A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(50)

“If it makes it easier, just pretend I’m Milo and that you are blissfully happy on your romantic little honeymoon,” Garrett told her with a smile.

He immediately regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth and wished he could take them back. He sounded like a jealous ass.

“Blissfully happy. Yeah, right,” Parker said sarcastically as she zipped her bag closed.

She quickly turned away, hoping Garrett didn’t think much of her comment. She walked over to the door and dropped her bag by it, keeping her back to him.

“What, you don’t think you two would have been pawing each other for a week and smiling so much you’d make everyone around you puke?” Garrett joked.

Each word he said was like a knife to the chest since it forced him to imagine Milo and Parker having sex all over God’s green earth, but he kept a smile in place for Parker’s sake.

“Hardly,” Parker said quietly as she finally turned around to face him.

Garrett didn’t like the sadness in her face. He felt like an idiot for bringing Milo up minutes before they were supposed to pretend to be newlyweds on their honeymoon.

“I shouldn’t have brought him up, I’m sorry,” Garrett told her.

Parker sighed, hating the way Garrett always took the blame for everything. There was so much he didn’t know about his best friend. Things she and obviously Milo had kept from him. She had no idea why Milo had never confided in Garrett about the problems they’d had. Maybe he was embarrassed. Parker never told Garrett because she never wanted to be that woman who came between two best friends. When Milo was alive, there were some things she felt like she had to keep to herself so Milo wouldn’t feel like she’d betrayed him. Now that he was gone, maybe it was time to shed some light for Garrett.

“Don’t apologize. I don’t mind you bringing him up. He was your friend too. It’s just…things weren’t as wonderful and perfect between us that last year, especially the six months leading up to when he left.”

“What do you mean they weren’t that great? You guys were happy, in love, and getting married. What’s not great about that?”

Parker cocked her head and looked at Garrett. Her first thought was that she didn’t want him to accuse her of lying and making things up now that Milo was dead. But she immediately admonished herself for that notion. Garrett would never do that to her.

Parker had felt a shift in her relationship with Garrett ever since the moment they woke up in bed curled around each other. The air practically crackled every time they were in the same room, and each time she looked at Garrett, she found him staring right back at her. Even if he wouldn’t admit it and she was too scared to say anything to him, she could feel things changing between them. Now that she’d felt his touch on her bare skin, she ached for it again. Now that she’d felt his lips on hers, she knew she’d never be the same until she felt them again. Sometimes she saw something in his eyes that said he felt the same way, but then just as quickly, it would disappear. Parker knew it was hard for him to think of her as anything other than his friend’s fiancé. She didn’t want him going day in and day out under the impression that everything was fine between her and Milo. If guilt was making him keep his walls up around her, she would do whatever she could to ease his feelings of remorse.

“We weren’t so happy, Garrett. Not for a long time,” Parker admitted.

To say Garrett was surprised was putting it mildly. Milo never made any indication that anything was wrong between the two of them.

"What happened?" Garrett asked.

Parker threw up her hands in exasperation.

“Honestly, I have no idea. Something changed with Milo. It was like one day he came home from work and he was a different man. At first I figured it was stress at work, but when he denied anything was wrong, I used some of my connections and found out he'd been doing great there, no problems. As the months wore on with him getting increasingly worse, whenever I tried to get him to talk, he'd yell and argue and go into a fit about me getting into his business."

Garrett knew about Milo’s quick temper, but he'd always kept it in check around Parker.

"You should have told me," Garrett stated.

"I wanted to. God, I wanted to tell you so many times,” Parker admitted, taking a few steps towards the bed where Garrett stood. “But we even fought about that. He'd yell at me for running to you with all my problems."

During those arguments, Parker always felt like she was drowning in guilt. She knew what Milo accused her of was the absolute truth. She had always gone to Garrett with every problem or question. Garrett and Parker were opposites in almost every way possible, and yet she trusted him implicitly to always tell her the truth and be honest with her when she needed his help. He told her when she was being an idiot, and he encouraged her when she was struggling.

Parker knew she should be sharing all of this with Milo, but more often than not, he wasn’t around when she needed him the most. Garrett always was.

A knock on the door interrupted their discussion as a staff member from the resort came to collect their bags and escort them to the lobby to wait for the car.



<> ~ <>



At ten till five, Parker sat in a chair in the lobby staring out of the front entryway, tapping her foot nervously on the marble floor. She still had no idea how she was going to pull off a fake honeymoon at the home of a man, that may or may not be involved in illegal activity that got her fiancé killed, where she was supposed to have pretend sex with her pretend husband when all she wanted to do was have real sex with the real Garrett. It made her head hurt just to think about it.