“Do you know the worst part?” She’s whispering so softly now that I have to crane to hear her.
“It bothers me that your story can get worse.”
“My mom didn’t understand. Doesn’t understand. She thinks I shouldn’t have divorced him and that I should ask him to take me back because Begonia, he didn’t hit you, he provided for you, and he let you spend time with your friends. That’s what my mom thinks a good relationship is.”
I don’t have any idea what an angry rhinoceros sounds like, but if I were to guess, I’d say it sounds remarkably like the rage welling up inside me right now. “And my mother wonders why I don’t want to fall in love,” I mutter.
“You would be good at it.”
“I grew up watching my family get richer and richer off of fantastical and over-romanticized depictions of relationships while every woman I was ever attracted to ultimately proved to want nothing more than my money, my connections, or my family name. I would not be good at love, because I have no idea what real love, in the real world, looks like.”
She tilts her head in my direction, rubbing her nose on my shirt, then pausing as if she’s inhaling the scent of it, and my damn cock goes hard.
Not the time, Woody-boy. Not. The. Time.
“Real love looks a lot like changing your plans at the last minute to humor someone having an irrational panic attack, and then defending said flake to your mother, because you know no one’s perfect, but you’re willing to accept them just as they are, flaws and all, knowing that they’re doing their very best, every day, and wanting to help them along that journey every day for the rest of your life.”
Heat prickles over the back of my neck, belying the derisive snort coming out of my mouth.
“I know you won’t ever love me,” Begonia whispers. “I know this is pretend and temporary and just one more adventure for me, and something convenient for you. But I just want you to know, you know the right things to do to love someone. It’s not your fault if all of the women in the world aren’t willing to do the same for you. It’s actually a damn shame, because you would be quite a catch for any woman willing to see you for the man hiding under all those walls.”
Of all the women in the world that I could’ve found naked in my bathroom and bullied into pretending to be my girlfriend so that the world would back the fuck off, it had to be this one.
Her dog sets his head in my lap, sniffs my aching cock, and harumphs back at me when I shove his snout away.
“You don’t know who I truly am,” I say gruffly.
“I don’t. You’re right. But I know enough. And I don’t blame you for not believing me. I probably wouldn’t believe me either if I were you.”
I’m simultaneously furious and horny and in desperate need of wrapping my arms around this woman, and I don’t know how that happened.
But I know I feel better when I give in to the urge to pull her against my body and press a kiss into her hair, inhaling not the scent of my luxury shampoo, picked and stocked by my mother’s staff, but of something soft and flowery and innately Begonia.
She’ll never be the woman I love.
But for the first time in a long time, I believe I’ve found someone I could call friend.
16
Begonia
The next several days are weird. Giovanna and her entourage are gone when I finally get up Tuesday morning after all the drama in the middle of the night. Hayes moves into the guest bedroom and informs his security team that no one beyond the two of us and my mutant dog are allowed on the property, and that I’m to be accompanied at a respectful distance for any trips I’d like to make into town or the surrounding areas.
Though we basically don’t see each other while we’re at the house, and he ends up having to work through the whole weekend—or so he says—rather than taking that impromptu trip to Paris, he still makes a point of taking me to lunch at the lobster shack in town or the soup and sandwich shop so that I can make him confirm for me that yes, curried chicken salad is the best.
And honestly?
I prefer that to Paris.
And I also don’t.
Paris would’ve been showy and blingy and uncomfortable, overly-romantic for the cameras, whereas this feels almost real when we’re together.
And the real part is what bothers me.
I don’t love Hayes Rutherford, but I could get addicted to our conversations, to his attention when I’m talking, to that soft near-smile that overtakes his lips when he’s watching me doing things that Chad would’ve grimaced over and asked me to never do again.