“Why Auckland?”
“It’s the closest major city. There’s a lot of trade between Tonga and New Zealand.”
He stopped walking.
Wait.
“Tar paper? Stud guns?”
“What? You don’t think I listened when we first arrived in L.A., and you were working for Bob Henderson?”
He ignored the painful twinge in his side at the mention of Bob’s name. With a practiced eye, he looked over what would be needed to finish the simple structures. Treated plywood, pressure treated nails, timber for floors, shatter resistant glass.
His hand brushed hers as they walked deeper into the jungle. The sun shone directly through her dress, accentuating her long, graceful legs, the soft curve of her hip, and the gentle dip of her waist. He ripped his eyes away but not before he saw something on her face.
She pulled her hand away too quickly when their fingers brushed, the snap of electricity making the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.
…
“We’re nearly there,” Zoe said, struggling to shrug off the sexual tension that threatened to eat her alive. Her body begged her to drag him behind the nearest tree and do him. Every time Rory’s hand brushed hers, desire fired into her pelvis and made clear thinking difficult.
God, where was Rudy when she needed him?
I am not going to think of Rory in backless chaps. I am not going to think of him in backless chaps, no shirt, and a smile that will have me gnawing on his belt buckle.
She squirmed. Great. Damp underwear.
Dear Lord, she had to stop her body from going all slutty when he was near.
She stopped and pretended to adjust her shoe, giving her heart a chance to steady itself and giving her an excuse to adjust her bra, since it had apparently shrunk a size in the last half an hour.
“Doing okay there, babe?”
She looked up into his darkened eyes and sucked in a breath.
“Yeah.” She stood, her chin jutted. “You?”
“Doing well.”
She read his sexy grin and banked it for lonely nights of just her and Rudy.
She rounded the corner and saw her village family.
Men in crisp white cotton shirts wore long sarongs in the colors of the rainbow, the cloth wrapped tightly around their waists and dropping to their shins. Women in long, brightly colored dresses wore their hair pulled back from their face, glistening with coconut oil, the scent filling the air. People rushed forward to greet her, and her heart soared at the love on their faces.
Zoe hugged them back, her laughter easy and filled with joy. It felt so right to be amongst this group of people who treated her as their daughter, their sister.
Home. A place she truly belonged.
Who wouldn’t want to live here?
Without turning, she knew where in the crowd Rory stood. She could feel his eyes on her.
Sudden silence rippled across the group as the school’s sole teacher popped her head out of the door.
Children marched from the building holding hands, all dressed in white, with flax skirts around their waists and necklaces of white and golden shells around their necks. Their faces beamed as they took in the assembled crowd and smiled at their relatives. The children made their way to where Simi stood, his leathery face creased with a huge smile. The teacher calmed her excited charges by holding up her hand. The children sat, after some shuffling, with their right legs crossed over their left.
“They’re performing a Ma’ulu’ulu,” she whispered to Rory as he appeared at her side.
To the left and the right of the children, teenagers and people from the village stood poised with hands behind their backs, looking toward an old man standing in front of a metal drum painted green and covered with tight leather. The drummer brought a stick down against the drum, slowly at first, teasing the crowd, his body swaying to the rhythm. As the beat got faster, the crowd responded, their feet tapping and their hands clasped together. The children’s huge eyes darted between Simi and the drum master as the beat got faster. Zoe swayed to the primal beat. The rhythm pulsed through her, dark and exciting.
Her body pulled toward Rory’s.
As the tempo increased, she saw out the corner of her eye Rory’s body responding to the primitive sound, and his foot found the rhythm, his body moving to the beat pulsing through the air. They were only inches apart. Rory’s hand brushed against hers, sending sparks of awareness up her arm and into her belly. Rory stared straight ahead, a dark flush creeping up his neck. As the pace reached fever pitch and people became borderline delirious, the drummer slowed the beat until he hit the drum in a slow, continuous rhythm.
The children started weaving their fingers through the air. Their eyes were glued to their hands.
“They’re using their hands to tell legends of feasts and gods. Poetry with hands,” she whispered. With trembling fingertips, Zoe pressed wads of red bank notes into Rory’s hand.
“Give one to each of the children,” she said in a low voice.
She walked the line, pressing the banknotes into the children’s hands and grinning at their shining eyes and coy grins. She glanced at Rory, and her heart stilled at the happy and free look on his face.
She retreated to the shade of a tree on slightly unsteady legs. The singers on either side of the children broke into song, their faces alive as they sang in Tongan. Low male voices wove through the high voices of the women, a rich tapestry of song.
Children’s eyes sparkled. Proud parents rushed over and hugged their children.
Children and families.
A bubble rose in her chest.
With misty eyes, she joined a long line of people heading toward a table groaning with food just pulled from huge underground ovens. The smells of roast chicken, corned beef, steamed lobster, and fresh bread filled the air. By the time she got to the front of the line, she had her bubbling emotions under control. She took a sample from everything on the table and made her way toward the shade of a nearby mango tree. The rich scent of fruit filtered through the warm breeze.
Rory sat down beside her. She scanned the crowd and her eyes fell on Simi, who raised a hand in greeting. A snowy-haired woman sat next to him, beaming at the assembled group.
“Simi and Mrs. Simi?” Rory asked.
She nodded, finishing her mouthful of steamed lobster before continuing. “Married sixty years. Simi says she’s more beautiful now than when he first met her.”
Words died in her throat, and she gazed out at the sea of happy, laughing faces, blinking away a silly film from her eyes.
I am one wrong bubble of hormones today.
“Simi’s parents were opposed to the marriage,” she continued, trying to decide between crispy coconut and mango pudding or bread so hot it burnt her fingers. Well, since I’m so hormonal, I’ll have it all. “They thought he was marrying down. But he insisted he’d die a bachelor if he couldn’t marry the woman he loved. Children, grand-children, and great-great grandchildren later, they’re still in love.”
The weight of her words pressed down on them.
“Sounds like us,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “Your father never did think I was good enough for you.”
“Different ending,” she murmured. “Daddy still hasn’t spoken to me.” She shrugged, deflecting the barb of pain when she thought of her only blood relative. “And he never will.” She picked at the grass. “What about your parents?”
“Still propping up a bar somewhere, living off social security, and getting bumped from one trailer park to another.”
She nodded. He’d lived with his deadbeat parents until the day they’d graduated high school, leaving Greenville, California, population seven hundred ten, on all-you-can-eat harvest day, heading toward the bright lights of L.A. and community college. He’d loved L.A. on sight. She’d hated the intensity, the pressure to be bigger and better, the air kisses, and the pretend friends. But she’d loved Rory enough to live with it…until she co
uldn’t survive in their fake world, living in a pretend marriage and slowly dying.
A woman approached with a shy smile on her lips. She offered Rory a piece of cake, the smell of banana mingling with the sharp smell of coffee icing.
He bit into the triangle wedge. She held her breath.
His eyes glowed with delight, and his full lips tugged into a grin that was just too good-looking on a man.
“This is really good. Just as I remember.”
Her lungs went back to functioning. “Thanks.”
She lay down on the grass and patted the space beside her. “Come, lie down. Chase the clouds.”
He stared at her for a moment too long, his lust-filled eyes asking, can I do you?
She grimaced at him. No, you can’t.
“I’ve got to leave pretend world and get back to the real world.” His eyes raced down the length of her before scanning her face as if she were a hidden clue to a puzzle he couldn’t solve.
She arched a brow. “This is the real world. Look around you, Roars. This is people enjoying life. Having friendships that last a lifetime. Taking the time to really live and love.”
“No, Zoe. It’s a fantasy that people visit for ten days. It’s too remote, too quiet, too inconvenient. It’s not real.”
She shielded her hand across her eyes and stared up at him, unable to read a single thing on his face. “So you won’t lie down, take a load off, just relax, and hang out?”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked down at her. “What’s the point?”
She came and stood within inches of him. “I’m real.” She held his stare and tilted her chin.
“How many times did we go to galas where we’d see the same people who couldn’t bother to remember our names? Don’t you remember the fake air kisses? The pretend friends until you lost a foot on some social ladder you didn’t know existed, and then you were twelfth on the list of invites? The tailored shorts and ironed tees? How many pissing contests against fire hydrants? Pretend handshakes while the other hand was getting the knife out?” She let out her breath. This island, these people were more authentic than most of the people she’d left back in California. “How many of those people were real, Rory?”
He stared at her without a flicker of emotion. “I’ve got to go back to my world. That deal cannot get done without me.”
“Then go. No one’s stopping you.”
He ripped his gaze away and without a word walked away.
She stared after him, swallowing hard against a lump in her throat. This fake love thing was going to be hard. Really hard. Could she convince Rory to pretend to be more in love? To look through a camera lens and radiate authentic-looking love? To help her get the photos she needed for the magazine and the brochure?
More importantly, could she convince herself?
Yes, I can. I have to.
She’d lie, cheat, and steal every emotion available, because she wasn’t leaving this island.
Chapter Five
Rory stared out the office window. He’d given Zoe her space when a phone call was for her. When he’d returned, she was nowhere to be seen. Puffy clouds sat on a forever-blue sky. The sun blazed a comet trail toward the horizon. Must be nearly beer o’clock. He could use the distraction. He turned at the sound of the office door opening. Zoe walked toward him with a thoughtful look on her face and her shoulders hunched. She stood a measured distance between them, behind the office chair. A subtle barrier. A bag swung on her wrist.
“You okay?”
“No, not really.” Her breath came in shivering bursts, like she wanted to say the words but didn’t know how. Her fingers pointed into steeples. It was hard to concentrate when she had that sexy schoolmarm thing coming off her in waves.
“The phone call before was from the editor of Honeymoon in Heaven. Now don’t blow a gasket, but they’re not going to make it. They sustained some damage due to the storm.” She pinned him with her unwavering gaze. “I told them I’ll send a spread for the magazine of you and me and our life here, so you still get your publicity shots, and you’ll still look like Saint Rory and all. They’ve asked if we can do an interview via a webcam in an hour. They’ll load it onto their website for the world to see.”
“So I’d still get my PR?” He released a breath.
“Yeah.”
“But how would we do an interview? Your computer’s an IBM prototype. It doesn’t have a webcam. It struggles to spit out an e-mail.”
“Yeah, poor Herbert. He’s old and tired, but he does try.” She patted the laptop. “Lucky for us there’s a guy in the village who’s back from Auckland University for a month, and he’s all techy. He fixes things when the satellite phone blows up. Anyway, he’s got an Eye Toy that he uses when he wants to FaceTime with his girl back in Auckland. Long story short, he’s leant it to us so that we can do the interview. We can hook it up to Herbert here and hope the satellite phone doesn’t throw a hissy fit and cut out.”
He stared at her.
She looked about as comfortable as a tone-deaf introvert singing the national anthem at a major sporting event. “So if you’re okay with it, can we still do the whole pretend-love thing for the interview and the photos?”
The frown between her brows got deeper.
“We’re going to have to be super convincing, though. Because…,” She glanced at him and then glanced away.
He leaned forward, watching different emotions dart across her face. None of them looked happy. “Because…?”
“I don’t like the Rory I left. The one in front of me now. The speak-up-or-shut-up Rory.”
He absorbed the mental blow. Her eyes stilled on the tic vibrating beneath his left eye. He only got the tic when extremely stressed. Zoe was the only person in the world who understood. She used to lay her fingers under his eye until it stilled.
Her touch had always worked.
Her eyes slowly rose to meet his. He blinked and looked away.
“So we’re back to Photoshop memories, Rory, if that’s okay.”
Something about this sat like quicksand in his brain. He stared at the proud businesswoman in front of him, putting her business above all else.
Just like he did every day.
“That’s fine, Zo.”
He rubbed his temples, trying to erase the pressure building in his head. I need to go for a run.
“So, I thought I could update the photos over the next few days as well as take photos for the magazine, and we could pretend to be, you know, rapt in each other.” She looked pained at the prospect. “But fake rapt, if you know what I mean.”
He couldn’t help but grin. In times of stress, her small town roots came out. She’d worked hard to bury them when they hit L.A, but over the last day he’d noticed that her vowels slipped more and more into her natural sound. It sounded good on her. Natural. “How would we fit my work schedule into your plans?”
She paced the small space. The scent of her coconut sunscreen kick-started his hormones.
“What if we say tomorrow morning you do your spreadsheety, pivoty tables while I get resort stuff done? Tomorrow afternoon we could do the photos, and then the next day we could use the morning to do more photos and stuff. Then in the afternoon you can play corporate capers or hatch another plan to take over the world.” She cocked her head to one side.
He liked this side of Zoe. The fun Zoe who laughed and who looked so…relaxed. He hadn’t seen this side of her in a long time, especially not when she had a stressor hanging over her. Back in California, the whole magazine debacle would have sent her spiraling. But here…
He cleared his throat. “That sounds reasonable. I’ll have unleashed my evil plan onto the world by then and will have started working on the universe. I hear Jupiter is nice this time of year.”
Her laughter rained down on him. Happy, straight-from-the-soul laughter that reminded him how silent it had been the last few years they’d lived together. He’d been too wrapped up in his own world
to notice her silence.
“I believe it is. You with your corporate board games and global domination. I never stood a chance at Risk. I’m still more of a Scrabble girl.”
Embarrassment turned her face red. She remembered, too. Their weekly game of Strip Scrabble.
“You used to cheat big time.”
He’d spent hours reading the dictionary and Women’s Weekly.
He sat forward. “Babe, I never cheated. Every word was legit.”
“Like ‘Qat’ is a legal word.” She stared at him like he’d cheated on the SAT.
“I read a freaking gardening magazine to get that word.” At her intake of breath he said, “Swear to God, I read a knitting pattern once, and I nearly grew a vagina.”
Her eyes bugged in her head.
“Anything to get you to shed one piece of clothing at a time.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You never played by the rules.”
They stood like duelists at dawn. Neither flinching. Both holding the stare.
Feisty Zoe.
Nice.
“I always play by the rules. It’s just that they’re usually mine.” He grinned. “But anyway, I can fake anything, anytime, anywhere.”
“Really?”
He leaned back in the chair and swung his foot onto the desk. “Well, hell yeah. I didn’t get where I am in business today without a few fake blindsides, pretend handshakes, and gilt-edged smiles. If it’s just business then, sure, I’m fine with that.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow. I hope I’m never like that.” Her hand stroked her throat.
“But aren’t you about to do exactly that, Zo? Pretending and faking it with the best of them?”
Silence.
The color washed from her face. Her hand gripped the back of the chair, the knuckles unnaturally white against her tanned skin. “Yeah, I suppose I am,” she whispered after a long pause. Her gaze flew to his. She crossed her arms, pushing her chest up and giving him a nice serving of mocha-colored cleavage. The color slowly edged into her face. “So we’re good? You can pretend we’re in love so that we’ll fool the biggest honeymoon magazine in the world?”
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