I’m duck-walking around the room, gathering more of my belongings and writing the inscription for my tombstone in my head—here lies Begonia Fairchild, who had only just begun to find herself when her dog inadvertently destroyed her childhood idol’s brother’s prized and priceless wooden carving of his grandfather—when Hayes Rutherford, whom to this point I had assumed to be a completely sane, if not slightly out-of-touch-with-the-common-people kind of guy, returns to the living room after a short phone call that he was speaking too softly for me to overhear, and announces, “Congratulations, Begonia. You’re now my girlfriend.”
I blink at him, rub my ears—are they full of wax?—and then blink at him again as his words filter from my ears to every other part of my body, some of which should not be listening to this. “I’m sorry, what?”
He points to the carving, which makes me cringe.
I studied Maurice Bellitano in college. I spent three semesters re-taking a class on carving because I wanted to be Maurice Bellitano, but my talents lie elsewhere.
My soul aches with the knowledge that my dog has just chewed up a priceless piece of art. I lift the surprisingly light carving. “Was that from Maurice’s early years? It has some inconsistencies from—”
“It’s a Bellitano original, and yes, I can prove it. Even if I couldn’t, who would the courts believe?”
“Do you know that you have a choice every day to not be the kind of guy who thinks everything is a personal insult? It’s okay to let things go. Research says it actually makes us happier to assume everyone around us has good intentions and sometimes screw-ups happen.”
Hayes Rutherford is unswayed. At this point, I’m pretty certain a twenty-foot ocean wave couldn’t budge him. He’s laser-focused on me, and whatever he’s about to say next, it can’t be good.
“I can bill you for the damages to that statue, among the rest of the damages you’ve caused to this house and the grounds, or we can come to an alternate arrangement whereby you present yourself to my mother and the world as my girlfriend, and I don’t financially ruin you for life.”
That is not what I expected him to say, and it takes me a minute to find an appropriate response. “You live in a very strange world.”
“Two weeks, you said you paid for? That’s plenty of time for us to get engaged as well.”
“Excuse you?”
“We won’t get married. The very idea of it is beyond comprehension, and the legalities would be a larger headache than it would be worth. But I have no desire to be inundated with family trying to save me from my bachelorhood now that the entire world is watching me, and you have very few options for enjoying the rest of your vacation, much less your entire life, if you don’t sign here.”
He presents me with a small stack of papers as I lean back on my heels. I’m still on the floor, which is good, because my legs probably wouldn’t support me right now. Absorbing weird news is best done as close to the ground as possible. Marshmallow tilts his head, clearly thinking that Hayes has lost use of his better sense too.
“What is this?” My skin flushes hot and cold as I skim the first page of the document, but it’s so full of legalese that the only thing that truly leaps out at me is that it has my full name and address on it. “Oh my god, is this a set-up? Did Hyacinth win some kind of win a date with your favorite celebrity game, and give the prize to me instead, and then Jonas couldn’t make it? You knew I was here. Is Jonas coming? Oh my god. I haven’t watched his movies in at least eight years. They all got to be the same after a while, you know? Don’t tell him I said that. And then Chad didn’t like anything with actors who were more handsome than he was, because Chad was a douchewaffle, and I can call him that because my therapist says I shouldn’t feel bad for not liking people on occasion, and people I’m willing to divorce fall under the umbrella of people I’m allowed to not like. I haven’t even watched the reruns of Hollybrook and Mistletoe that used to run each December. Do you still play that every year? Has it aged okay? I can’t remember all the specifics now, but I—”
“This is not a set-up, and you will not be meeting my brother. You’ll be staying here, playing the part of my girlfriend, and distracting my mother and the rest of my family when they try to introduce me to women, and I’ll be either working in the study or disappearing to New York for meetings.” His face wrinkles again, his nose doing that is there a fly on me? twitch again. “If I absolutely must.”
Stay here. With this man who’s making me extremely uncomfortable for a variety of reasons I shouldn’t even be thinking about, considering I barely know him and he clearly dislikes me. You have a type, don’t you, Begonia? “You have lost your ever-loving mind.”
“Quite the contrary. It’s the most efficient plan. I have no desire to have my family parade me around like the last eligible duke in some nineteenth-century historical novel, and the only thing that will stop them is a belief that I’m already involved with someone, and the further belief that if they don’t back off, I will finally snap and marry someone so completely wrong for the role of my wife. You’re here. I don’t have to go search in town for anyone else, and you’re clearly unsuitable. You’ve passed an initial background check, you have nowhere to be until school begins again in late August, and I demand compensation for both damages and the inconvenience of not being fucking asleep right now.”
“You ran a background check on me?”
“Begonia Florence Fairchild, nee Bidelspach, formerly Dixon, employed by Tobin High School as an art teacher, three speeding tickets in the past year, your Netflix account is suspended because your credit card payment failed, daughter of Helen Nolan and Daniel Bidelspach, who divorced when you were seven. Father passed when you were seventeen. And if you spill the details of anything inside the agreement to your twin sister, Hyacinth, all will be null and void, and you’ll owe me ten million dollars.”
I squeak.
It’s the only noise I’m capable of making.
“A more thorough background check is still ongoing, so if there’s anything I need to know before I tell my mother I’m madly in love with you, you’d best speak up right now.”
“In love? This is a set-up.”
He frowns. “If this were a set-up, I would not have certain images in my head that make me finally understand the term brain bleach.”
Oh. My. God.
He’s picturing me naked, waxing my bikini line, and telling me he finds me unattractive. “Now I see why Jonas is known as the charming Rutherford brother.”
“It’s a fake relationship, Ms. Fairchild. I have no reason to charm you, whereas you have every reason to convince my mother that we’re madly in love. You may take this very generous offer, or you may see me in court. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to decide.”
“How do I know you’re not a serial killer with enough money and family connections to cover up all your crimes and this isn’t just the way you play with your victims first?”
“I suppose you don’t. Fourteen minutes and fifty-two seconds, Ms. Fairchild. I’m tired, and I expect my mother soon. You’d best get reading.”
I eyeball the stack of papers and promptly toss them aside. “Why don’t you just tell your mother you don’t want to date anyone?”
He stares at me like I’m suggesting he go dance naked in the middle of town while blowing a kazoo to the tune of “YMCA.” Not that that specific scenario popped into my head because I did it purely to annoy Chad in that brief window of time between consulting a divorce attorney and the paperwork being ready. And now I’m wondering if that will show up in his background report.
“It’s almost adorable how little you know about the upper class, darling,” Hayes says.
I recoil. “Darling? We need to work on terms of endearment. You. You need to work on terms of endearment. Also, you need to think this through a little more. Assuming I accept your argument that you, as a grown man, are incapable of just telling your mother you don’t want to date anyone, what in the world makes you think she’ll just accept that you’re dating me?”
“If she doesn’t, I’ll promise to go to the press with all the details about how we started dating before your divorce was finalized. And lest you think I’m incapable myself of convincing my mother that I’m in love, bear in mind that I’ve been forced to watch Razzle Dazzle films from the cradle. I may not enjoy acting, and I may not understand the appeal of the god-awful films coming out of my family’s company, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how it’s done, and if there’s one thing I do very well, Ms. Fairchild, it’s whatever I set my mind to. And I’m determined to convince the world that I’m very much in love with you. It’s the most efficient way to restore my peace.”
I gasp.
He’s fiendish on an evil cartoon overlord intent on destroying the world level. If the Rutherford family is still as dedicated to being the perfect, charming, non-controversial family that they were all through my childhood, then threatening a public scandal is probably akin to vegetarian socialites getting caught eating cheeseburgers, which shouldn’t be a thing, because who doesn’t cheat on their diet every now and then? Could we please stop judging people for being human?
Also?
It’s oddly erotic—and empowering—to think of a man wanting to claim to have fallen madly in love with me while we were having a clandestine affair when I was legally married to another man.
I think I’m turned on.
By a man.
Who’s being a complete and total asshole, and I don’t call people assholes lightly.
It’s not really in my nature.
It’s taken me a year of therapy to call Chad a douchewagon.
You wanted an adventure, Begonia.
And it’s not like I’m not going into this with my eyes wide open.
Marshmallow swings a look at me, and I can’t tell if he’s thinking I’m an idiot to consider this, or if I’d be an idiot to walk away.
I study Hayes, looking for any sign he’s having the time of his life yanking my chain here. “There aren’t any details about us dating before I was divorced, because we just met.”
“Once again, darling, you are so naïve in the ways of the world.”
It’s probably wrong to get a little thrill every time he implies I’m ignorant in how the rich operate. It’s like I can’t wait for him to educate me. “Just how terrifying is your mother, boo-berry? She always seems so nice on talk shows and during red carpet interviews.”
I’m rewarded with a nose twitch. “My mother is a menace. She wants me married. I’m uninterested. So you’ll run interference, I’ll have peace and quiet, and I won’t tell her what happened to the statue of my grandfather.”
“Why does she want you married?”
Well. Would you look at that? The have you been living under a rock? look is apparently universal across all socioeconomic statuses. “Do you read the news, Begonia?”
“Been a little busy getting divorced here, Hayes. Also, I gave up celebrity gossip around the time Violet Quinn checked into rehab and every channel had a live newsfeed of the clinic she was supposedly staying at. It felt like such a violation of her privacy when she was in such a low place, not to mention everyone else who could’ve been exposed on national TV for being near the place, and it made my stomach hurt.”
He studies me briefly like he’s trying to decide if I’m for real before sighing and scrubbing a hand over his face. “Eleven minutes, Ms. Fairchild. If you intend to reject my settlement offer, I suggest using your eleven minutes to gather what you can of your belongings before I forcibly throw you out.”
“I can’t really be the best partner in crime if I don’t know why we’re committing the heist. Why does your mother want you married? Is it like, normal mother stuff, with her insisting you’ve waited long enough to give her grandbabies? Does she still do your laundry and she’s tired of it and wants another woman to take over raising you instead? Oh my god. If you tell me you’re gay and your family won’t accept that, I’m sorry, I won’t be your fake girlfriend, but I will one thousand percent be the person who gets arrested for telling every last one of them off. Is that it? Are you in love with a man? Oh my god. Razzle Dazzle has never done a film with main characters who aren’t straight, have they? Oh my god.”
Marshmallow growls.
He knows what’s up.
And Hayes—Hayes looks amused.
God help me.
He’s rakishly handsome when he smiles, and that is not helping things. “My mother knows better than to insist I raise a child merely to satisfy her urges to hold a baby. I’m well aware of how to send my laundry out for cleaning without needing any assistance, along with conducting every other chore and task necessary to be a fully-functioning adult. And I am not in love with a man, but you’re still welcome to give my mother an earful about the homogeny of Razzle Dazzle’s films. Congratulations, Ms. Fairchild. You’ve just convinced me more than ever that you’re the right woman for the job.”
My heart squeezes. So does my vagina, which is like, hello, what? That hasn’t happened in months. “Did you just call me attractive?”
“Dear god, no. Rather annoying, actually. Which is perfect. My mother will have her hands so full trying to get rid of you that she’ll leave me alone completely. Add in her fear that I’ll find someone even worse after you if she doesn’t back off, and this is perfect. The document, Ms. Fairchild. Last chance. Are we doing this the easy way, or shall I get my attorney and the sheriff on the phone?”
