Twin Love

By Martin Harrington

Jordyn Ross is a global singing sensation. Together with her twin Sefina, the ‘Ross Twins’ rule the world’s airwaves. Despite the success their relationship is strained; Sefina is a man eater and seduces any male showing the slightest interest in her heartbroken sister.
They are on a promotional tour of Australia residing beside a marina when Jordyn meets artist and sailor, David Silver. Confident and daring, David graciously deflects Sefina’s relentless advances and sets his heart on Jordyn.
Balanced on a delicate ledge of emotion their growing relationship navigates Sefina’s meddling, Australia’s Gold Coast’s epic Indy Carnival and the electrifying Melbourne Cup before ending in a storm ravaged Sydney to Hobart yacht race that will ask Jordyn to risk her life for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Harrington
• Release date: Feb 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310479373

Book preview

TWIN LOVE

MARTIN

HARRINGTON

Twin Love

Copyright © Martin Harrington 2015

All rights reserved

First published in 2015

Harrington, Martin

Twin Love

1st edition

Cover design by Tara O'Shea

Cover images © George Mayer | Dreamstime.com

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter One

Jordyn Ross stared out from the opulent Palazzo Versace penthouse suite, enclosed in a tight cloak of misery her exquisite surrounds could not diminish. With the concertina door to the expansive balcony wide open, she stood in shadow, inches from the warm morning sun as she digested the unpalatable evening of the day before.

It had been the usual disaster. Welcomed by the local who’s who with a gala event and Sefina, in her usual brazen manner, steals away her date, neither of them to return. Jordyn had been humiliated.

Now this, she thought, turning to glance at the local newspaper, the Gold Coast Sun, unopened on the coffee table, her broken heart the headline. A pixelated, night-time photo of Sefina at what was trumpeted to be Jordyn’s late date’s apartment accompanied the bold print.

How pathetic!

It did not lessen the pain, the sense of betrayal and anger, of hurt and abandonment, a sacred, unspoken trust, broken. Sefina treated Jordyn as a doormat. Blessed with extraordinary beauty, her twin had carved a career as a successful singer, master actress and the most selfish person Jordyn had ever known.

Jordyn turned back to the balcony and looked out at the view. A shallow broadwater, dotted with islands and sandbars, bathed in mid-morning, summer sunlight, stretched off into the distance.

On the far shore, beyond the parklands’ swaying coastal trees, apartment towers and office blocks continued like an erratic graph in either direction to the horizon.

Further north, a roller coaster stood out starkly above the flat peninsula, and beyond the tree tops she could make out the distant superstructure of a cruise liner’s upper decks.

Whenever Jordyn traveled to a coastal destination, she requested an ocean view. The sea made her feel good. Her godfather Callum had taken her sailing as a young girl. It had been then she had made her greatest discovery: Sefina’s aversion to anything afloat. Jordyn had become a committed sailor and her sister had never set foot on the water again.

Jordyn’s vision improved as she gazed at the broad expanse of water. She believed that the sight of a wind-filled sail could lift her spirits, yet it was not a sail that attracted her attention.

A yacht, minus a mast, motored toward her. The vital component stood splintered, snapped off a few feet above the deck, the unexpected silhouette an alarm to her sailor’s eye.

Her depression vanished in an instant, replaced by thoughts as old as time itself. Conjured by the irrepressible romantic in her soul, Jordyn dared to dream of the man who sailed her.

With a sudden turn she dashed to her bedroom to retrieve a pair of Leica binoculars. Returning to the open doorway, she tingled with excitement and raised the glasses to her eyes.

Seen through the high-grade lenses, he was beautiful, rugged. Shoulder-length, sun-bleached hair, windswept and stiff with salt, framed a sun-darkened complexion. Stubble, golden in the morning sun, traced his firm jaw line and encircled his rich, kissable lips. A pair of heavily tinted, black, wraparound sunglasses added an air of mystery.

Clad only in a thin cotton tee shirt and boardshorts, his shoulders spanned the breadth of the large wheel. Arms like a gymnast reached forward to where a large pair of powerful hands caressed the helm. He looked as if he would be as comfortable in the ocean as he seemed upon it.

A husky feminine voice, heard around the world, purred in her ear. He’s cute.

Jordyn willed herself to remain calm, the sudden impulse she had to turn and slap her sibling’s face resisted. She continued to survey the yacht.

What’s wrong with his boat?

It’s a yacht, Sefina. Looks as though it spent the night with you. She regretted the flippant remark as soon as it sounded.

Well, he hasn’t … yet.

Jordyn faced Sefina, her fragile composure vaporized. Is that all life is to you, the chance to torment me, to beat me at every turn? She snatched up the newspaper and shook it in Sefina’s face.

Is this your idea of a game? Do you have any idea how it makes me feel when you do this to me? For God’s sake; he was my date!

Sefina gave a tiny lift of her shoulders, her flawless face indifferent. He was never your date.

Jordyn’s blood boiled. I spent the whole evening with him. You’re pathetic.

It’s all in the look, my dear sister. When I stepped into the room last night our eyes locked.’ Sefina held up her palms. Who am I to stop the inevitable?"

Jordyn exploded. Can’t you control yourself once in your life and consider someone else? You’re obscene the way you prattle on as if your ephemeral urges are so important you can walk over anybody to satisfy them.

Oh, but I can, sis … and I do, Sefina counseled, oblivious to Jordyn’s temper. Don’t worry so much, Jordy; he wasn’t for you. Consider I’m doing you a favor. One day there’ll be a man who resists me, and then you’ll have the prince you so often fantasize about. She waved her manicured hand in the direction of the oncoming yacht. Maybe it’s him; you always did go for the sailor type.

Jordyn spun on her heel, too wound up to trust herself to speak. Sefina’s words rang true.

She stared at the yacht. To her delight, the image of the sailor thrust itself back into her mind and Sefina from it. Indeed, with such clarity did she recall his weathered countenance, the way his hair fell back from his eyes, that it seemed as if she had never taken her eyes off him.

She raised the glasses to her eyes and adjusted the focus ring, delighted to feel her pulse quicken as the sailor pulled into crisp clarity. A thousand romantic scenarios scrolled across her thoughts as she studied him. With an effort she dragged the binoculars from her face, her heartbeat abnormal; he had headed toward the hotel’s private marina.

Without thought, she moved to step through the open door. Uncertain, she stopped; shy in the way young lovers are. Ideas to orchestrate a tryst flooded her thoughts, but she stood glued to the spot, unable to act. Life felt delicious.

White water surged from the bow of the yacht as it cleaved its way through the sheltered waters. She could see without the binoculars, but Jordyn brought them back to her eyes, his every detail of intense interest.

He steered into the marina toward an empty berth. Impressed with the effortless way he handled the craft in the marina’s narrow confines, Jordyn pulsed with pleasure. It was ridiculous, she told herself: heart palpitations over a distant stranger. Why did it feel so right?

Her career as a successful singer had her in the orbit of the world’s most desirable men. Yet none had ignited the furnace inside her as had the sight of the weather-beaten yachtsman.

Now if she could only stroll out onto the waterfront balcony and wave from the rail, something Sefina might attempt, Jordyn thought, as a flash of platinum blond moved onto the marina and brought her world of pretend to an end.

Her twin approached the yacht’s berth in perfect time to beckon for the bowline. Jordyn screamed a silent ‘no’. In Sefina’s world, a tied-off yacht equaled a conquest.

How she could be so brazen? Jordyn loved her twin – and hated her. In contrast to her sister, she approached matters of the heart with care. Every broken one left a scar. She thought of the newspaper. Fame had its ups, but a girl wanted to grieve in private.

No longer in need of the binoculars, Jordyn dangled them from one hand as she observed the yacht’s captain. Sure-footed and never hurried, he walked forward with the lines. Along the way he hung the boat’s bumpers over the side to cushion the craft from the jetty. With a casual flick of his wrist he landed the looped end in Sefina’s outstretched hands. His end he secured to a deck cleat. He danced back to the cockpit to take up the helm. A change of gears shifted the craft into reverse and the yacht inched toward the jetty.

The word ‘pirate’ leapt into Jordyn’s mind as she watched the man flick the engine into neutral and leap across the contracting gap of water to the jetty. On sun-browned bare feet he spun around and waited for the vessel to close the gap and come up against his outstretched hands. He leant his weight against the craft and, helped by the bumpers, brought it up gently against the marina.

Jordyn watched, impressed. He could handle a yacht; could he handle the crew?

He tied off the stern and then moved to Sefina. To Jordyn’s delight he issued a curt nod, a short word of thanks and relieved her of the loose line, which he fixed to a bollard. A few seconds elapsed as he adjusted the rope’s tension before he leaped back on board and disappeared below.

Jordyn swiveled her eyes.

Sefina stood on the wharf, alone and volcanic.

Jordyn stepped into the sunlight.

Angry, Sefina approached the stern. Accustomed to men who changed the most important of plans on her whim, she bulldozed the slight. Wounded, she stepped foot on a boat, the first time in twenty years.

Jordyn whipped the glasses up to her eyes and watched as Sefina stopped at the head of the hatch. She leant forward, her casual pose revealing.

Jordyn held her breath. Her heart thundered. She could not recall any previous resistance to Sefina’s flirting. Her brief flush of smugness fled.

Sefina recoiled from the hatchway, her pretence of seduction exiled.

From side-on Jordyn could lip-read parts of the tirade she hurled below deck. With one final invective Sefina spun and departed.

Pity the next person she meets, Jordyn reflected.

She stood and rocked. The mysterious man had her complete attention. To her delight, a tuft of blond hair danced along the hatch’s rim. It departed in a flash. She waited, as thoughts of the recent minutes soaked in.

Not once, but twice he had rejected Sefina, as Sefina had predicted the man of Jordyn’s dreams would.

Fate had Jordyn here in Australia, a last-minute favor.

Barry Allen, her manager, co-owned an Indy car racing team. Twenty-five cutting-edge teams raced in nine different countries. Every host city filled with frenzied fans.

For the Aussie leg, held in Barry’s hometown, the Gold Coast, Australia’s holiday capital in the state of Queensland, the Indy Ball would be the opening night of the city’s newest convention center. Barry had an act booked, Life For Me, at present one of the hottest bands on earth, but less than a week before the lead singer of the band, Pete Judd, had been in an accident and faced a considerable time in hospital.

The Ross Twins occupied number one spot on the Australian charts in both the album and single section, and Barry had organized for them to replace the headline act without a whisper of complaint.

The tuft of blond hair flashed into view, to Jordyn’s horror attached to a woman. Where there had been an empty deck now stood the most beautiful female Jordyn had ever seen. Assured and confident, she scanned her surrounds. An empress could not have done it better.

Jordyn’s certainties fell away. Dread terrorized every nerve. Why this intense pain over someone she had never met? Nothing explained the depth of loss; it plunged forever into an abyss. She stumbled back to the comfort of her secluded hotel suite. Inside, she dissolved into the welcome shadow. Lined with sadness, her face peered out. A tear balanced delicately in the corner of her eye and she dabbed it