I mulled over what he was saying. "You mean, make some grand romantic gesture?"
"It wouldn't hurt."
I frowned. "I'm not a romantic gesture kind of guy."
"Not many of us are. It's an acquired skill. I have faith in you, buddy. You're a quick study. You can learn. This moving-in business is awfully quick, though. Have you examined your own motives? Moving in is a serious step. Is that what you really want? Are you ready for it, is what I'm saying. Moving in together leads to getting married. Is that where you're headed?"
I hadn't given marriage much thought. Mainly I'd wanted to protect Shelby and get her away from Mitch. I was finding myself becoming strangely possessive.
"To be honest," Justin continued, "Shelby seems like the marrying kind."
I frowned at him. "Seriously? What gives you that idea? She dumped a guy just weeks before her wedding."
Justin shrugged. "You have a point. But she's in the marriage business and she did commit to a wedding, even if she got cold feet in the end. For a guy who prides himself on his intellect, you haven't made a good case study for your moving in idea. If you can't sell it to me, no wonder you failed with Shelby."
He was right on that score. When had I become so damn possessive of Shelby, wanting her around every minute? We still hadn't taken our relationship out of the "fake" stage.
The local news was playing on the TV over the stage. I wasn't paying attention to it.
Something caught Justin's attention. "Wait. That's The Blackberry Café. There was buzz in the office today about something going on up there. Long lines. People gawking. Film crews."
I turned to see what he was talking about. We paused to watch the news story.
"The Blackberry Café hosted a reality TV celebrity today. Rough-and-tumble heartthrob Jesse Parker from Gold Digger dropped in and caused quite a stir." The female newsperson fanned herself. "Jesse has developed a large following, many of them women, who love his rough style and antics on the gold fields and off.
"Jesse is known for his lush beard, his adventurous spirit, his mining sense, his risk taking, his machinery and mine boss skills, and his wicked sense of humor. The ladies absolutely love him. And he's single. Or so we thought." She lifted an eyebrow. "Throngs of his fans lined up in front of the café to get a glimpse of him and his camera crew. They were treated to this—Jesse lip-locked with a vivacious blonde in a white dress. We were lucky a viewer caught this footage and sent it in."
As a picture of this Jesse character passionately kissing a beautiful woman flashed onscreen, my heart stopped.
"Wait a minute," Justin said. "That looks a lot like—"
"Shelby," I finished for him with my heart in my stomach and a case of jealous rage coming on.
"So many women's hopes are going to be dashed," the reporter said. "This looks serious. Rumors abound, but we have a source that identified the woman as Shelby Hudson, a local hand-lettering artist. Shelby's been in the news for being a runaway bride, and for her former fiancé carting her off from a celebrity wedding. She's now the reported girlfriend of billionaire Dex Rushford, founder of Puppy Love. Or is she?" Another dramatic eyebrow lift. "Was it just puppy love between her and the dog-loving billionaire?"
The reporter shrugged coyly and smiled into the camera. "Dex, if you're watching, you'd better step up your game. Word is that Jesse and Shelby used to be a hot item with serious intentions. Jesse has taken time out from his busy, and all-important, short gold-mining season to steal Shelby away, to make her his wife and take her back to the Yukon for the rest of the season. Or so the rumors say.
"Sorry, ladies. And Dex. Doesn't Shelby just look like a bride in that dress?" The reporter swooned as a still of the kiss filled the screen—Shelby with Jesse pressing a red rose to her back as he dipped her and devoured her in a kiss.
I felt an irrational urge to punch something. Which wasn't like me. I preferred battles of wits to fistfights. I was going to ruin that bastard—
"Calm down." Justin's voice startled me out of my rage. "It might not be what it looks like."
"You mean—like the real reason Shelby wouldn't move in with me?"
"When you're scheming, your mind goes automatically to dark places."
"Who says I'm scheming?"
"It's written all over your face. I've seen that face enough times to duck for cover. Take a deep breath and think logically. Let's say Shelby really does have a thing for this Jesse."
"I'm not liking that train of thought—"
"Hang with me," Justin said. "For the sake of argument, let's say she did. We know Shelby's not a publicity hound. She's had enough bad publicity already for that dress-fitting video and that video of Mitch carting her away. Do you really think, given all that, that she'd willingly walk into a publicity stunt like we just saw? If she was fooling around with that gold miner behind your back, knowing his reputation and that he was a minor celebrity, do you think she'd be dumb enough to meet him in public? With a camera crew present? Would any woman? You're a fucking billionaire. He's just a gold miner with dirt beneath his nails. You noticed his hands? Why would any woman throw you over for him?"
I drummed my fingers on the table and grudgingly admitted that Justin made a good point. My knee was bouncing, a nervous tic of mine. Billionaires were in high demand. But I was seeing red.
"This stinks to the high heavens of something," Justin said. "But I don't believe it's of Shelby's betrayal."
"Yeah, sure. Something's rotten in Denmark," I said cynically.
"This doesn't look at all good for a woman in her line of business. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing the Shelby we know would be dumb enough, or cruel enough, to do." Justin's eyes narrowed as he thought. "No. Something's off. If you weren't in a jealous rage—"
"I'm not in a jealous rage."
"—you'd be thinking clearly enough to see it for yourself. This is some kind of plot. There's more here than meets the eye."
"There sure the hell is. Did you see what she was wearing? She looked hot. Like she dressed to meet him—"
"We just have to find out what it is. Until you calm down and become reasonable, you'll just have to let me be your eyes, ears, and mind." Justin tapped his forehead. "You need to play this one smartly, my friend. Sharply. If you want the girl, you're going to have to outwit and outplay this guy. He's already gotten a leg up with his first move."
We sat in silence a moment while I inwardly raged. I hated that guy. I wanted revenge. I wanted an explanation—
"Something about that guy looks familiar," Justin said. "I've seen him before. I know I have. Where have I seen him before? That's the question." He looked to me for help.
"Gold Digger?" I said, cynically.
"Come on. I've never watched that show."
"Don't look at me. I've never seen that girlfriend-stealing bastard before in my life." And I have an eidetic memory.
"He hasn't stolen anything but a kiss yet." Justin pursed his lips. "I never forget a face. I've met that bastard before. One of the rugby tournaments my parents and brothers run, maybe?" He rubbed his chin.
While he was distracted, I reached for my phone.
Justin snatched it away. "Not yet. Not until we figure out your next move. It has to be brilliant. And off the scales, romance-wise. We need advice from a pro. Sorry, buddy. But it's time to call in the pros. We need Lazer's help."
Chapter Ten
Never Been Afraid of Love
Shelby (A woman inadvertently, unwillingly, in the spotlight. Again. And in potentially deep doo-doo with her fake boyfriend.)
After my misadventure at The Blackberry Café, I debated whether I should call Dex and tell him what had happened. I didn't want to go in unarmed. Besides, what could go wrong? How would Dex find out about that kiss?
Instead, I threw myself into my work—finding out as much as possible about my troublesome ex, the star apparent of Gold Digger. I had never watched a single episode. Ever. And why would I? Men digging in dirt—no
t my thing. Unless they were shirtless, ripped, and covered in deliciously sensual sweat. Then, maybe.
I found myself doing some forced binge watching. So. Many. Seasons. So many episodes.
Jesse came in in season two, which at least saved me from watching one season. Each season followed three to four mining crews under three to four different mining bosses as they set the gold quotas they needed to make a profit and pay their crews, battled the elements (mostly permafrost and early and late snows), and dealt with equipment failures and disputes with their rival mining bosses. There didn't seem to be any prizes for who got the most gold or met their quota or whatever. Kind of lame. I guess success was its own reward.
Jesse looked so young in the first season he appeared in. But I had to give him points for looking good on camera—and taking every opportunity to show off his biceps and abs. He was the shirtless wonder as often as possible. Even the other miners ribbed him, calling him Young Shirtless. Clearly he was mining for gold and sex symbol status.
He wasn't a mining boss in his first season. He worked for a mining boss who'd been around forever, a guy who the show painted as the "villain," a gray-haired, crotchety old miner with salty language that had to be mostly bleeped out.
Jesse was the head mechanic. He seemed to know almost everything about big equipment and engine repair. And how to make bush fixes. At the end of his first season, he went home with a pocketful of gold.
I mostly fast-forwarded through the parts Jesse wasn't in. In a matter of hours, I had watched him rise from mechanic to foreman to finally becoming boss of his own crew and company. I reluctantly gave him credit for knowing his business and how to manage men.
I was less impressed with his language, the amount of drinking he did, and his pitiful, rustic trailer that counted as living quarters. Not my kind of place, and the lighting looked bad. How would I ever do my lettering there?
Jesse oozed a certain kind of charisma. I could see why the ladies liked him. I mean, besides being one of the youngest guys on the show and physically fit.
Still—what had I been thinking? If I had a type, he certainly wasn't it.
Eventually, I got into the swing of the drama. There was a lot of running and shouting, "Shut it down!" when a piece of machinery broke or caught fire. Just exactly what I’d heard in the background when he first called me. Despite all his bluster and apparently villainous ways, that crotchety guy was an old softie. He was always ready to give a fellow miner a part he needed or a tow out of a ditch.
Jesse was the lonely heartthrob of the crews, always looking for love when he wasn't looking for gold. For a while it looked like he had a thing going with a local barmaid in the nearest town, which looked a bit like something out of an old western. And no, Barmaid Girlfriend didn't look anything like me. I was much more girl next door. And her employer needed help with their bar signage and chalkboard menu. I could have really spruced it up.
Coming up—Jesse and his crew head to Vegas for his foreman's bachelor party.
I needed fortification before watching that episode. I feared I played a part.
I microwaved some popcorn and dove into the Vegas episode with heart racing and blinds closed like I was watching a porno.
It started off innocuous enough. Jesse shaved his beard on a bet (clean-shaven, he looked much more like I remembered), gambled away too much of his hard-earned gold, and got very drunk. Too many women threw themselves at him. But he apparently resisted them and didn't offer marriage to any other women that week.
I bit my nails. If I showed up on the episode, I was going to, to…
Mercifully, I did not. Which was good, because I hadn't come up with what I was going to do if I had.
This show was a train wreck I wanted no part of. Particularly Jesse's love life.
The last shot was heart-wrenching—if you weren't his runaway bride, that is, i.e., the party guilty of first-degree heart breaking. Jesse in a cheap tux, disheveled, dark stubble on his cheeks, a wilted rose in his hand. His eyes were red. From crying! So vulnerable, tears, especially on a man's man like he was.
He looked positively broken-hearted as he talked about being left at the altar by the love of his life. That he had just met. He kept breaking up as he talked.
Okay, I felt like a heel. Like a real lowlife. In my defense, I was more certain than ever that our marriage wouldn't have been a happy one. If I had sobered up in a trailer in the Yukon, I would have charged Jesse with kidnapping. Marrying him on the spot was that incongruous with anything I would have done in my right mind.
No mention of Bella. How we got her was still a mystery.
On to the next episode, where Barmaid Girlfriend found out that what happened in Vegas didn't always stay in Vegas, especially if your boyfriend was dumb enough to capture his indiscretions on camera.
Their breakup was ugly. Still, I actually got a lump in my throat. Because she could have been me. But I was still on the edge of my seat with my popcorn as I watched. There was something riveting about the show. It knew how to suck viewers in.
She really went at Jesse, slapping at him, throwing a drink in his face. She even scratched him across the cheek, drawing blood. "I can't believe you met a bitch in Vegas. Did you sleep with her? You slept with her!"
I had a pretty good idea who the "bitch" she was referring to was. Ouch. The timing was right.
"I asked her to marry me." Man, wrong thing to say, Jesse. That is not going to cool her anger.
"You—bleep, bleep, bleep…" Yeah, she was an erudite one. "We've been dating for over a year and you ask another chick to marry you after less than a day! How dare you—"
My misty eyes were mostly due to my guilt over being the cause of that fiery mess. Apparently. If you can believe the show, which was clearly edited for maximum drama. And maybe I should still be afraid of her coming after me even after all this time. I wondered how they got along now.
Given her opinion of me, I definitely should have been afraid in the past. Fortunately, I'd been blissfully ignorant of the danger then. It was probably a really good thing I hadn't given Jesse my number. Because she grabbed his phone and tried to find "the bitch's number."
Wow.
Maybe I deserved to be called a bitch.
I was deeply engrossed in season eight—where Jesse was apparently over me and so far behind in his gold count that he may go under and his crew went home with no gold in their pockets—when my phone rang. So deeply engrossed that the ring startled me. I nearly tossed my half-eaten bowl of popcorn, throwing kernels on the sofa.
Courtney. What does she want? I wasn't in the mood for more bad news. I picked up her call.
"Are you crazy? Are you trying to screw up your life and get me fired?" She sounded crazy.
"What in the world are you talking about?"
"You haven't seen the entertainment news?"
"I never watch the news if I can help it. Too depressing. They rarely cover good news. Do you know how many beautiful weddings I've done? Not one of them ever makes the news. Unless something goes terribly wrong and a crazy ex of mine tries to cart me away." I had a bad, bad feeling about this. "Why?"
"That explains why you're so calm."
But my phone wasn't. It had started buzzing relentlessly with incoming calls from all my friends. Uh-oh.
"You were on the news locking lips with some bearded mining guy. Jesse, I'm assuming. How could you?"
Big uh-oh. Life-altering uh-oh. "What!" How had that gotten out?
"Look, Shelby, I can't tell you how to run your life. And, to be honest, if I weren't engaged and about to marry the love of my life, I might even be jealous of all the male attention you're getting and the apparent fantasy life you're leading. Two hot guys hot for you at the same time. But to throw over a billionaire, a real smart, funny, sweet, and terribly hot guy like Dex, for a miner in the Yukon, even if he does have a sexy voice—"
"I haven't thrown over Dex. I haven't thrown over anybody! I was ambushed. That kiss
isn't what it looks like. It's fake. It was forced on me." I was going to kill that lying Luke the producer and Jesse for breaking their promise to me. A week to decide—
"There has to be a story here. What's the real deal with Jesse?"
I lied. By omission. "He wants me to be on his show this season. To get the ratings up. Capture the female crowd. I think he wants to make his female fans jealous."
"But why you?"
"Because I'm the one that got away." Ran away. Small detail.
"And he was trying to seal the deal with a kiss?" Courtney sounded rightly skeptical. "That smacks of sexual harassment to me. Why would he think you'd be interested now? Did you really meet him in Vegas?"
"Yeah. We hung out a bit." I winced, even though she couldn't see me.
"Hung out or hooked up?" Courtney asked.
"Well…I don't really remember?" I winced again.
Courtney blew out a breath that made her sound highly exasperated. "Does Dex know about Jesse?"
"There's not much to tell."
"Apparently what there is to tell is all over the news," she said. "Even if it's a misperception. You'd better clear it up with Dex before he sees it. Unless you've told him already."
"Uh—"
"I'll take that as a no, you coward. This Jesse is a pretty popular reality star, if you can believe his hype. A real man's man. You'd better talk it over with Dex. Soon."
My doorbell app sounded. "There's someone at the door. Gotta run. Thanks for the heads-up."
I hung up and checked my security video. A woman was at the door, holding an enormous bouquet of red roses in an expensive crystal vase. I can recognize Waterford on sight. Expensive weddings used a lot of it.
I opened the door cautiously.
"Shelby Hudson?" She looked at me hopefully.
I nodded.
"You're a lucky girl today."
Luck comes in all forms, some of it bad. If only she knew. I wasn't so sure these roses were lucky.
"These are for you." She shoved the flowers at me and dashed off before I could ask who had sent them.
Loves Billionaires and Corgis: A Feel Good Romance Page 8