I push to sitting, ignore the black dots dancing in my vision, and take the newspaper from her.
That’s me.
On my knees.
In the dark.
Giving Hayes a blow job behind a building near the sea lion exhibit.
With a giant blurry spot right in front of my face.
Oh my god.
I fling it away and throw myself back onto the couch. “No,” I whisper.
“Begonia. Ignore the picture. Also, anyone who comes after you for having sex in public will have to go through me first, because hello, that had to be hella fucking hot. But we need to talk about this headline. The Weird Rutherford Fakes A Girlfriend. And this contract that they printed. And how I’m going to murder everyone in the Rutherford family for using you like this.”
“No.”
“Begonia, they have the signed NDA printed in here too. Talk. Now. I knew something was up.”
“How?”
“Hello, twinstinct?”
“No, how do they have the contract?”
“So you’d take the fall for the BJ that’s threatening to destroy the Rutherford family’s reputation. Duh. I really hope he did a lot more than setting up the most gorgeous art room I’ve ever seen for you in that mansion of his, because otherwise, his death will be slow and painful instead of quick and merciful.”
“Hy, he wouldn’t—”
I cut myself off.
Wouldn’t he?
What do I really know about Hayes Rutherford beyond what I wanted to believe?
He stood up to his mother for me, but that was the whole point of the fake relationship. To sell it. To put me between him and her and every other woman in the world.
He treated me like a goddess and told me he liked me for who I was, but was it all pretend? Is he as good of an actor as his brother?
He couldn’t even tell me he loved me.
He preferred letting all of our secrets loose in the tabloids to actually caring about me.
I’d thought I’d cried every last tear I had inside me, but I haven’t.
Not by a long shot.
And they’re coming hot and hard and fast all over again as I tell Hyacinth everything. The mistake with the vacation rental. Him finding me waxing my bikini line in his bathroom. Marshmallow eating the Maurice Bellitano carving. His mother arriving with a more suitable girlfriend. Skipping the lobster dinner cruise for a picnic on the beach.
Asking him to pop my post-divorce cherry.
His panicked call for me to pick his executive assistants.
Our moonlit picnic when we made love.
Running into the woman who broke him and his former best friend at the gala.
Wanting to hug him and save him and protect him from people who only see him as the world’s last eligible billionaire.
But I suppose the joke’s on me.
I was never what he actually wanted, no matter how he made me feel.
Hyacinth’s cradling my head in her lap and stroking my hair by the time I finish.
“Jerry says he can get you a job at his company,” she says. “Just until all of this blows over. To keep you busy, I mean. Until you sue the ever-loving fuck out of that asshole billionaire who’s letting you take the fall for all of this.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Despite it all, Hy, I love him.”
“Begonia, you could fall in love with a turd-coated shape-shifting lemur. I realize Mr. Big Bucks was a little more handsome than that, and he gave us a good run of thinking he knew you and liked you, but sweetie, he betrayed you in the freaking gossip rags to save his family’s reputation, and you are going to be okay. C’mon, Ms. Things Happen For A Reason. You can do private art lessons now. Take advantage of the notoriety and get a page up on Etsy with some of your attempts at spin-art. Sign them, and they’ll be worth like, seven times as much.”
“I hate math, but even I know seven times zero is zero. And I don’t care, Hy. I don’t. I don’t care about anything.”
“You fed your dog today.”
“I fed him the whole bag when we got home.”
She looks at me, then over near where Marshmallow’s dog bowl sits. “Oh. I, ah, see. Does he need to go out?”
“Every freaking hour, but he takes care of it himself.”
He’s the best dog. Best best best.
“Begonia.”
“I’ve cleaned up seven thousand dog messes in the park from other dogs! If he makes a dozen messes that I don’t clean while I’m heartbroken and drowning my sorrows on my couch, then I don’t care. And if my dog is smart enough to take the elevator down to the parking lot to poop, then find his way back, then why shouldn’t he have his freedom to do that?”