I cringed and stared at my fingers as I twisted them on my lap. “It is cool. But there’s more to it.”

“Okay, what?”

I blew out a breath, unable to meet Asher’s eyes. “I said she was looking for specific models. As in, her new series has … a certain criteria that has to be met in order for a person to qualify for the job.”

“Like blond hair, blue eyes?”

“Um … kinda? More like, must be identical twins.”

The air in the room grew still. The sound of my own labored breathing was all I could hear when the song switched from Temple of the Dog “Hunger Strike” to Alice in Chains “Down in a Hole.”

Chancing a glance at my brother, I almost snorted when I was met with a dramatically raised brow and a look of what-the-fuck on his face.

He didn’t move or respond. All he did was stare and stare and stare.

I waved a hand in front of his face. “Did I break you? Say something.”

Asher wet his lips and threaded fingers through his hair, shaking away the last dredges of his shock. “Back up and help me understand what you just said. I think I’m confused.”

Yeah, probably not.

“Charlotte Jones is planning a new series featuring identical twins. It’s some new sensational trope everyone is all gaga over. It’s called twincest.”

I held up my hands, warding off an attack, but Asher didn’t move—apart from his nostrils flaring. I couldn’t be sure he was breathing at all otherwise.

“So, she’s looking for sexy identical twins to be featured on her book covers and to film a few trailer videos, and I thought, we’re all sexy and identical, so why not us?”

Asher’s face grew hard. His lips firmed. His gaze darkened and bore into me with the pain of a thousand needles.

So, I threw in the trump card. The one and only reason I even considered this whole thing to begin with. “And it pays a minimum of twenty-four thousand dollars.”

Then I stilled and waited. At the rate my heart was beating, I was pretty sure if Asher didn’t kill me first, I’d be dead in ten seconds anyhow of a heart attack.

It was a full, painfully long minute before he spoke. “T-twincest? Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Depends. Did you think it meant twins being all incesty together?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re right on the money.”

He blinked about thirty or forty times in rapid succession. “Twincest?”

It was time I handed him my phone with the advertisement. He took it, eyes leery and untrusting. For a beat, he stared at me with a wrinkle in his nose, then he ducked his head and read.