Hayes touched my breast.
I know, I know, grow up, Begonia.
But this isn’t a junior high oooh, he touched your buuuuuutttttt moment.
This is a grown-up, Mr. Stiff and Proper and Cranky accidentally brushed my breast with his hand and it made goosebumps race over my skin and my nipples tight and my panties wet and none of it matters, because he rejected my proposal this morning, and now, he’s openly staring at me as we eat the Cranfords’ leftover crab cakes and the Perwinkles’ homemade bread and the Browns’ hand-picked sugar snap peas from their garden, while sitting next to a campfire on the beach.
I swipe at my mouth. “Do I have crumbs?”
“This is oddly delicious.”
He’s so adorable.
No. Stop it, Begonia. He’s aloof and cold and you cannot save him, so don’t even try.
I swipe at my mouth again, but this time, I’m trying to rub the smile off so I can match his seriousness. “Even commoners on coastal islands have to eat, and sometimes they like their food to taste good.”
“Yoohoo! Mr. Rutherford? We won’t look if you want to kiss on Ms. Begonia here, but we heard you were having an impromptu romantic date, and we thought you might like some music.”
I glance up the small hill to where three locals are descending with violins, and I can’t help clapping my hands. “Oh my gosh, yes! That is so sweet of you!”
“You haven’t heard them play yet,” Hayes mutters.
“Don’t be so negative. How often do you get serenaded by people who rarely have an audience?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Hush and eat your peas, or there’s no pie for you. And if that pie tastes half as good as it smelled while it was baking this afternoon, you definitely want pie.”
His gaze lands on me, lit only by the crackling fire, and I suddenly wonder if he wants “pie” to be a euphemism.
That searing look says yes.
Or it might say I’m going to murder you in your sleep.
“We’ll take a minute to get warmed up, and then it’ll be nothing but the best music you’ve ever heard outside of a symphony hall until our fingers fall off or you decide it’s time for you or us to go home,” the ringleader of the violinists calls. They’re setting up a little way down, like they know just the right amount of space to give us so we can enjoy the music but still hear each other talk.
“Thank you so much for giving us music,” I call back with a smile. “I’m sure you have better things to do tonight.”
“Just the dishes.” All three of them laugh.
I smile at Hayes. “What’s the strangest place you’ve ever been serenaded?”
He holds my gaze while he sips discount wine out of the silicone cup that the local post office manager donated to our picnic tonight. “I was with Jonas in Los Angeles, with limited security. He was coated in stage make-up that made him look approximately sixty-five for a fifty years later scene, and he wanted a cheeseburger from a local joint just outside the studio’s gates. Seemed safe enough, but a small gang of teenage girls spotted him and recognized him.”
I laugh. “Hyacinth totally would’ve been in that group. So you were serenaded in a burger joint?”
“No. We took off at a run, and we ended up thinking we’d lost them when we dove into a single port-a-john at the edge of an alleyway, but teenage girls are terrifyingly smart, and they surrounded us, belting out the tunes from that god-awful film where he played a rock star until security arrived and rescued him.”
I try to stifle a giggle, and I fail miserably. It takes me a minute to stop long enough to whisper, “At least you know this performance can’t possibly stink like that one.”
A rare smile tilts his lips behind his wine cup. “I concede your point.”
Maybe it’s the wine. Maybe it’s the campfire under the stars. Maybe it’s the first notes of the violins sending music out into the world. Or maybe it’s his smile.
Whatever it is, I can’t stop myself from leaning over and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “For appearances,” I whisper.
He’s stiff as my former mother-in-law, but he slides a hand around my waist, tugs me close, and tilts his head to mine, capturing my lips in a long, slow, languid kiss.
My hand wobbles, and he takes the flexible cup from my hand, still kissing me, coaxing my lips apart, his large hands gripping me more firmly, and all I can think about is my horrible proposition earlier.
Does this mean he’ll do it?
Does it mean he’ll have sex with me?
Or is this for appearances?
Hayes Rutherford should taste like charcoal and day-old dishrags, but instead, he tastes like sin and temptation. He’s in a tux, on a homemade quilt loaned to us by a woman he dated once, the firm muscles in his arm brushing against my chest while his fingers dig into my hip and waist and his thumbs rub up and down over my dress. The sea breeze is making the kiss salty, the violins settling into “Serenade in G Major,” and I wonder if this is what it would be like to make love to him.
Quiet.
Intense.
Thorough.
A light flashes behind my eyelids, and he breaks off with a muttered curse.
“Hey! Hey! Get back here.”
The music stops, and one of the ladies playing takes off at a run up the hill. “Paparazzi! Paparazzi!”
The cry is echoed above, like the whole town’s on alert.
“Go back to playing,” someone yells in the distance. “We’ll get him!”
Hayes glances at me, but his gaze doesn’t meet my eyes. “That will be quite effective in convincing my mother to stop throwing other women at me for a while. Thank you.”
A startled gasp slips out of my lips. “You knew?”
“Hush, now, darling, the sea has ears.” He takes his wine cup again. “And I’m sure my security detail will do what’s necessary.”
He knew. He knew there was someone waiting to take his picture, and now he can’t be seen with another woman without being labeled a playboy, and his family couldn’t possibly have that.
He set us up.
He’s not kissing me because he’s thinking about having sex with me.
He’s kissing me because we have a deal, and the deal is to keep his family from trying to play matchmaker.
He doesn’t want to date anyone.
I’m suddenly grateful that we’re in the dark, lit only by a fire, because it’s not the fire making my cheeks hot.
It’s the warring feelings of wanting to kiss him more while knowing he’ll only kiss me for convenience.
Self-respect, Begonia. Have some self-respect.
The violins pick back up. Marshmallow rolls onto his back with his legs curled over his belly, dozing peacefully in front of the fire. And Hayes returns his arm around me as if this is precisely where he wants to be.
My movements are stiff and unnatural as I cut off a block of cheese and hold it out for him, silently inviting him to continue the ruse by eating out of my hand.
His jaw tightens, but he leans in, his lips gliding across my fingers and making my stupid body shiver in response as he takes the morsel with his mouth.
“Why do you want to be alone so badly?” I ask quietly.
He stares at the fire while he chews, and even after he swallows, he doesn’t answer me right away.
I don’t rush to fill the conversation, despite every instinct inside of me screaming for me to say something to make the awkwardness go away.
Smoothing things over, eliminating the tension, making people feel good about themselves—that’s what I’m good at.
Asking hard questions and waiting for answers that might not come?
That’s for people who are not me.
“I don’t wish to be alone,” he finally replies. “But my life doesn’t lend itself to any other option.”
“Why not?”
“Begonia, you tried to offer to write my mother a check for the dress you’re wearing while simultaneously asking her not to cash it for two weeks until your next payday. You bought cheese from the clearance bin at the market this morning, and you promised Kristine we’d use a dryer sheet when we wash this quilt before returning it to her tomorrow. When I say you wouldn’t understand, you have to trust that you truly could not possibly understand. It has nothing to do with your character or your intellect, and you’ve done nothing wrong, but you cannot understand.”
“So people have taken advantage of you and your money your whole life, and you have trust issues?”
He snorts softly. “Drop it, Begonia.”
“Will you have sex with me if I drop it?”
His whole body jolts, and I end up on the receiving end of a glare that should be setting someone’s hair on fire.
And I laugh.
I shouldn’t.
The first man I’ve made a real pass at since my divorce is glaring at me like I’m the most inconvenient thing in the world, and I’m laughing.
I pat his knee. “Don’t worry,” I whisper. “I’m working on finding my self-respect so that I actually enjoy it when I finally have sex again.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and sucks in an audible breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, jaw ticking, aura screaming will this night never end?, and suddenly, it’s not funny anymore.
Concentrate on the picnic, Begonia, I remind myself. Enjoy this lovely picnic.
The entire little town came together to make sure we enjoyed ourselves on the beach tonight. But for the kindness of strangers, I’d be having a leftover egg bake from this morning all by myself in the garden back at the mansion.
It wouldn’t have been a bad way to spend the evening. The gardens are lovely, and so are the stars, though the egg bake wasn’t entirely edible.
But instead, there are violins, a campfire, a homemade quilt, more delicious food than a dozen people could eat in two days, marshmallows for roasting over the fire—Marshmallow roasting himself near the fire—and an apple pie and wine in glow-in-the-dark silicone glasses to finish it off.
All while we’re wearing formalwear.
And there will be pictures in the paper, so I’ll be able to talk to Hyacinth all about it as soon as I get a cell signal again when I’m in New York next week.
And I’m going to New York.
There’s so much to be grateful for.
But my companion is not currently one of those things.
And he probably won’t ever be.
