Chapter Twenty
Abigail said she was still nauseated after an attempt to drink coffee, and she simply wanted crackers, sleep, and to be left alone, though she’d stopped throwing pillows long enough for Jules to give an update on the flowers and weird guy from the morning.
She stared at Rhys. “What’s going on? This is… weird. Like, not scary. Not even creepy. Just pathetic.”
“The guy from this morning was scary,” Jules countered.
“Okay.” Abigail nodded. “But that it wasn’t even him.” Confusion crept onto her face. “Is someone just screwing with you?”
Rhys kept his arms crossed and tried to reassemble everything he knew about Retire Guy into an answer, but he just shrugged. He didn’t have more to share with the sisters.
“Not to downplay the weirdo from this morning,” Abigail said, “but this doesn’t really seem like a huge problem.
You’ve had angry, delusional people try to break in.
That’s a problem. Mom and Dad had that batshit lady obsess over them for years.
That was a problem. But someone who wants you to take more naps?
And stop working so much?” Abigail arched an eyebrow. “You do work a lot.”
“ Abigail .”
“So do we leave?”
“Absolutely not,” Jules huffed.
“Do you stay inside all day?”
“Of course not.”
Abigail smiled like she was about to sneak into a secret stash of candy. “Good. Unless you guys are gonna make out or something.”
Jules rolled her eyes, spinning away from her sister. It didn’t sound like a bad plan. Not that she’d tell Abigail.
“We’re leaving. Be vigilant.”
“Aye, aye.” Abigail saluted Jules.
Rhys pushed his lips together to keep from smiling. “She’s right. Don’t answer the door for anyone you don’t know.”
“And here I was going to throw a party while you two—”
“Abigail.”
“Have dinner. Hike the trails. Pet a dolphin. Take in a show. What did you think I was going to say?” She grinned.
Jules flushed. “I’m going to pack up most of my stuff and leave it by the front door. Someone from the resort will move it to a different bungalow. Then you can have this one all to yourself.”
“For my wild party, while you two don’t make out.”
Jules wished her sister weren’t sick. How was Abigail so cognizant of what had just happened with Rhys? Jules desperately wanted to have a conversation about him but not when he was nearby, and Abigail was launching throw pillows at them again to shoo them out the door.
When Abigail was better, they’d dish about Rhys over mai tais on the beach. Jules would make sure he didn’t sit close enough to hear his name.
“She’s doing much better.” Rhys dragged Jules from the bungalow. “Her aim has improved. That says a lot.”
His fingers locked with hers as if they’d walked hand in hand for as long as they’d known each other.
Nothing bothered him. Nothing fazed him. She couldn’t imagine just grabbing his hand, yet he kept doing it. She wondered if any paparazzi were watching them at that moment. Was that why he kept holding her hand? Ignore Sloane’s itinerary, but give her what she needed.
Rhys punched in the code to his bungalow then yanked her inside. The corners of her lips pulled up as he hauled her against the wall.
The phone rang, and he scowled. “What’s up with the interruptions?”
He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, which made her heart flutter, and answered the phone. After back-and-forth about not releasing her new bungalow location to anyone, he hung up. “A butler’s headed to Abigail’s to grab your bags.”
“That’s good. She won’t have had time to fall asleep.” Her gaze ran across his small space. “Should you pack?”
He glanced at the bed as though there were other things he wanted to do but nodded. Maybe deciding to move in together had more potential. Panic and excitement flared in her. This was really happening.
Fifteen minutes later, hand in hand, they walked into their bungalow. Their honeymoon bungalow.
Abigail must have had the resort remove all the themed accoutrements from their original bungalow before their arrival, because none of the honeymoon decorations had been there.
“Um…” White rose petals blanketed a path from the front door toward the bedroom. Sexy, sultry jazz played, saxophones crooning, from hidden speakers.
Rhys picked up a bottle of chilled champagne, studied it, and plunged it back into the ice. “They’re not messing around.”
“I didn’t arrange for this,” she said, mortified that he might think she was trying to seduce him.
She didn’t know when she could have made a request like this, but if he thought she had anything to do with this, she’d die on the beautiful white-tiled floor.
“Abs and I didn’t have anything like it in ours. ”
“It’s probably the standard honeymoon package,” he said as if they hadn’t walked into a flowery explosion of over-the-top decorations.
“Nothing about this is standard.”
He followed the flower path into the bedroom and cackled. “If you’re having a hard time with flowers and champagne, don’t come in here.”
Well, now she had to.
Jules squeezed past him. A mountain of bright-purple flower petals carpeted the canopied bed and spelled l-o-v-e in the center.
Bottles of what she could only guess were massage oils and lube covered a nightstand.
The opposite nightstand displayed fuzzy purple handcuffs and matching silk eye masks, purple rope and feathers, and a jar of purple condoms.
Rhys picked up a bottle. “Massage oil.” He read the back, gave it a flip in the air, then offered it to her. “Eating too much of this could cause gastrointestinal distress.”
Her cheeks flamed. He was too casual, and she was apparently turning into a nun. “There has been too much talk of stomach issues on this trip.”
He put the bottle down and chose another. “This one doesn’t have any warnings.”
She wished she had it in her to make a joke about choosing that bottle, but a lightning flash of what-if-we-did froze the words in her throat.
They’d walked into a sex den, and she was pining after her thirst trap of a bodyguard.
What if he covered her, played with her, and made her moan and cry his name during their vacation? Then they went back to real life?
Impossible.
Yet she couldn’t shake away the deep want clenching the muscles far below her stomach. The memories of his mouth on her made her shiver. God, they were good together.
He flicked the jar of condoms. “That’s a gallon of rubbers.”
They might be good together, but this was too much. She couldn’t breathe, much less form a coherent thought. “I can’t sleep in here,” she whispered. “I can’t even look at this room.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to sleep or—” He lifted an eye mask “See.”
“ Rhys . Put it down.”
He tossed it onto the table. “If you can’t look at this crap, we may be on to a reason you’ve been having so-so sex.”
“Please don’t talk right now.” She was having a flash so hot it clouded her judgment.
Maybe that was what had happened earlier and why she’d agreed to any of this with Sloane or Rhys.
Had she been having a hot flash when Sloane pitched the fake relationship?
No—but she’d been pretty tipsy and maybe even a little drunk.
And of course she’d had hot flashes around Rhys.
He made her all hot and bothered and stupid.
“Let’s never talk about this room again. ”
“I’m not saying it takes this much, erm, equipment for a good time, but I’m also not sure you’re breathing right now. There has to be a middle ground.”
She spun on her heel, needing to escape. “I’ll call the front desk and have it taken care of.”
“Someone worked incredibly hard to spell love on the bed,” he said. “I’ll get rid of it, and they’ll never have to know they left you shellshocked.” He poked his head into the bathroom. “Definitely don’t go in there.”
“I don’t want to know.” Jules ignored the bathroom, abandoned the bedroom, and found the source of the music. It was too early in the day for sexy jazz.
Rhys was still laughing as he walked into the kitchen and found a broom. “Give me five minutes, and you won’t even know how much honeymoon was piled on the bed and floor.”
He swept a mountain of flower petals out of the bedroom, through the living room, and opened the front door, raking thousands of petals outside, whistling as he worked as though this might be the most entertaining situation of his professional life. It probably was.
“Coast is clear,” he called.
She returned to the bedroom. Gone were the flowers, sex toys, and jug of condoms. He’d even chosen a selection of books from the shelf in the living room and placed them on the nightstands as though the memory of what had been on them was too much for her to handle. “Thank you.”
“Easily the funniest part of my job. Ever.”
“I’ll deny what was in here until the day I die.”
Rhys chuckled. “Not a big deal.”
“If you say so.”
“Are you doing better now?” he asked, humor washing away as he leaned against the wall, watching her take in the room.
With the flower petals and lube gone, she finally noticed everything else about the room.
“Oh wow,” she breathed. “This room is amazing.” The bed, without its gauzy canopy nearly draped to the pillows, was large and inviting.
The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked an infinity pool that bled into the ocean. “And the view is gorgeous.”
“Yup.” He didn’t look outside. “The view’s gorgeous.”
She flushed and couldn’t look at him. Jules waltzed around the bed. No one had ever looked at her the way Rhys did. And that was saying something. Literally, millions of people had looked at her. None tried to really see her.
Terrifying.
She focused on the toned-down bedroom instead of his midnight eyes. “It didn’t need all the extras to be a romantic place. If I were to ever get married for real, I don’t think all the toys or even the view would be necessary.” She caught herself. “Not that I mean I’d stay in bed all day.”
He smirked. “When it’s not so-so, you might consider it.”