She grinned to patronize him but didn’t mask her confusion. “And why would we do that?”
“Because you said you feel like a walking target. If people thought I’d taken care of that for you, and they wouldn’t question that, problem solved.” He took another bite of pizza and chewed, pretending to act casual, even though his nerves were doing jumping jacks at the moment. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. The fact she still hadn’t said anything didn’t help.
“You don’t have to give up, Rhees. You can still save yourself for that man of your dreams.” He grew quiet as he finished his proposal. “But if everyone here believed . . . you know, since it’s me we’re talking about, it would only take half a second to convince the entire island.”
“You’re saying we could just pretend like I finally succumbed to your . . . charm.” She stared at him.
“At least it would get the creepazoids off the list—that is my new favorite word, by the way.” He chuckled. “But the problem is, I’m not the only guy who has the hots for you.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, still nervous.
She looked skeptical and shook it off. She didn’t believe him.
“Rhees, half the guys on the island are salivating, waiting in the wings for me to have my way with you or step aside so they can finally have their turn.”
“No way. That is not true.”
“Seriously? How do you not know how freakin’ desirable you are?” He grinned his bashful grin. He was beginning to appreciate the influence she continued to have on him.
“I have always been quite average. Unexceptional even.” She shook her head. “You only want me because you can’t have me.”
His face turned sullen before her eyes as he thought about what she said. He looked down, saddened at the truth of it. “There may be some truth to that.”
“Yes,” she said in a sing-song voice, celebrating being right.
“Some truth. You didn’t let me finish,” Paul said. “In the beginning . . . possibly, but not anymore,” he said thoughtfully.
“Anyway, I worry if everyone thinks I had you and then moved on, it’ll be open season on you.” He thought about it a few more seconds. “It can’t just be a one-night stand. You’d never go for that and everyone knows it.”
“You really have put some thought into this.” She sounded genuinely surprised.
You have no idea how much I think about you. He stared at her for a minute. “We need a relationship. I’m not saying we need to really have one, we only need to convince everyone we’re a couple.”
She laughed and it took her, Paul thought, much too long to stop.
“Why Paul, are you pretending to ask me to go steady?”
He stared at her again and then smiled a big, goofy smile. “I didn’t really think of it like that.” He looked lost in thought for a minute and finally, a mischievous grin formed on his face. “Wait here a minute.”
He got up and left. He returned a few minutes later and handed her something. A piece of paper, folded too many times.
“What’s this?” She took it from him, amused and smiling with curiosity.
He sat down next to her and shrugged. “I dunno, some guy asked me to give it to you.”
She tentatively started unfolding, looking up at him with each bend of the paper. Just before the last fold, she could see the crude handwriting inside, as if it were written by a child. She lifted the sheet, opening it up fully and stared at it.
Danarya, will you go with me?
Please mark the box
Yes [ ] or No [ ]
Paul
“Oh my gosh!” she squealed with delight. She burst out laughing. “I haven’t received one of these since fifth grade.”
“Kindergarten through fourth grade,” he said, reminiscing, sounding like the memory made him tired, “the girls chased me every recess. If they caught me, they ganged up and kissed me until the recess supervisor pulled them off and gave me a head start again. Getting mobbed is scary shit for a little kid. I still break out in a cold sweat when I hear anything that sounds like a recess bell.” His brows knit together. “Fourth
grade, the notes started, and I got them up until seventh grade.” He chuckled.
“Well, actually, I got them all through high school, they just got more sophisticated—with things attached, like candy bars, balloons . . . condoms.”
That made her bulge her eyes at him, and he shrugged shyly again. It embarrassed him, but it was just the truth of his life. He had no control over how the girls had always reacted to him. He handed her a pencil.
“This is my very first love note. Please be kind.”
“First one? Ever?”
He nodded and stared down at his note. “I told you my first-time story. You know I kind of skipped over the whole puppy-love stage of life.”
She frowned at how sad that was, but she read his note again. Such a sweet gesture, even if it did say Danarya. She chuckled to herself. “Well that explains why you suck at the whole wooing thing.”
“What are you talking about?” He sounded honestly wounded. “I submit into evidence all the instances you have personally witnessed me not sucking at wooing.”
“Nope.” She shook her head, trying to keep a straight face. “You absolutely suck at wooing. However, I think you’re very good at being wooed. It appears you learned how to be wooed at a very young age, but you never learned how to properly woo because you’ve never had to.”
She marked the box next to the word “Yes” and handed it back to him. He smiled shyly and stared at it. He looked so cute. She surprised him when she grabbed the note away from him again.
“Hey! It’s too late. You can’t take it back now,” he warned. “It’s the only evidence I have of my first successful wooing.”
She turned her back on him to fend him off while she drew several hearts and a few X’s and O’s on the note before handing it back to him.
“Just helping you build your case.”
He smiled a goofy grin again while they both stared at the note, and then he put his arm around her and gave her a quick kiss, close to her lips, but mostly on her cheek. She stiffened up and closed her eyes.
“Are you all right?” He looked at her with concern.
“Of course.” She put on a brave face and smiled. “So how does this work?”
“How does what work?” He gave her a squeeze, pulling her in closer to his side.
“Our pretend relationship.” She waited a second and then pulled back to her original position, close but not touching.
“Oh.” He squirmed. “I’m not exactly an expert on relationships. Maybe this falls more under your department.”
“Um . . . okay.” She thought about it for a minute and then giggled. “You know, we’ve already been doing what I would picture us doing if things were really going to move in that direction.”
“That direction?” His eyebrows shot up. Hers went down.
“A relationship—the kind I would have.” She felt her face grow hot. “We’ve had dinner together, ice cream. You’ve been walking me home, sleeping on my couch. You’ve been by my side through all this . . .” She shouldn’t have let herself think about what she was going through. Paul had actually managed to distract her from all of it through the evening.
“But we’re not talking about the kind of relationship I’d have.” Her tone reflected the dark thoughts that had suddenly returned. “Maybe this falls under your department after all.”
“Oh. Yeah.” They sat in silence for a while. Paul could tell he’d lost her to her bad memories again and he wished he could bring happy Rhees back. “There’s a big contrast between what I would do and what you would do. We’re going to have to find something in the middle if this is going to be believable.
“You’re right. You’d need me to take things slow. I guess, for now, we just keep doing what we’ve been doing. We’ve spent the last several nights together. People are already giving me strange ‘You sly dog’ looks, but eventually, we’ll need to do something more—no one’s going to believe I’d hang around for long if I wasn’t getting—we’ll need witnesses.”
“To witness what?” she yelped. “I thought this was just pretend.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, girl.” He chuckled. “Geeminy, is that all you think about?”
Bingo. He’d made her smile again. “I’ll think about it, figure it out.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? You’ll be giving up a lot. I don’t understand why you want to do this for me.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight. We’re going to be hanging out together, like glued-stuck, Siamese-twin together.” Now it was his turn to have dark thoughts. He’d become hypersensitive to every slimy thing he’d heard spoken about her since she’d arrived on the island—including his own. “I blame myself for what happened. No one is going to have the chance to hurt you again.”
“It wasn’t your fault—”
He put his finger over her lips. “Don’t.”
He used his taking-no-sass tone of voice, and she didn’t push him. “I’m staying with you. Here—at your place—it doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you alone. I’ll sleep on the couch, the kitchen table, the porch if I have to. I don’t care. But since we’re going to be together anyway, I think we may as well let people believe there’s more going on than there really is. No one will bother you if they think you’re mine.”
“You’re like a wolf,” she said after thinking about it for a while.
He looked at her quizzically.
“You’re the alpha male in the pack. Everyone knows it. No one questions it, except maybe a few newer guys . . . like Mario.” Her expression changed, remembering once again. “But it doesn’t take long for most of them to figure out that it’s you.”
“Pfft.” He wasn’t quite sure if her analogy was complimentary or not.
“I’m not sure I’m a good enough liar.”
“We shouldn’t have to lie. I think we just act the part, let their imaginations do the rest.”
She sat up straight, quiet for a minute. “It would be easier if you just, you know—what I asked before.”
“I told you, I won’t do that. Rhees, neither one of us want you to do that as a result of some screwed-up idea, provoked by a psycho sleazeball.” Anger leached from him and he felt her pull away a little because of it. He felt bad about it and reeled in his temper.
“I think we can pull this off, and you won’t have to compromise your dreams.” He put his finger gently on her chin and pulled her face around to look at him. “I don’t want you compromising anything.”
“You’re being very considerate of me, but I’m not sure you can do this,” she murmured. “If we’re supposed to be in a relationship—that means you’ll have to abstain. You won’t be able to be with other girls. You know that, right?”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said quietly. She rolled her eyes. “You don’t think I can do it.”
She didn’t say anything, but in her silence, he had his answer.
“I guess I deserve that.”
“You shouldn’t have to make that kind of sacrifice. I can’t ask you to do that for me.”
“You didn’t ask,” he snapped. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Rhees, I haven’t been with anyone . . . since you made it so clear why—”
“Since I called you the epitome?” Her countenance dropped. She felt bad about it all over again. “You’re not. I don’t know why I said that. I should never have said it.” She had a good idea why she’d said it, but she couldn’t admit it to him. She needed to clarify something he’d said.
“You said you haven’t been with anyone. What about—you went clubbing with Taylor. How did you . . . I know now that Shelli wasn’t with you, but you and Taylor really tore up the island when he first got here.”
Paul looked like he’d just got caught. He glanced away to get his story straight, she thought. A guilty grin broke on his lips.
“I danced with a few girls, let Taylor steal them away from me—he always does. Once I saw he’d zoned in on who he wanted, I picked out my own.”
Her eyes shot to his, sure she’d caught him in a lie about not being with anyone—just the proof she needed that his plan wasn’t going to work.
“I picked someone out, my usual type.” Paul gave Rhees a swift once-over, knowing his tastes had recently changed. “I told Taye I was going to her place instead of the hotel. She hung all over me and he bought it, but . . . I didn’t get out of the taxi. I just dropped her off, went back to the hotel and got my own room for the night, let him have the suite. He thinks I’m still the same old Paul, and I had a fitful night going stir-crazy in a small, basic hotel room all by myself.”
“You’re serious. You did all that.” Rhees appeared to be in awe.
“Don’t get all fan-girlie on me. I just wasn’t in the mood. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”
“Since I said that about you? Paul, please. I’m so sor—”
“It’s true! Or it was—no, it still is.”
“This plan isn’t a good idea.” She looked out over the ocean, shaking her head with doubt.
He ran his hands through his hair and scowled at the floor.
“I can do this. You’ll have to trust me.” He deadpanned at what he’d just said, staring off at nothing for a few seconds before an exasperated groan finally broke from his throat. “God, I can’t believe I just said that. Damn it. Rhees, I know why you wouldn’t trust me, but I don’t plan to cheat on you—I don’t think I will.”
He couldn’t read the look in her eyes—doubt, pity, or compassion. She should be angry. If she really doubted he could be faithful, anger would be a more sensible response.
“I know. Okay? I know what I am. Look, if I screw this up, excuse my pun, you can just pretend to break up with me, okay?” He tried to be funny, but he didn’t think it really was. His voice dropped low and quiet. “Or you could just pretend to not know—pretend like you’re the kind of woman who puts up with that kind of shit. Some women do.” He thought about his mother and felt sick to even suggest it to Rhees.
Rhees rolled her eyes and he realized she’d been doing that a lot during this discussion. “Sounds like a lot of trouble,” she said.
“I am.”
“Not you.” That did make her laugh. “Your plan—mine is less complicated. Get it over with. Let me deal with the aftermath. I’m a big girl.” She laughed again but then hung her head. “Or at least I should be by now. This is my problem. If you’d help me just the once, you could move on with your life, not have to babysit the baby—”
“I told you—I’m not going to do that,” he hissed. “Please don’t make me say it again.”
“Why?” It sounded like a plea, despairing. “You’ve slept with every other woman on the planet.”
“Wow,” he said. “I deserve that too.” So why did it hurt so much?
“What’s wrong with me? Why don’t you want me?” She looked down and fidgeted with her hands.
“What?” How could she possibly think he didn’t want her, after all they’d been through? “Fuck, Rhees!”
“No, the question is, why not fuck Rhees?” She almost yelled it.
He stared at her, beside himself. “I thought I’d found the perfect solution. My way will get you everything you want and need.”
“At what cost to you? What do you get? And what happens when I leave here, and you’re no longer around to run interference for me? I want to just do it—get it over with!” She sounded exasperated n
ow as well.
He poured himself more wine and downed it quickly. He poured some more, gulping that down too. “Damn it. I need a real drink.” He stared out over the water for a few minutes, giving the wine time to calm him down. “It’s the way you say it.”
“You keep saying that. How am I supposed to say it? Please, have sex with me, Paul? I don’t know Spanish or Swahili. Would Swahili be better? Oh, I got it, how about Pig Latin? Ease-play ave-hay ex-say ith-way e-may, Aul-pay. Is that wrong too?”
He glared at her for a minute but scowled and looked away. She grabbed the wine to pour herself some too, but only a few drops trickled out.
“Damn it.” She threw the bottle angrily into the water and curled up into her safe ball like a pouty little girl.
Paul winced, a little shocked to hear her swear, but then he couldn’t help his grin. “Pig Latin?”
He watched her sulk for a few minutes and finally sighed in resignation. He scooted closer and kissed the top of her head. He tilted his head down to see her eyes. They still burned with fury and he looked down at the floor again. His mouth twitched a few times before he finally leaned in. He hesitated, but then grazed her lips with his. She snapped her head away from him and glared back in shock.
He had his answer. He smirked knowingly. He looked out over the dark ocean for a few seconds and laughed to himself. He turned to look at her again with amused, I-have-a-secret eyes . . . just before he dived on her.
One of his hands skillfully weaved itself into her hair, pulling her face to his while the other held her secure, refusing to let her get away as he ambushed her mouth. His tongue pushed its way past her lips.
Her reflex reaction to his sudden pounce was to push him away, but he wouldn’t have it. He used his strength, his size, and his determination, and declined to acknowledge the hint. Without the slightest break in contact with her mouth, he leaned into her, pushing her down on the mat while somehow pushing the pizza box and the dishes out of the way at the same time. He settled at her side and tossed his leg across her hips to hold her down.
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