“I think he thinks we look good on paper anyway,” she quipped.
“How so?”
“I’m a small-business owner, and he’s a marketing executive. We both have similar family backgrounds. He’s knows I’m not the kind of woman who is a shopaholic or constantly craves attention. We’ve actually gone two weeks without seeing each other, and I didn’t bother to ask where he’d been or what he’d been up to. And he didn’t ask me either. I suppose it could be a comfortable arrangement.”
“So what about love?” Seth smiled at her.
“I guess Jason thinks love is a sidebar to pursuing his life goals.”
“And what do you think about love?” Seth asked as he tugged on the sleeve of her blouse.
Morgan really had to think about that one. “When it comes, you don’t have to think about it. It’s there and you embrace it.”
Seth leaned in and kissed her. Morgan reached up and stroked his jawline.
“Is that what you’re going to settle for? Jason’s business proposal—I mean, marriage proposal?”
“I always thought I’d be a confirmed bachelorette.” She laughed. “And have a ton of cats and chase the neighborhood kids down the street when they get too close to my house.”
Seth took a deep breath. “Then marry me.”
“What?”
“Well, let’s get married. That way, when you go home, you can tell Jason you don’t need his half-assed proposal because you eloped with a handsome stranger on the island.”
She laughed at his lack of modesty, finding it comforting that the bravado wasn’t really him. Her heart fluttered a little bit, suddenly feeling as if somewhere between all these lines it was real. In such a short time she had come to care for him, and she could feel the same energy from him. She looked into Seth’s beautiful eyes, searching for…some semblance that his proposal might be for real. What would life be like with a man like that? She knew, without a doubt, that life with him would be sublime. “You are insane.”
“Well, it would be a mock marriage. See that guy up on the pier?” He motioned ahead of them. “That’s Alvin. He’s a self-proclaimed minister. He’s a nice guy, but a bit off his rocker. He’s not really a minister, but he thinks he is.”
Morgan smiled at him. “Let’s do it!”
* * *
Alvin married them on the beach as the sun was setting. There were tiki torches placed sporadically in the sand for moonlight strolls. After they signed his register, Alvin began the ceremony in his native tongue. Seth and Morgan held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes. When Alvin finally began speaking English, Seth reached into his pocket and pulled out the biggest rock she’d ever seen. She knew he’d snuck off to the hotel shop, but she didn’t think he’d bought her a ring. Clearly it was a fake because she’d never seen a real ring that size. Seth placed the ring on her finger, and Morgan was amazed at how heavy costume jewelry could be. Alvin pronounced them man and wife, and Seth kissed his bride.
When they returned to the bungalow they both gave up the pretense that the attraction that had been mounting since the day they met didn’t exist. As soon as he opened the door, Seth scooped her up and carried her over the threshold. What Morgan intended as a sweet, tender kiss between an imaginary husband and wife turned into a firestorm of pent-up lust. Seth laid her down gently on the couch, and then looked into her eyes for a while before he lay down on top of her. She finally realized how heavy he really was. His body was massive compared to her petite frame. While she briefly pondered how this all would work physically, she reminded herself that she read enough romance novels to know there was a certain finesse involved with two bodies connected. Seth had most of his weight on his elbows and his knees, clearly trying not to crush her.
He parted her lips and swirled his tongue inside her mouth, reminding her of licking an ice-cream cone. He then trailed his mouth softly down her neck as she tried in vain to unbutton his shirt. As she suspected, the man’s body was worthy of a sculpture class. What she was surprised to find was there was more muscle tone and smooth skin than the bulging, raging muscles she’d anticipated. By the time Seth had made his way down to her navel, it hazily occurred to her to ask him if he had protection; he magically produced a box of condoms.
She chuckled. “A little ambitious, aren’t we?"
“Nah. More like highly optimistic.”
Morgan giggled so hard she began to hiccup.
Suddenly Seth looked and said, “Did I tell you how beautiful I think you are?”
Morgan shook her head no, afraid she would hiccup again and ruin the moment. Seth smiled and went back to the business of removing both their clothes.
* * *
Morgan smiled as she moved very slowly in the line at the airport on the main island. The memories of her wedding night still lingered heavily. She had to force herself to move and talk like a normal person. And if for some reason she thought last night was a figment of her imagination, the photo Seth took of the two of them together in bed with her camera phone was a nice reminder. In her trusty backpack, she carried a copy of her “marriage certificate” to Seth. It was just what she’d dreamed of in her secret, girly heart: getting married to a handsome man on a beach at sunset.
He was a nice guy, a gentleman with a heavy streak of devil in him. She’d never bothered to ask him what he did for a living; she’d bet whatever it was, he was successful at it. He’d told her to have faith that all her problems with the bookstore would work out because he could tell how much she loved it. She’d given him her business card and told him to stop by if he was ever in the area and wanted to read a good book. He’d looked at her for a long while, caressing her face with his gaze, sighed, and said he’d take her up on her offer.
“I’ll even give you a twenty percent off discount.” She grinned.
“Even to the man who bruised your rib?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I can honestly say I got a bruised rib and a new friend on this vacation. Those two memories will forever be intertwined.”
“Well, if you ever need anything… If anything develops down the road and you incur any medical bills, just give me a call. Actually you can call me and tell me anything you want. I’m not particular.” He’d turned over the wedding photograph Alvin had given them and wrote his numbers on the back of it.
They’d hugged each other for the longest time, each not wanting to let go of the time they’d shared. Seth had caressed her back and kissed her. Morgan pulled back after a while and asked, “Don’t you think it’s funny how we had so much fun together and we don’t really know each other? I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“Nothing you’d be interested in. It’s a living.”
“I don’t think that anything you do is uninteresting.”
As she took yet another step in the check-in line she noticed a man a couple of spaces ahead of her wearing a football jersey with the number twelve on it. At first she thought it was strange for the man to be wearing a jersey when it was so hot. Someone must have read her mind.
“Dude, isn’t it a little hot to be wearing that jersey?” some smart-ass yelled from behind her. Everyone in the line laughed.
“I’m going to sleep in this jersey for the next week. Then I’m going to buy a glass case for it. Blake signed this himself!” The guy beamed back with a wide grin.
“No shit?” the other guy yelled back.
“Yeah man. He was on vacation on the smaller island. A bunch of the team was.”
When she heard the name Blake, Morgan looked up to see the name, in fact, sewn into the top of the turquoise and white jersey. Her heart skipped a beat. Here she was thinking about him, and now she was inadvertently in the middle of a loud conversation about a football player named Blake. She often wondered about coincidences and how things happened that way.
“Excuse me,” she said to the man in line in front of her. “Who’s this Blake player?”
“Are you kidding me?” the seemingly nice
man replied. “Seth Blake is a quarterback for the Philadelphia Titans. He’s their golden boy savior.”
“Is he any good?” was all she could say, although she’d personally attest to his tackling skills.
“He signed a forty million dollar contract last year. What does that tell you?”
It told her she was the biggest idiot on the small tropical island and maybe even the planet. But she was still willing to hold on to denial. Morgan dug into her backpack, looking for the wedding picture Seth had scribbled his phone numbers on. Her heart thudded like a thoroughbred horse racing to the finish line in the Kentucky Derby. She clumsily pulled out the picture, then tried her best to get a close look at the jersey. She looked at the autograph on the shirt and then back to the picture where he’d scribbled his name at the bottom. It was a dead match.
“We are now ready to board.” But she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to go find Seth Blake.
And kick his ass.
* * *
Seth wondered how he had managed to spend seven days with the woman and not reveal to her who he was. It felt strangely good to know that Morgan liked Seth Blake, the man, and not the football star. That had been an upside to an exclusive resort that didn’t allow any media. He hadn’t had to pull out the charm to impress a woman like that since…well, maybe junior high? All his life he’d been the star and women had flocked to him. He looked over at the table and saw one of the cloth rubber bands she used to pull her hair into that cute little librarian bun on top of her head most days. He picked it up and rubbed it between his fingers. She was not the type of woman he’d been seen with in public and was perhaps the shortest woman he’d stood next to since the last time he’d visited his mother. Day after day he’d waited for her to transform herself into something a little more feminine…maybe? The attraction between the two of them grew each day, and he’d thought that maybe she’d feel sexy one day and put on a sundress or something. But it had never happened, and he’d decided he was happy she hadn’t done that. If nothing else, she was true to herself. She didn’t mind looking up at him to speak or getting on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he didn’t mind staring at the top of her head, looking at reddish-brown hair that he loved the texture of.
He took the hair elastic and slid it onto his wrist. It was time to leave paradise. He was kind of glad her flight had departed before his, knowing he’d managed to keep his secret on the small island. By the time he and his teammates made it to the big island it would be another story entirely. His copy of the fake marriage certificate lay on the coffee table. He wanted to put it in his carry-on so it wouldn’t get lost, and he wondered if he’d ever see his “wife” again.
Sam the bellhop knocked, then entered the bungalow, prepared to take all his bags to the car.
“Hey, Sam.”
“Hey, Mr. Blake,” the young man said.
“Sam, I told you to call me Seth. Remember?”
“Yes, so sorry, Seth.”
“That’s better. I hate to sound clichéd, but Mr. Blake really is my dad.” Seth looked up to find Sam staring at the marriage scroll on the coffee table.
“Mr. Blake, um, Seth?”
“Yes, Sam?” Seth clasped his watch on his wrist over Morgan’s hair elastic.
“Is that a marriage certificate?”
Seth laughed. “Not real. Alvin gave it to us when he married Morgan and me on the beach last night. The lady who stayed here with me. He’s your uncle, isn’t he?”
Sam stumbled. “Yes he is. Did he have you sign the registry?”
“You mean that scruffy leather book he carries around with him?” Seth asked, remembering Alvin had called it his trusty union record keeper.
Sam nodded. “Yeah. Did he perform the ceremony?”
“Yep, on the cliff not too far from here.”
When Sam’s questions suddenly dried up as Seth finished putting his wallet in his pants pocket, Seth looked up to see what was wrong. Sam looked a bit worried.
“What’s wrong, Sam?”
“Oh dear, Mr. Seth. I have some troubling news.”
* * *
Morgan stared at the numbers on the back of the picture so long they were etched in her brain. She went through the motions of getting off the plane, getting her luggage, and then going home to her apartment, not bothering to call any of her family to pick her up. She wanted to be alone.
Seth lied to her. Or did he? She remembered all the offhanded remarks she made about football and winced at the thought of the countless times she must have hurt his feelings. Now embarrassment was creeping in. Morgan tried to get a grip on the situation. She’d run through every emotion known to mankind since meeting that man. Now the run-in with the chick in the red dress was making perfect sense to her.
She still wore the fake diamond wedding ring he’d bought her at a gift shop. The fake diamond sparkled as the sun filtered into the room and hit it, and Morgan’s hand began to feel heavy.
“Promise me you’ll keep this as a memento of our time together,” he’d said.
“Sure.” She’d smiled, thinking the rock was so big she wouldn’t want to wear it just for fun and have someone think she was loaded.
* * *
Morgan put her phone on speaker and dialed into her voice mail. There were a few calls from friends, a call from Jason saying he needed to talk to her, and a call from her assistant manager asking if she would be in the bookstore tomorrow. Of course she would. Getting back to her books, the feeling that rushed through her veins when she was surrounded by all that knowledge, aching to read everything in sight, was where she belonged. Maybe the world was too hectic and shallow and material for her. She would go back to the fort she’d built out of books, comfortable old leather couches, and lamps that made her feel like she was someplace elegant and scholarly. So what if the average customer wanted the latest trashy tell-all or something else she was forced to stock if she wanted to keep her store open? It was all in the name of reading, of appreciation, of taking in the knowledge of something one did not know before one cracked the spine of a book.
* * *
As the limousine glided smoothly away from the airport, Seth vaguely remembered getting into the thing. Dazed, he thought about Morgan and the revelation that Sam had dropped on him. Turns out the crazy uncle Alvin actually was a real minister who could officiate a real wedding, and that makeshift leather binder he carried with him was a record of all the weddings he’d done on the island for many years. So it was legal. The petite African American woman he’d slammed into on the beach and bruised her rib, better known as Morgan Reed, was really his wife. He chuckled, wondering what Morgan would say when he told her. They’d both taken what Alvin had said with a grain of salt, not knowing he had any officiating powers.
After the hotel manager had apologized profusely, Seth calmed him down and asked that he and Sam keep a lid on it. She lived in Philadelphia, and she owned a small bookstore, so she wouldn’t be too hard to track down. It had only been two days, but he missed her. He thought about calling his agent and his publicist so they could be ready for the fallout once someone on that island was paid to talk. He didn’t hold it against them. He was used to having people sell what they could about him to make a buck. But there was Morgan to consider; she was going to be bombarded and hounded. And he didn’t want to see that happen.
For the moment he was content with the memory of her laughing in bed their last morning together, commenting about the gigantic fake diamond ring he’d bought her. She would kill him if she knew how much that ring really cost. Ironically, it was worth much more than the amount she told him she needed to fully renovate her bookstore. He’d known she would never take any money from him so, in his own way, he’d given her what she needed. She’d promised she would never throw it away, and if she ever found out its true worth, maybe she would pawn it and get the repairs done to the bookstore.
He could only imagine what she would say if some reporter walked into the store asking her to commen
t on her marriage to him. She would be shocked and hurt, and he didn’t want that for her. He’d have to find her himself and break the news that she was indeed legally Mrs. Seth Blake.
* * *
Morgan’s reality of being a small-business owner had returned. Her assistant manager, Michelle, had kept everything running smoothly, but there were promotional opportunities for the store that Morgan had to deal with. After two days, her family collectively got over the fact that she’d taken a cab home from the airport. She gave her friend Theresa a glowing review of the island, minus everything that had transpired with Seth. She managed to successfully dodge Jason, not looking forward to seeing him. She didn’t love him and she suspected he didn’t love her either, not in the way that mattered. His male biological clock had begun ticking and she was the closest woman in the vicinity.
“Hey Morgan,” Michelle said as she peered between an empty spot in the bookcase.
“Yes?”
“You never mentioned your vacation. Did you like the island?”
“It was nice.”
“Just nice?” Michelle huffed. “For a person who hasn’t been on a vacation in years I thought I’d get a better reaction than nice.”
The door chimed, which meant they had a customer. In an effort to end the conversation with Michelle about the vacation, Morgan scooted to the back room. She heard animated voices and Michelle was becoming louder and almost purring like a kitten. Must be a male customer. Michelle was an outrageous flirt, but Morgan couldn’t blame her for wanting someone in her life. Michelle even devised their latest promotion at the store—speed dating for speed readers. The concept was more than a little wonky, but she decided it didn’t hurt that they’d turned the small café area into a dating venue on Friday nights, hopefully joining the hearts of fellow bookworms.
For the Love of the Game Page 3