I turned to my left, and a groan immediately escaped my mouth. On this side of the room, there was a tropical display of fake palm trees surrounding a small bubbling pool, complete with a fake waterfall descending from the wall. Georgie was hiding behind one of the trees. She was slightly wet, and there was a dark green leaf stuck haphazardly in her hair.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked. I tried to keep my eyes on her face, but it was damn hard. Her red dress was damp in all the right places, clinging to her chest, and both nipples were rock hard and visible. Jesus. This woman.
She put a finger to her lips. “Quiet. I’m trying to camouflage myself.”
Libby put her hands on her hips. “Why?”
“Because the Secret Service are after me. They betrayed me and their country.”
I shook my head. Holy fuck, she was so high. “What?”
The two security guards that Libby and I spotted a moment ago arrived before Georgie could answer me.
“Are you with her?” one of them demanded in a thick accent, his bushy brows drawn into a frown as he motioned to Georgie.
“Yes. What did she do?”
“She was sneaking around one of the poker tables, telling players what other people’s cards were. When we tried to stop her, she claimed to be the President of the United States and commanded us to protect her instead. Then she called us traitors and ran.”
“They are traitors,” Georgie hissed from behind the tree. “They’re working for the Russians. Ask James Bond!”
I tried my best to keep a straight face. Libby didn’t seem to be capable of that, and she immediately burst into a fit of giggles.
“I’m very sorry, sir. That’s my girlfriend, and she’s had a bit too much to drink,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye on her from now on.”
The other guard glared at Libby, who was trying and failing to stifle her laughter with one hand. Then he looked back at me. “Just get her out of here, all right?”
I held up my palms. The last thing we needed to do was antagonize the security workers and get Georgie thrown in some sort of island jail, especially when her system was riddled with THC. “I’ll do that.”
They sauntered away, throwing glares over their shoulders as Libby and I pulled Georgie out from behind the tree. “It’s time for us to go, doll,” I said softly. “I know you were looking forward to the nightclubs later, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“He’s right,” Libby said with a nod. “Those cookies are really messing you up.”
Georgie’s face fell. “But I feel fine! Don’t make me leave!”
“You aren’t fine. You tried to impersonate the President,” I said, rubbing my jawline. Libby snickered, but quickly covered it with a faux cough.
“Okay,” Georgie grumbled. “I’ll go. Sorry, Lib. I really didn’t want to miss your party.”
“You didn’t miss it! You came to the pre-drinks, the dinner, and here,” Libby said, waving her hand around us. “It’s just one little thing you’ll be missing, and you already danced and sang on the ferry anyway. So who needs a nightclub? You’ve already done it all.”
Georgie perked up and flashed her a smile. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ve done it all.”
Libby patted her arm. “We’ll have lunch tomorrow when you’ve slept this off, okay?”
Georgie nodded. “Sure. Okay, boyfriend, let’s go.” She grabbed my arm, and I grinned. Cheerful Georgie was back.
Libby mouthed a ‘thank you’ toward me, then rejoined her friends on the gambling floor.
“All right, you little stoner, let’s go and wait for the next ferry,” I said, jostling Georgie as we headed to an exit.
She giggled. “Don’t ever tell anyone back home about this, okay? They would die.”
I tilted my head. “So does that mean we’ll be seeing each other once we get back to the city?”
She didn’t answer that and dashed ahead instead. “There’s the ferry! Perfect timing.”
The ride back to Saint Clare was gorgeous. It was after ten, but the stars and brilliant island lights lit up the inky waters surrounding us, making them shimmer and glow as if they were filled with a million flashing jewels. Georgie marveled at the stunning view, then bit her lower lip and turned to face me.
“I have something to do tonight,” she said. Her words sounded determined, but her voice was becoming increasingly dazed by the second. “Will you help me?”
Smiling, I nodded. “Sure. What is it?”
She was silent for a long time. For a minute, I thought she might’ve fallen asleep standing up, but then she spoke up again. “I thought of something a few weeks ago. When you’ve reached the bottom, the only way to rise up again is to release the weight of whatever you’re carrying. Then you’re free to float again.” She raised her hands as she spoke.
I raised my brows. “Wow. You’re very profound when you’re wasted.”
“Thank you.” She went quiet again. Her eyes were beginning to look glassy. I waved a hand in her face to rouse her, and she perked up. “I have some things in my suitcase back at the resort. We need to get them. You said you’d help me, right?”
“I did.”
She nodded with satisfaction. “Good.” She stared out across the sparkling sea again. “It looks like someone filled the ocean with diamonds,” she murmured.
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
She sighed. “I had a diamond once. That was nice. But then it wasn’t.”
I took a step closer. A hint of a smile played on my lips. After all this time, it seemed Georgie was finally opening up to me. “Wanna talk about it?”
She jerked away. “Not now.”
Okay, I was wrong. She didn’t want to talk. I backed off. “That’s fine. Maybe another time.”
Georgie suddenly perked up again, as if she were getting a second wind. “Maybe it could be nice again!” she said. “Maybe I don’t need to burn it all!”
“What could be nice again?” I shook my head in confusion. “Burn what?”
“We can do it. Me. You. All these pretty diamonds. Maybe there’s a reason we’re here right now. We can change it all and make it good again!”
“Okay….” I had no idea what she was going on about. Her stare was even glassier now, and half her words were garbled. She was obviously completely out of it, trapped in some drug-fueled fever dream. Damn those fucking cookies.
Georgie cocked her head to the side. “Look,” she said, gesturing behind me. “I have the best idea! It’s perfect. The Russians won’t see it coming at all!”
I turned to look at whatever she was staring at. We were coming up to Saint Clare now. On the shoreline closest to us were the glowing pink and yellow lights adorning Clare Chapel, one of the most infamous insta-wedding venues on the islands. It was open twenty-four hours a day, and more than a few people had wound up in regretful drunken weddings at the place while on vacation here. Next to it stood several late-night tiki bars, serving elaborate overpriced drinks which probably led to at least half the impromptu weddings at the chapel.
“What’s your idea?” I turned back to Georgie. “You want to get a cocktail?”
I hoped not. It was a terrible idea for her to be drinking right now.
Georgie shook her head. Then her mouth dropped open in another dazzling smile, and she stepped closer to me, arching one eyebrow. Her eyes were almost black from her dilated pupils.
“Nate,” she said, slowly drawing out the syllable. “Let’s get married.”
17
Georgie
Oh.
My.
God…
This was definitely the hangover from hell. Not only was Nate in my room and in my bed, he was ostensibly my husband.
My freaking husband!
“What happened last night?” My voice trembled as I asked. I still couldn’t believe what I’d woken up to. I kept wanting to pinch myself, hoping I’d wake up again, and this would all be revealed as some sort of
sick nightmare.
Nate cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t remember?”
“Clearly, or I wouldn’t be asking you.” I had a feeling I already knew the answer. I just wanted to hear it out loud.
He pushed the covers off himself and stood up, revealing everything that had lain beneath the sheets and next to me all night. Mercifully, he wasn’t completely naked. A pair of black boxer briefs covered his private parts. The rest of him was on full display. The mere sight of him stole the air from my lungs, and heat twirled inside me, making me tingle as my eyes skated over his chiseled abs and chest.
I ignored the tingling. I didn’t want this man. Not considering what I knew about him.
“What the hell happened?” I repeated, holding up one of the Polaroids I’d just discovered on the bedside table.
Nate grinned and stepped around the bed, inching closer to me. “What does it look like, wifey?”
I jumped up on the bed, trying to escape him. “No!” I shrieked. “I can’t be married to you!”
He actually had the nerve to look mildly offended, although he mostly looked amused. “Why not?”
I fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare. “I know this is technically none of my business, because we’re not actually together, but I know about Ginny, Nate. I know all about her. So that’s why we can’t be married, you lying prick!”
“Wait, what?” Nate’s eyes widened. “You know about Ginny?”
I wagged a finger at him. “Oh, yes. I do. You aren’t as good at hiding things as you think,” I hissed.
He scratched his jaw. “Hm. Apparently not.”
I put my hands on my hips. “So that’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“I was going to wait to see exactly what your problem with Ginny is.”
I gaped at him. Was he for real?
“Okay. Fine. Not only did you lie straight to my face on multiple occasions about having a girlfriend, your girlfriend is also married to another man. You’re a dirty homewrecker!” I said, gathering my robe tighter around my waist. “And you know what? I never told you this, but I’ve already ridden that carousel before. Only I was the one being cheated on. On my fucking wedding day, no less! So I will not stay married to a person who condones that sort of crap! That’s the problem!”
Nate held up a hand, his eyebrows furrowing. “Wait, what?”
“It happened to me,” I said, my voice barely above a murmur. “I was engaged a few years ago. To a man named Matthew.”
I paused and looked down. Hot angry tears sprang to my eyes at the reminder of what my ex-fiancé had done to me.
I didn’t actually care about him as a person anymore, but for a long time, I did. I’d spent so long being his partner that without him, I wasn’t sure what to think of myself after it all broke apart. If I wasn’t his fiancée, then who was I?
During that period, I sobbed for weeks and weeks, stretching into months. It was exhausting, and by the time I was done, I felt hollow. Numb. But I felt lighter too, as if all that crying had purged something that made me sick. It did, in a sense. I was finally rid of all my feelings for my ex, and I’d started to see what he was. He was nothing but a scummy piece of crap, and if I stayed with him, he would’ve been a dead weight around my neck, dragging me to the bottom of a terrible life. The kind of life you look back on with nothing but regret.
So I was over him now. I truly didn’t care about him. I did care, however, about the way his actions made me feel for so long afterwards. Lower than dirt. Like nothing at all.
It still affected me every single day.
I shifted my feet on the mattress, unable to get comfortable as I continued speaking. “Long story short, I found out Matthew had been screwing my best friend just moments before I was meant to walk down the aisle.”
I hesitated again as it continued flooding back; the emotions, the drama, the shame. The betrayal.
For most people who’ve been through something, there’s a particular moment they can pinpoint when everything in their life changed. They look back, and they see their life divided into two parts. Before and after. My ‘before’ was my wedding day, right before I caught Matthew cheating on me. Everything following that was my ‘after’—the person I’d since become.
It was such a cliché: woman gets cheated on by man, then goes on to never trust men again. But there was a reason that cliché existed. It was painfully accurate. Since Matthew, I hadn’t trusted any man enough to get into a relationship. I’d stayed single and guarded for almost four years now, unable to let myself open up to anyone.
I sighed and went on. “So that’s it. I threw the ring on the ground, walked out of the church, and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
I hadn’t spoken these words out loud in a long time, but there was a strange catharsis in them.
Nate’s eyebrows furrowed. “Jesus. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that happened to you.”
“Yeah, well, I never told you. Didn’t exactly feel like bringing it up,” I said, blinking away the tears. “But as you can probably tell, I have a major issue with cheaters and homewreckers, because it’s been done to me.”
He nodded. “I understand that. But I don’t see what this has to do with Ginny. You brought her up and then started screaming at me about a girlfriend. To say I’m confused would be a gross understatement.”
My blood pressure rose rapidly. I stared at him in disbelief. Why the hell was he playing so dumb? He knew I knew the truth. I just told him I did!
I gritted my teeth. “You. Are. Sleeping. With. The. Mayor’s. Wife.”
“I’m what?”
I snorted with derision as I stepped off the bed. Then I folded my arms. “Ginny Morell, Nate. My mom told me about the tabloid rumors the other day. Usually I’d assume they’re just that—rumors. But I heard you talking to her weeks ago.” I affected a simpering baby voice. “Hi, Ginny, honey. I love you. Here, have all these free vacation tickets to all this stuff you love, because I just adore you sooo much.”
Nate actually had the gall to look amused. “Ah. I see. You caught me.”
I lifted my chin triumphantly. “Yes, I did.”
He sat down on the bed and patted the duvet. “Come sit.”
“With you?” I squawked. “No!”
I was suddenly overcome with a sweeping sense of déjà vu. We’d been right here before: him sitting over there telling me to sit, and me stiffly saying no. Clearly, we were going in circles with each other; an emotional Ferris wheel. We needed to get off (and unfortunately, I didn’t mean that in the good way), but I didn’t know how to stop the ride. My emotions were all over the place.
Nate’s eyes briefly rolled skywards at my refusal. “Then at least listen, please.”
“Fine.” I pursed my lips.
“You’ve conflated two totally separate things. I know all about the rumors going around about me and Ginny Morell. I’ve met her, sure. I attended some black tie benefit a few months ago, and she was there with her husband. Someone took a photo of us posing together, and I guess the gossip mill was having a slow day last week. They’ve taken one of those old photos and made it into some big thing about how it ‘proves’ we’re having an affair. But we’re not, and from what I can recall, she’s very happy with her husband.”
I frowned. “But… the phone call.” I shook a finger at him. “And the email! I saw her emailing you with all these heart emojis in the subject line!”
Nate held up a palm. “I asked you to listen.”
I crossed my arms again. “Fine. I’m listening,” I muttered.
“Remember I told you about last year’s charity shoot? It was for sick kids.”
I thought back to our first-ever ‘date’, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Some of the kids and their families were actually there. I met this one little girl, and it turned out she had the exact same rare bone cancer my mother suffered from. She was an awesome kid, and her parents were great too. They were hoping the calendar might raise enough
to help them pay for the treatment. Same treatment I wanted for my mom.” He paused for a second to clear his throat. “They don’t have much money, so they couldn’t afford it themselves, and… I dunno… it was like I could see myself in them. Just six years ago, I was them. So I made an impulse decision to pay for the treatment for this kid.”
My chest tightened, and a lump formed in my throat. I was starting to get the distinct impression that I’d been horribly, horribly mistaken. “This girl was named Ginny?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Nate nodded. “Yes. Ginny Bennett. She’s all better now, and I’ve become very close with her and her family. They have me over for dinner every couple of weeks to catch up. Sometimes we even do other things, like go for a hike or make cookies together. Family stuff, you know. They’ve never judged me.”
“What do you mean?” I wrinkled my forehead.
Nate’s jaw tightened. “I mean they don’t judge me like everyone else does, over whatever the tabloids print about me. Like you. You obviously think I’m some sort of giant man-whore playboy based off what you’ve heard about me, so you were pretty damn quick to jump to conclusions.”
He was right about that. “Sorry,” I whispered, looking down at my feet.
“Ginny’s family treat me like I’m just a normal person who helped them out, and honestly, it’s been nice for me to have people like that in my life. Especially since I don’t have much in the way of a family anymore.” He rubbed his forehead. “I guess you could say they’re like a second family to me in some ways. Ginny has become sort of like a niece or little cousin to me.”
I swallowed hard. “So the things I overheard….” I trailed off.
He gave me a tight smile. “I’m guessing you heard me on the phone that morning after you stayed over?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That was Ginny’s birthday. I’d promised her I’d call and say hi. She loves animals, so I figured she could have those sanctuary tickets you gave me, and she could also take her mom to the spa, as part of her birthday gift.”
“Oh.”
That explained the baby voice and the ‘honey’ nickname. He was literally speaking to a kid.
Mr. Man Candy: A Fake Boyfriend Romance Page 15