He handed me the sheets. It was a song he’d composed entitled "Give First Impressions a Second Chance."

The notes he’d penciled onto the paper meant nothing to me—I couldn’t sight-read—but I could tell the lyrics were divided into parts. He'd written a duet for us to sing. The complete panic I felt was counterbalanced by the nice things he said. The refrain repeated in the chorus said: If I'd believed that stuff was true, I would have missed out on loving you.

He loved me? Was that just catchy lyrics, or did he mean it?

"Do you like it?” he asked.

"I love it."

A smile broke across his face, lighting up his features. "I was hoping you'd say that. Let's practice it right now.”

He took my hand, trying to pull me toward the piano, but I stayed firmly seated on the couch. "Not right now.” The second I sang anything to him, he'd realize I didn’t have Kari's voice. I racked my brain to come up with a good excuse to turn him down. "I never mix business with pleasure, or work with dating, or singing with sitting with my boyfriend on the couch."

Boyfriend. I liked how that felt to say, and he didn’t flinch when I said it. Boyfriend. Grant Delray was my boyfriend. I wanted to say it twelve more times just to taste the words in my mouth.

"I don’t have the same policy," he said, and without taking his gaze off my eyes, he sang the first verse of our song. If there were any rough spots, like he’d claimed, I couldn’t tell. I only heard his hypnotically beautiful voice surrounding me. At that moment I wanted nothing more in the world than to sing with him.

I would find a way to make our duet work somehow— some excuse, some explanation for the change in my voice. He leaned over and his lips found mine, and neither of us said anything for several minutes.

* * *

While he drove me back to Rodeo Drive, Grant told me he would e-mail me a version of our song so I could practice it. I didn't say anything. My wishful thinking had begun to break apart. No matter how much I wanted it, I wouldn't be able to sing that song with him. But how long could I put him off about it?

"I guess I should warn you that my mom wants to invite you to dinner," he said. "She’s been cooking vegetarian recipes to come up with something you’ll like."

"Really?" I asked. I didn't want to meet his family. It was bad enough lying to Grant about my identity, I didn't want to spread the lie around to the rest of his family. "Don't you think it’s a little early for that?”

He shrugged. "You've already met my dad, and I’ve met yours."

"What?” I asked. "When did you meet my father?"

Grant sent me a glance like he thought I should know. "I belonged to that group he put together to visit the troops last year."

"Oh, right,” I said. The words sounded harshly hollow, even to me. I didn’t know why they'd come out that way.

"He’s a nice guy,” Grant said. "You remind me of him sometimes—your sense of humor and your mannerisms.”

There is obviously something wrong with me. A normal person would not cry after hearing that. And I’m not even sure why I started crying—whether it was the unfairness that Grant knew my father better than I did or because it was the first time anyone had ever said I reminded him of my father. Could I really have his sense of humor? Was that inherited?

I couldn't help thinking, with more desperation than I wanted to admit, that if I was like him, if my father could see himself in me, maybe he'd love me.

Grant looked over and then did a double take. "What?" he asked in alarm. "What’s wrong?"

I shook my head. "Nothing.” But I knew he wouldn't be satisfied with that answer, so I added, "It's just things with my father aren't the way I want them to be right now."

Grant's voice went soft. "You can change that if you want.”

"It's not that simple."

"Why don't you pick up the phone and call him?"

I didn’t have his phone number, for one thing.

I wondered—just to inflict pain on myself—if Grant had his phone number. How many friends, acquaintances, and near strangers talked to him every day? But even if Grant had Alex Kingsley's number, I couldn’t ask him for it. How do you explain to a guy that you don't know your own father's phone number without raising major red flags?

I wiped the tears off of my cheeks, angry with myself for having these emotional reactions every time I learned something about my father. He hadn't spent one ounce of emotion thinking about me.

"I know you two don’t get along anymore,” Grant said. "That’s in chapter nine of Lorna's book, but I'm sure he wants to talk to you as badly as you want to talk to him.”

Probably not.

I slipped on a pair of sunglasses and grabbed my hat from off of the seat. We’d arrived at Rodeo Drive, and he was about to let me off. As Grant put the car in park, I reached over and squeezed his hand. "Thanks for trying to help. And the song is beautiful. It means a lot to me.”

He leaned over and kissed me. It was stupid to let him do it in public, but I didn't turn away. Being within six inches of him apparently disarmed my rational thought. Besides, it only lasted three seconds. What were the chances that anyone would have a camera pointed at us during those three seconds?

* * *

The next day Grant e-mailed me an updated version of our song. He not only sent the sheet music, he also sent a video of him singing his part so I could practice.

Maren wasn't around. She'd gone to the studio to keep an eye on Kari. So I sat in the living room practicing the duet until I had the words memorized. I tried to sound like Kari. I tried to copy her strong, rich voice. The good news: I sounded pretty good, light and lyrical. The bad news: It didn’t matter how many times I repeated it, I didn't sound like Kari. I still sounded like me.

What was I going to do next time I saw him? He'd want to practice it. I would have to fake some horrible sore throat, and how long would he buy that?

It’s funny how sometimes you worry about things turning out badly, but you don't even consider that they could actually end up much worse.

The next day, while I was doing homework, Maren came home from one of her outings with Kari. Without speaking, she dropped two tabloids on the table next to me.

On the front page of one, I walked out of the restaurant by Grant’s side; in the other, I kissed Grant in his car. The headlines of the first read "Kari and Grant’s Secret Weekend Getaway!” The second said "Kari Cheats on Michael!” As I stared at them, Maren’s words dropped down to me like falling ice chunks. "Kari’s friends have called her about these. Michael has seen them too. You can imagine the day I’ve had.”

"I'm sorry—"

She flung one hand out in my direction. "Oh, I did a great job of transforming you into Kari. Even Kari's boyfriend thought it was her.”

My stomach clenched. "Is he really upset?"

"We’ll know how mad he is just as soon as he starts speaking to her again."

“I didn’t mean—"

She put her hands on the table, leaned toward me, and yelled, "I don’t care what you meant! What did you think you were doing, sneaking around with Grant Delray?”

I couldn’t answer her. It didn't matter; she didn't wait for my reply. "You will call him right now and break up with him. Then you’re never to go near him again. Do you understand?”

I didn't move. Grant’s face looked up at me from the tabloid article, Grant’s perfectly chiseled face next to mine. Maren walked over to the coat closet where I kept my purse and yanked my cell phone out of it. She thrust it into my hand. "Do it now, or so help me, I'll call him as your assistant and break up with him for you. And I won’t be nice about it."