“Yes, here it is.” He passes over the clipboard. “I’ll see you all in a few hours.” He disappears up the stairs, and everyone begins to walk around and do their thing. I fold back the piece of paper and read the list.
Julian Masters
Spencer Jones
Sebastian Garcia
Fuck.
I put the folder down immediately. No need to read the rest of the guests.
The first three are the biggest pranksters on earth. I will not last one hour with them, let alone forty-eight.
This is a living nightmare.
They’re going to blow my cover and tell Hayden, and fuck it, she doesn’t love me enough yet. She’ll leave me for lying to her.
Who could blame her?
For weeks, I’ve been trying to work out how to tell her who I am, but we’re having so much fun that we haven’t even had the discussion about what’s happening when this is all over. I don’t want her to find out that I’ve been lying to her like this. I need to be the one to tell her.
Fuck.
It’s weird that she hasn’t told me she loved me since that night of our first fight over six weeks ago—although we often say the words I don’t love you, which to me are code for I do . . . but what if to her they’re not?
What if it’s just something she says?
I drag my hand through my hair, sick to my stomach.
I want Hayden in my life. The thought of losing her because of a lie . . . tightens my chest.
I follow her down the stairs with our backpacks and walk into our room. It’s little and doesn’t have a window. We do have privacy, though, which is the main thing.
There’s a wardrobe and a desk in the corner. Hayden begins to unpack her things into the drawers. I sit down on the bed as I watch her.
I have to tell her.
“Beautiful yacht, huh?” I say.
“Incredible.” She folds her shirt. “This is going to be the job of a lifetime.”
My heart is hammering in my chest. “Can you imagine yourself ever owning a yacht like this?”
“Me?” She laughs. “No way.”
“You wouldn’t want to have money?” I ask. “Like this-yacht type of money?”
“God no, I hate rich people.”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Do you know any?”
“Not really.” She keeps folding her clothes.
“That’s a tad discriminatory, don’t you think?”
She looks over at me and stops what she’s doing and then comes and sits on my lap. I wrap my arms around her as she kisses my lips softly. “I love the life we have, Christopher.”
I stare up at her, and she brushes the hair back from my face as she looks down at me. “You don’t need to worry that you don’t have money.”
Huh?
“There is so much to love about us.” She kisses the tip of my nose. “I love the fact that you’re my best friend.” She kisses me with a smile. “I love that you give so much to everything you do. I love that you’re kind and loving. I love that you look after me. You’re perfect just as you are.”
My eyes search hers. I’m speechless.
There is not a single word in my head. For all my life I have wanted to hear those words, that someone wanted me for me.
I love this woman.