Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
brUNO
The Winters family doesn’t make sense. I don’t like that, but I tell myself it’s not my concern. A car should be coming around within the hour. Sadie will see that my luggage is down there, and all I have to do is stroll out of here.
The cousin zeroes in on Kelsey. “You know what the gift is.”
Kelsey leans in conspiratorially. “It’s a perfectly preserved baguette from Princess Diana’s wedding.”
“It is?”
“They kept it frozen in a vault beneath Buckingham Palace.”
The cousin blinks, stunned.
Kelsey is laughing, now, her face animated in a way that makes the structured Dior dress look even more wrong on her.
I smile in spite of myself. She’s not my type, but I can understand how another man might be completely undone by her. The liveliness. The impulsiveness. The way she throws herself fully into every thought and emotion as though restraint has never once occurred to her.
Uninhibited. She’d be like that in bed, too; she’d react. She’d gasp and argue and clutch at you and say exactly what she was thinking without shame. A certain kind of man would find that impossible to resist.
Something tightens in my jaw. It takes a moment to realize the annoying sound in my periphery is the text alert. I check my phone. It’s Sadie who has texted me several times, including one text with multiple exclamation points followed by:
CALLING NOW.
I head across the lawn. I answer before the first ring finishes. “What.”
“You’re trending.”
“What was that?”
“You’re back on social media. Someone at the wedding sent photos to Page Ten. You’re trending.”
I blink. “I’m what?”
“Trending. ‘Reclusive Watchmaker’s Secret Romance Revealed.’ There’s a photo of you kissing her hair—blurry, but it’s you. The helicopter arrival made reels. And someone apparently got video of you being followed out of a tent by a small army of children?”
I put my hand to my forehead. “I thought they had moved on from me.”
“You’re an eligible billionaire bachelor who lives on a yacht and refuses to give interviews. People want what they can’t have.”
I glare out at the crowd. Unbelievable. Maybe I should have predicted this, but I try to have nothing to do with social media and gossip sites and all of that. I don’t always know how it works. Nor do I particularly want to.
“The Sunday Ledger describes you as ‘the man Manhattan most wants to meet and least expects to.’ And now you’re out and about. That put you back in the spotlight.”
“I so dislike human beings,” I say.
“The comments are quite something,” Sadie says. “Your date is apparently some kind of minor Broadway dancer?”
Kelsey throws her head back, laughing at something her grandmother said.
“They’d better not be roasting her.”
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “No, I wouldn’t say they’re roasting her. It’s more like, who is she? Why her?”
“It’s none of their business,” I bite out. “We’ve been conducting our romance in secret, we’re good at covering our tracks, and I don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is that the moment you leave, it’s billionaire hermit abandons mystery woman on every feed. And guess who loses their excuse for skipping the documentary?”
“My brothers don’t read tabloid gossip.”
“Are you willing to bet your business on it?”
“What are you saying?”
“You’re going to have to stick around.”
I groan.
“Two more days. She’s an actress and you’re a man of few words. You can pull it off.”
I glare up at the cloudless blue sky. Sadie doesn’t know why it’s so important to keep my family out of the spotlight, but she knows how to get a thing done, and unfortunately, she’s making sense.
My escape hatch is now a trap.
I stand there for a moment after we hang up, watching the party continue its insipid swirl of champagne and small talk. Kelsey stands off by herself, taking it all in with a hopeful expression.
She really wears her heart on her sleeve.
Nobody’s ever told her not to do that. Somebody really should, but it’s not going to be me. I’m not here to get involved in somebody’s drama. I’m just here for the alibi, and that alibi is officially extended.
I cross the terrace, weaving through clusters of guests who try to catch my eye. Kelsey sees me coming and her brows furrow. It seems she’s learning to read my moods.
“We need to talk. Now.”
“What’s going on?”
I steer her toward an alcove off the main terrace, my hand on the small of her back. Her body is warm through the fabric. As soon as we’re alone, I drop my hand.
“Sadie just called. Someone at the wedding sent photos to the tabloids.” I hold up my phone, the gossip site already loaded. “We’re trending.”
She takes the phone. She looks confused as she reads the headline, and then horrified as she makes sense of it. The photo is grainy, clearly taken from a distance, but it’s obviously us. My arm around her waist. My lips against her hair.
“‘Reclusive Watchmaker’s Secret Romance Revealed’?” She looks up at me. “Oh, no.”
“Indeed. If I leave now, the whole world will know I’m not here.”
“No, you can still leave. We just need an excuse. We could have an argument. That works, right?”
“You don’t understand. I needed an excuse for the entire weekend. I can’t have it getting back to my brothers that I left a couple of hours after I arrived.”
“You can leave in secret. I’ll say you’re deathly ill in the room.”
“My brothers will never believe it.”
“Maybe I’ve left you tied up to the bed all weekend. You failed to please me.”
I give her a dark look.
“Okay, what’s your plan?”
“I have to stay. There’s no way around it.”
“Excuuuuuuse me?” Her voice pitches up. “You’re staying? For how long?”
“The duration of the wedding weekend.”
“No. No, no, no.” She shakes her head. “I’m just now getting back in with my family and you’re going to make me lie to them all weekend? With photographers apparently lurking around documenting our every move?”
“You were already lying to them.”
“But not like, with us having to embody the lie!”
“But you’re so good at embodiments.”
“This isn’t funny. Do you have any idea how much it means to me that they invited me? And now I have to maintain this elaborate fiction? You’re going to have to figure out a different excuse. I won’t let you stay.”
“There’s no going back now.”
“Yes, there is. You can figure out a different alibi.”
I pocket my phone. “Not happening.”
“You can’t just force your presence on me like that.”
“We both have a story to sell. I’d say that it’s best that we work together.”
“As opposed to...”
I shrug.
I see the recognition dawn on her face that there’s a hint of extortion here—we’re both keeping our mouths shut about something, aren’t we? Her chin lifts—regal—and her hazel eyes catch the light. There’s a molten quality to the golden flecks in there, and they just burn.
She’s breathtaking when she’s furious.
This woman. She really does need to learn to control her expressions. Showing everything gives people leverage over you.
“Unbelievable. Fine. Stay. And you’ll actually...participate? There are events.”
“God help me.”
“God help me,” she says. “I have to spend the weekend pretending to be involved with the most beastly man in the history of watchmaking. I’m an actress, but even I have my limits.”
“The Sunday Ledger described me as ‘the man Manhattan most wants to meet and least expects to.’”
Those icy gold eyes continue to bore into mine. She says nothing.
“I’m simply saying there are worse fates.”
“Yes, but very, very few. Oh, and I love how you memorized your own press. Nice touch. Beastly and arrogant.”
“And on the upside, you have a beautiful place to stay, and you can order whatever you want to the room.”
“You think that matters to me?”
Before I spent time with this woman, I would’ve thought it would matter to her a lot. But now I believe it doesn’t. Which is odd. Like an engineering problem where the numbers refuse to add up.