The Last Eligible Billionaire(21)

“Yes, yes, you’re a terrifying woman,” I say. “It was your master plan all along to lie in wait here so you could surprise the weird Rutherford brother and score yourself the last eligible billionaire on the planet, and now you have me right where you want me.”

She twists my ear, and I barely stifle a startled shriek of outrage that my mother would hear.

She growls softly. “Sit. Up. And. Scoot. Down.”

I’m not sleeping.

Might as well be entertained.

I do as she orders, and the infernal woman takes a seat, cross-legged, on my pillow, then pats her bare thighs. “Lie down. Face up.”

“I’m certainly not planning to return to that pillow face-down.”

“Don’t be an ass. Lie down. I’d very much like to not fake being madly in love with a grumpy-pants for the next two weeks, and that means you need to get some sleep?”

I refuse to consider if it’s curiosity or the threat that has me reclining back onto the bed, settling my head into Begonia’s lap, but soon, that’s exactly where I am.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” she says softly.

I should not trust this woman, but my body is exhausted, my mind is beyond rational thought, and the lavender scent is rather nice. So I do as she orders, letting my eyelids drift closed while I inhale.

My body stiffens when she threads her fingers through my hair, but then she applies pressure to my scalp, and goosebumps race across my flesh.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she says softly.

I grunt a response.

“Listen to the waves,” she whispers as she rubs my head. “Just breathe and listen to the waves.”

I’ve taken fake girlfriends before. Once at my mother’s request when her best friend’s daughter had been caught in a compromising position and needed her reputation salvaged. My mother wouldn’t have been disappointed if something had come of that relationship, but there was no chemistry, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have trusted it.

The other times are hazy now.

It’s like Begonia is cleansing my brain of those memories. “Strong fingers,” I murmur.

“Is it too much?”

I try to shake my head, but it won’t move. It’s becoming cement in her hands. Cement on the shore, with the surf rolling in and out over it, but a dry surf.

No water.

Just lavender.

Her fingers move down my scalp to my neck, stroking the tension away with firm hands. Jonas has massages regularly. Weekly, possibly.

I don’t.

I don’t like strangers touching my body.

I shouldn’t let Begonia touch me, but if we’re going to fake intimacy, then I need to be comfortable touching her.

Letting her touch me.

Letting her rock me to sleep on the boat.

I want a lobster pillow.

I want her to use those hands on my cock.

Does her pussy smell like a spa?

Could I crawl inside and hide in there?

Am I—am I falling asleep?

There’s a muted knock somewhere in the distant sludges of my sleepy brain, and then my mother’s voice, both loud and quiet at the same time. I can’t understand what she’s saying, and I don’t want to.

I want to lie here, in my boat, with a woman’s hands stroking my neck and scratching my scalp, helping all the lights inside my brain flip off, until I finally float away, on my back in a rowboat with a fuchsia-haired mermaid in a cotton nightie smiling at me from the prow.





10





Begonia



When I sketched out a plan for my two weeks on Oysterberry Bay Island, I figured I’d start my first Monday tackling something that’s always scared me. There’s nothing like making Monday your bitch to start the week on a high note, and if you fail at making Monday your bitch, you blame it on Monday being Monday, and start over on Tuesday.

It’s not like having a major failure on a Friday and then having to suffer through the weekend with regrets.

But instead of heading to the dock in Sprightly, the little town on the other end of the island, for the sailing excursion I booked with a gnarled old sailor guy who promised he wouldn’t let me drown, Marshmallow and I have snuck into town early for a lot more grocery shopping than my credit card would prefer, and probably more than I should carry back on the bike I used to get across the island.

I have a fake boyfriend’s family to charm.

And there is absolutely no better way to do that than with down-home cooking.

Unfortunately for all of us, I’m not much of a chef, but considering it doesn’t take a genius to figure out Hayes wants to be alone, this will probably work to his advantage, and then I’ll be rewarded with more free time to explore the island and get in that sailing adventure later.

I’m pushing the bike down the dirt path along the rocky shoreline while Marshmallow dances in and out of the waves when a golf cart approaches. I start to move to the side of the path, then realize who’s in the cart, and my heart does a slow somersault.

The past twenty-four hours have been so unexpected and strange that if I hadn’t snuck out of the bedroom where Hayes was sleeping early this morning, I wouldn’t believe it’s all real.

Yet here he is, driving a golf cart with Amelia Shawcross seated in the passenger seat, her thick black hair billowing in the breeze and her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, a second golf cart with three of Giovanna’s bodyguards following them closely.