This was never going to work.
Maggie wobbled across the carpeted expanse of her sister’s living room, tilting and twisting on heels that felt like stilts. The palace walls were thick stone and would muffle any sounds she made.
She was no rodeo clown, but she’d probably get some laughs if she tried to wear these heels and pitched hiney over teakettle in front of the photographers who followed her family around any time they stepped foot out of the royal palace.
Muttering words that were certainly not suitable for her station, Maggie peeled off one torture device and then the other—otherwise known as Louboutins.
She retraced her steps back to her sister’s bedroom. Before yesterday, she’d never been in this suite. It’d been well over a decade since she’d stepped foot on Glorvaird soil. Even the suite they’d shared as children would’ve felt foreign.
This morning, Tirith’s personal assistant Elizabeth had laid out the plum-colored pantsuit, white silk blouse, and offending shoes while Maggie had been showering.
The clothes whispered along her skin, the softness almost as foreign as having someone choose her outfit, down to the diamond cuff bracelet that felt like a shackle around her wrist.
And that was a drop in the bucket of discomfort after Maggie had been subjected to nearly an hour in a chair getting her hair, makeup and manicure done before she’d been allowed to dress.
The stylist had been aghast at the state of her hair. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that the highlights he was griping about were natural from being out in the sun all day. At least the manicurist had been silent in her judgment of Maggie’s farm-girl hands.
Had they already figured it out? Would they go to the press?
Maybe she wouldn’t even last the first morning of this charade.
She stomped back to the bedroom, shoes in hand. The crowd of helpers—more like handlers—had made themselves scarce after she’d been adequately groomed, and she now had the suite to herself.
She’d spent close to an hour last night practicing in the mirror, trying to get Tirith down. They might be twins, but Tirith was practically a stranger to her. How she stood, how she walked… if Maggie messed it up, this crazy plan would be over. She’d had deportment lessons from an instructor her mother had sent to the Triple H when Maggie was thirteen. That was twelve years ago, and she’d never had an occasion to use what she’d begrudgingly learned. She’d skipped senior prom in favor of going camping with her dad.
Now she went straight to the walk-in closet—bigger than her room back at home—and stepped inside. Flats. She just needed a pair of flats that matched this suit.
She blinked at the array of clothes in every color, each one with a designer label. Nothing like what filled her closet back home.
Even blinking felt wrong. Her eyelashes were Tirith’s, not hers. Curled with a wicked-looking silver tool, painted with mascara and lined with a pencil.
She should have probably been thankful the stylist hadn’t given her false eyelashes.
Being Tirith was the whole point.
She sighed as she left the heels right in the middle of the closet floor and went to the set of shelves built into the very back of the space.
There. The ballet flats were plain black, and Maggie knew she could make it through the day without falling on her face if she wore them. She quickly slipped them on.
“Just be Tirith,” she said under her breath as she went back through the bedroom and into the living area.
It was easier said than done. Her sister didn’t even have a television, only bookshelves that lined one entire wall.
Maggie enjoyed curling up with a good book as much as anybody, but come on. Sometimes a girl needed a few hours of college football to unwind. There was something therapeutic about booing the referee when he made a terrible call. Dad kept several of last year’s best games on the DVR for when they needed a fix during the off season.
The sleek orange cat tiptoed out of Tirith’s bedroom door and into the bathroom. The second sighting Maggie had had of it. It must’ve slept under the bed. Or in the closet. Probably waiting to pounce.
Of course Tirith had a cat.
Maggie was a dog person.
She gritted her teeth.
She’d make do. It was only for two weeks.
She grimaced, then caught a glimpse of her face in the wall-mounted mirror across the room.
When was the last time Tirith had asked her for anything?
Never.
Not since they’d been taken—
Maggie couldn’t let herself go there. Not when she was this close. There was a reason she’d stayed in Texas for so long.
But her twin needed her. And Tirith never needed anything. She was strong. So much stronger than Maggie.
The fact that Tirith had asked for help now meant she needed it desperately. How could Maggie say no?