Chapter Ten
Ten
JJ
I couldn’t let it go or forget it. I’d walked away from Nico at dinner after showing him those articles, letting him think I was upset the press had said we were engaged instead of just telling him the truth. I’d been engaged before and had my heart broken, and it had stirred up some old memories that had nothing to do with him. I also hated the thought that when we “broke up,” I’d look like the girl left at the altar. Again.
So, after tossing and turning and stewing on my own regret for too long, I finally gave it up and tried calling him. It was late, but I knew he was a night owl, so I banked on him still being awake.
When he didn’t answer, I tossed and turned a while longer before I said to hell with it and got up to go put a note on his door for the morning. No way was I going to go through all of tomorrow without him knowing I was sorry.
I jotted a quick apology down on the resort stationery, wrapped myself in a robe, then snuck down the hall to his room. Due to my job, I did have a key, but I would never use it unless there was an emergency, but the closer I got to his door, it struck me that he was sleeping just on the other side. Did he sleep in his underwear? Nude? My throat suddenly became dry, and I mentally kicked myself for being dumb again where this man was concerned.
I approached and noticed a light shining under the door, so I knocked gently. “Nico?”
The door was actually not closed all the way and cracked open at my knock, so I pushed it open. “Nico?” I poked my head inside. “You here?”
Nothing but silence greeted me, making my intuition kick in. “Hello?” I walked farther in and noticed his bed neatly made, his black leather jacket slung over a chair.
My heart began to pound in my chest as I spun around, though it was clear he was not there. “Nico!” I wasn’t sure whether to be angry or frightened. “Damn it!”
I dashed back to my room and threw on some clothes and my tennis shoes. He didn’t have a car, so he couldn’t have gotten far, unless... I ran to the front desk.
“Has anyone from my party been picked up tonight by a taxi or anything?”
The clerk frowned at me. “No, ma’am. Not that I’ve seen.”
“Okay, thank you.” I rushed toward the door, then skidded to a stop. “Where is the nearest bar?”
Her frown grew. “A couple miles north on the main road. It’s called Molly’s. Can’t miss it.”
I nodded and began to jog toward the road, hoping I was right and that I wasn’t too late to save Nico from himself, though I wasn’t sure why I cared. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it was insanity to be out in the middle of the night by myself on a dark road. Anything could happen and nobody knew I was out there.
“What the hell are you doing, JJ?” I mumbled under my breath when I got about half a mile away from the resort. Far enough away that the lights of the parking lot didn’t light my way any longer and I knew nobody would hear me if I screamed. “This is the definition of stupidity. You should’ve just called the cops and...” I froze and sucked in a breath at a sound to my right, my heart leaping to my throat. An animal in the brush? But its low moan sounded distinctly human.
I stumbled back, nearly losing my footing as I whipped out the only weapon I had—my cell phone. With shaking fingers, I turned on the flashlight feature and shined it into the darkness. “Hello?” I called, my voice trembling. “Is someone there?”
My light glinted on a flash of amber. A bottle. Then the hand curled around it. A body in the fetal position. Was somebody hurt on the side of the road? A hit-and-run?
My mind began to spin in a million different directions as I took a tentative step in that direction.
That’s when the gleam of my flashlight hit a very familiar head of raven-black hair.
“Nico!” I rushed over and knelt down, brushing the hair from his face. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Bleary, unfocused dark eyes squinted up at me. “Hey, baby,” he said, his words slurred. “What are you...?” His head lolled to the side as he tried to sip from his nearly empty bottle.
Disgust rolled through me as the picture became clearer. I snagged the bottle from his hand and tossed it into the trees.
“Hey!” he yelled. “I wasn’t done with that!”
“Oh, yes, you were!” I yelled right back. “Now get up. You’re a mess.”
He flopped to his back and gave me a sloppy grin. “Wanna clean me up?”
I rolled my eyes, then leaned down and tugged him up by the arm. “What the hell, Nico?”
He said nothing as he stood and leaned on me and we began the slow trek back to the resort.
“Weren’t you even going to try?” I said into the dark. I knew this wasn’t on me, yet his failing still felt like my failure. “Don’t you want to get better?”
He paused and I felt him look at me, so I stopped walking to meet his gaze. “There is no better,” he said, his voice startlingly clear. “Not for me.”
I frowned, but he turned back to the road and took a clumsy step forward, forcing me to keep moving, his words thrumming through my brain. What did he mean by that? Did he mean he didn’t want to get better? That it wasn’t possible?
I managed to get him back to his room and maneuver us both inside. He toppled onto the bed, nearly taking me with him, but I untangled myself and began tugging off his boots.
“Undressing me?” He tried to lift his head, but it fell right back like the task was too much. “No need.” He half-heartedly tried to pull his leg away, but he had no coordination left. “I know I disgust you.”
I froze, my hand on his ankle. I glanced up at his face. “What do you mean?”
His eyelids lifted to half-mast and bleary eyes met mine. “It’s all good, college girl. Sweet, pretty thing like yourself doesn’t mix with a dirty boy like me, even if the whole thing is fake. I know I’m tainted goods. No good for anything or anyone. My father has told me so my whole life.” His eyes slid back shut, leaving me in the dark if he meant to divulge all that... but it explained so much.
I took a step back, my hand to my chest as my heart began to ache and my mind began to turn. What should I do, if anything, with all this? The right thing—the professional thing—would be to call my father first thing in the morning and report what Nico had done and end this farce. No more fake relationship, no more working relationship. But he would also lose his job in the band and any hope of therapy with Priscilla. Yes, he’d slipped up and badly, fully knowing the ramifications of that. But now I knew why.
Once he passed out, I pulled off his boots and covered him up, then lay down on the couch in his living room, an idea already forming. Crazy? Yes. Could it be disastrous? Also, yes. But did it have the potential to assuage some of Nico’s hangups, ease some of this media madness, and give us both a bit of breathing room? Definitely. Which is why by dawn, I was up ordering room service and debating whether to run it by my dad first or just make an executive decision and go for it.
But the sight of Nico barefooted, his jeans unbuttoned, scratching his bare chest as he stared at me from behind his mess of bedhead sealed the deal.
“Hey, college girl. Still—?”
“We should get married.”
His arm dropped, but otherwise, his expression gave nothing away. “You’re gonna have to speak up, princess, because I think I’m hearing things. I know I didn’t just hear you say...” He shook his head, his dark eyes piercing as he stared at me in shock, all traces of his drinking binge evaporated.
I bit my lip and stood. “You heard me.” For some reason, my gaze kept drifting to his piercings, making heat curl through every part of me that had no business noticing him that way. I did my best to stuff that aside and took a step in his direction. “I think it would help us both out.”
“Married?” he said, his voice low and touched with more than a hint of disbelief. “Have you been drinking too, college girl?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He lifted a brow like I was the one being crazy.
Fair point.
I drew in a breath and indicated for him to sit with me. When he sat on the sofa, his legs wide as he lounged back like he had all the time in the world, I swallowed and sat across from him, hoping for an ounce of the professionalism I’d started this job with. “Okay, so here’s what I propose—”
“How romantic,” he drawled. “I gotta admit, I figured when it was time for me to get hitched, I’d be the one doing the asking. Probably on one knee with a big rock. But this works too, I guess.”
I sighed. “Nico...”
“Wait.” He held up a hand and sat forward. “Did your daddy put you up to this?”
“What? No! This was all my idea.”
He actually grinned at me. “Really?”
“Wipe that smile off your face, Santorini. We both know after that stunt you pulled last night, if I called Lance or my dad, you’d be tossed out on your ass so fast, your head would spin... probably more than it already is this morning, given how much you drank.”
“I’m fine.” He sat back and waved his hand like I had the floor. “Please, keep going.”
He really was too much. Pretty or not, he was a frustrating piece of work, and I was suddenly second-guessing my willingness to help him. But I couldn’t help but remember what he’d said about me being disgusted by him and how his dad treated him, and my dumb savior complex wouldn’t shut the hell up. Not only did I want to salvage this job and prove to both myself and my father that I could do it, something deep inside of me wanted to give him another shot too.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I bit out, my brow raised. “I didn’t mean get married for real.” At his questioning gaze, I explained. “The press is already speculating we’re engaged, right? Let’s give them something to talk about. Let’s stage a fake wedding and leak some photos. They’ll think we’ve eloped on this trip and are having a romantic honeymoon and...” I leaned toward him, making sure he knew I was not bullshitting him. “To thank me for giving you yet another chance, you will walk the straight and narrow while we’re here, go to your sessions with Dr. Evans, and give me no more hell. Understood?”
“Why would you do that for me?”
Not ‘Why should I do that?’ or even ‘Hell no, I’m done with this!’ in a rock star temper tantrum. No, instead, ‘Why would you do this for me?,’ which just made me want to do it even more, especially when he paired the question with those deep, haunted eyes.
I swallowed and steeled myself. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I don’t deserve it.”
Holy. Hell.
Was the man serious?
We stared at each other for a moment as I fought to get my automatic emotional response under control. I wasn’t sure if he meant to be so brutally honest, so I forced myself to be as well. “Yes, you do. And so do I. I can’t go home with my tail tucked between my legs and tell my dad I screwed this up. So, will you help me?”
Time seemed to slow down while he thought about it. I knew he was reading between the lines. There was more to this than just the PR nightmare of Nico Santorini and Zero Energy but neither of us could articulate that. I couldn’t fix him. Hell, I had no idea how broken he even was. But I wanted to help him, and I knew the only way to do that was to keep him here and out of the media crosshairs.
“I just have one question.” His words were gravelly but soft.
“What’s that?”
“If you’re going to be my pretend wife, I think I need to know your real name. It’s not JJ, is it?”
I shook my head, butterflies taking flight in my belly at the way he was staring at me. “No.”
“So, what is it, college girl?”
“Jemma,” I said, my own voice suddenly hoarse that he was genuinely considering my crazy offer. “Jemma Jane.”
His answering smirk was positively delicious. “Jemma Jane,” he repeated, his tongue caressing my name like a lover and making me shiver. “Jemma Jane Santorini. I like the sound of that.” He winked at me. “Alright then. Let’s do it.”