Chad sucks in an audible breath that carries across the patio. “You can’t talk to me—”
Hayes points to my dog, who’s baring his teeth at the phone. “Your turn, Marshmallow. Tell him what happens to anyone who hurts your mama.”
The bared teeth turn into a hair-raising growl.
“Good boy.” Hayes hangs up the phone. “Now sit.”
Marshmallow plops back on his haunches, happy as my stepfather in a pool of bacon.
“Why don’t you ever do that for me?” Keisha whispers to Millie.
“You don’t have any dick ex-wives because I haven’t divorced you yet.”
Hayes grabs my hand again. “Once again, say good night, Begonia.”
This time, we make it into the house without interruption, with Marshmallow trotting along.
“Are you all right?” Hayes asks me.
“A little mortified, a little grateful, and a little turned on, if I’m being honest.”
He steers me through the kitchen to a stairwell leading downstairs. “We’re in the last of the guest quarters for tonight. And we’re going to have to get engaged.”
I almost trip on the stairs. “Engaged? Are you crazy?”
“We’ll update the agreement. Do you have plans after this weekend? We should extend our arrangement too. We might even have to get married. Amelia in Maine. Liliane here. The fifty women in my office. An engagement or marriage is the only thing that will stop this.”
I stare at him.
Does he want to get engaged because he likes me, or is this all part of the ruse?
I don’t want to get married again. Not for real. I’m still finding me. This is an adventure on that path, not the end goal.
And the sex—yes, please, but also, did he do it for me because I asked him to, or because he likes me?
I know he likes me. We’re friends. With hopefully more benefits.
“Begonia?”
“Is there more wine in the guest quarters?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I think I need it.”
23
Begonia
Headache? Check.
Mouth that tastes like my grandmother’s wedding dress freshly out of storage with the mothballs? Check.
Stomach angrier than an arena full of Copper Valley Thrusters fans when that ref made that terribly wrong slashing call against Ares Berger and nearly cost the team the championship? Check.
Missing fake boyfriend who wants to do paperwork to extend our agreement to include a fake engagement after I interrupted him eating me out by setting a tablecloth on fire? Check.
His distrustful mother sitting across from me at the formal dining room table first thing on a Tuesday morning after he also left me a note that we’re committed to a charity gala in New York City later this week and I have to go shopping for a dress that will involve Slimzies, borrowed jewels that I will hopefully not lose, and plastering my face with more makeup than The Blue Man Group require in a week? Check, check, and check.
“You don’t look well, dear,” Giovanna says, as if I didn’t attempt to burn the house down last night while her son was going down on me. “Perhaps the country air isn’t to your liking?”
“I’m the world’s lightest lightweight, and I had three glasses of wine last night.”
“Poor dear. Would you like me to ask the chef to make you an omelet? Perhaps some yogurt and granola?”
I will never again believe any interviews that paint Giovanna Rutherford as a saint of a mother.
Yogurt on a hangover stomach?
Gross.
“No, thank you. I’m sure visiting Hayes at work today will make me feel better.” Oof. I’m catty. Not a good sign. I force a smile and continue. “Or maybe a pickle juice smoothie. Wasn’t the moon gorgeous last night? I know you’re supposed to wish on a star, but sometimes I wish on the moon when she’s that pretty.”
“You’re quite unique, aren’t you, Begonia?”
“Oh, I’m just me. You must meet a ton of unique people who make me look normal.”
She doesn’t take the bait. Out loud, anyway. Her smile behind her coffee cup says the no, I don’t, because there aren’t many people odder than you that she’s stifling.
Or possibly I’m reading too much into this because I’m tired and my head hurts and I could really, really use a spill-my-guts visit with Hyacinth.
Or a Big Mac.
Definitely a Big Mac.
I do my best to smile at Hayes’s mother like I mean it, and not like I’m hoping Liliane Sussex-Williams is gone and Uncle Antonio and his family are gone and that Giovanna is heading somewhere else today so Marshmallow and I can run around the grounds—or so he can while I flop in the grass and bake in the sunshine—and contemplate where I should go next week when my contract with Hayes is up if he comes to his senses and doesn’t continue asking me to extend it.