Stephanie or Amber would wake me up with annoyance and tell me to shut up.
But there would be no more cheerleading for me. Not for a long while, not while my father peered at my mother, mild exasperation on his face as he waited for one of us to speak and tell him what the fuss was about.
“Well?” he demanded. “What happened, Collette? Asha?”
I couldn’t meet his eyes, a wave of shame enveloping me in a torrent. How could I have let this happen?
“Are you going to tell him or do I have to clean up this mess too?” Mom hissed. I pursed my lips together, unable to formulate any words and Mom grunted.
“Our daughter has gotten herself pregnant, James.”
Dad physically reeled back, his bronze face paling to a near-opaque as he gaped at me.
“What?” he gasped. “Asha, tell me this isn’t true!”
But what could I say? I wasn’t just pregnant—I was just over five months along. I’d ignored it as long as I could but I was starting to show, my baby fat no longer hiding the bulge in my belly. It was a wonder that no one had noticed before, except for some of the bitchier girls at school who had mocked my weight gain but had otherwise been clueless.
Why would anyone think that I, Asha Marie Preston, would be knocked up after all? I was an honor student, co-captain of the squad and treasurer of the student council. Not that any of that mattered to my parents. To them, I was Asha Marie Preston, only child and heir to the conglomerate empire my father had been building since he was my age.
When he was sixteen, he was taking the inheritance he got from his father and creating an empire. And I’m about to be a high-school drop out with a kid.
“Asha, say something!” My dad pleaded, his eyes wide with horror. “Is this true?”
“Of course it’s true, James. The question is, what are we going to do with her?”
“Do with me?” I choked, not liking the ominous sound of her tone. “What do you mean?”
