Chapter 9 #2
“This is Karen,” I said, remembering my manners this time. “She’s the bride-to-be.”
I wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t kiss Karen like he had Jo. Instead he offered her his hand. “Beck Wilde. Nice to meet you.”
“Dom Perignon?” Jo asked as she twisted the bottle around to reveal the label.
“Yes, I got them to go and get us a bottle.” He began to pour the alcohol into the glasses. “It’s kind of our drink.”
“Your drink?” Karen asked.
“We had it on our first date,” Beck replied. “I was trying to impress this beautiful woman.” He handed me a glass and placed a kiss on my cheek. Christ, this guy was good at faking it. “Not an easy thing to do,” he continued. “But hopefully I’ve won her over.”
“How did you two meet?” Karen asked.
“Work,” I mumbled and took a sip of my drink.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re a recruitment consultant?”
Beck chuckled. “No. I’d be terrible at that job. You have to be nice to all your clients and all the candidates. Stella is doing the design on one of my buildings.”
“Really?” Karen and Jo both asked in unison.
“I thought you’d given up on the interior designer thing?” Karen asked, her mouth a little pinched.
Thing? It wasn’t a thing or a hobby. I’d loved the job. I’d missed it. “Nope. I’ve just been doing bits on the side.”
“Which is insane,” Beck said. “You really need to be making the most of your talent.” He slipped his hand around my waist and pulled me toward him. The heat of his body coated me like armor, his hand holding me firmly in place as if it were a shield.
“You would say that,” I replied, trying to continue our charade. He was so freaking good at this, I needed to step up.
“I say it because it’s true,” he said and turned to Karen and Jo. “You know how modest Stella is. She never believes how good she is at anything.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he slid his hand up my back. For a second, I could almost believe he meant it.
My insides began to melt like ice cream in the sun.
But of course, he didn’t mean it. It was all just for show.
“I knew I was going to have to ask her out the moment we met, but Stella took some convincing.”
I glanced at Karen and Jo to see if they were buying this.
Both of them were focused on Beck, as if he were conjuring up white rabbits out of the ice bucket.
If how he was being tonight was any indication of how he was with his girlfriends, I didn’t understand how he was still single.
He was funny, confident, attentive, and generous.
“You wore me down,” I replied.
He grinned as if we were sharing an inside joke that no one else knew about. “You drive a hard bargain.”
I laughed genuinely. I had to add good company to the list of great things about Beck. “Gotta make you work for it.”
“Well, Stella, he seems perfect and completely head over heels with you,” Karen said.
“Are you sure you didn’t pay him to be here?
” My stomach flipped as if I’d just been caught trying on my mother’s make-up.
She grinned as if she were joking, but I knew Karen better than that.
It might have taken me twenty years, but I finally had the measure of her.
I also knew that if she had a suspicion that Beck and my relationship wasn’t genuine, she wasn’t going to be easily distracted.
“It’s so lovely to finally meet you, Karen,” Beck said. “Stella has said so many wonderful things about you. We’re both very excited to come to Scotland. I love the place.”
I slid my arm around his waist. God, this guy made this faking it thing seem so easy.
Karen’s mouth twitched. “Yes, well Matt and I are very pleased you could come.”
She emphasized the name of my ex-boyfriend like she wanted it to hurt. Like maybe I’d forgotten that she was marrying him. As if I ever could? Had she always been like this? So cold, so heartless? Such a bitch?
“Hey,” Florence said as she arrived at our table.
“Florence!” Beck said and kissed her. “Let me go and get you a glass.” Beck stalked back to the bar, and I couldn’t help but watch him.
He had a cute arse. Was I going to discover something I didn’t like about him?
Hopefully. The last thing I needed was to develop some kind of crush on Beck.
We were a business partnership. And I couldn’t trust myself to find a good guy.
Eventually, when I was ready to start dating again, in twenty years or so, I’d just let Florence handle it.
She could pick me a boyfriend. She had far more sense and would never end up with a guy who thought so little of her that he cheated on her or ran off with her best friend.
Florence rolled her eyes as she turned the bottle in the ice bucket, revealing the label. “Dom Perignon again? Doesn’t it get old being with such a hot, rich, charming guy?”
I laughed. Perhaps a week in Scotland with Beck wouldn’t be so bad.
“No one’s perfect.” Although Beck Wilde might be the perfect fake boyfriend.
This guy was sharp. He picked up on things so quickly and ad-libbed like it was his job.
No wonder he wasn’t worried about tonight. I was almost convinced we were dating.
“Exactly,” Karen said. “I’m sure there are loads of things about him that drive you nuts, right?”
Beck had said to stay as close to the truth as possible. “Honestly, I’ve not found anything so far,” I replied.
“So, when did you meet him, Florence?” Karen asked.
“When they first met,” she replied.
My heart stopped dead and it felt as if Karen’s cheating hands were pressing down on my chest, about to break my rib cage. I hadn’t briefed Florence on the story of us first meeting—she was bound to give something away that showed us up to be faking our relationship.
I wasn’t prepared at all.
I interrupted. “I trust Florence’s judgement, so I made sure they met before I agreed to go on a date.”
Karen smiled, a small, fake smile. “Really. How nice.”
Phew, I’d gotten away with it.
“Well, you two seem perfect for each other,” Jo said. “It’s good to see you with someone who appreciates how wonderful you are.” Jo wouldn’t have meant it to be a pointed insult at Matt, not with Karen standing there, but Karen’s frown told me she took it as one.
“Yes,” Karen said. “It’s important to show a man the best side of you.”
“I’m not sure that works for me,” I replied. “You have to take the good with the bad. You don’t have to like every single bit of someone, but hiding stuff doesn’t work, either.”
Honesty was important to me in a relationship.
Even more so now. I never hid anything when I was going out with Matt.
Perhaps that’s why it had worked between him and Karen and it hadn’t with us.
Maybe men only liked to see the good, sexy, funny side.
Maybe the sides that got irritated at work, liked to wear old, worn t-shirts in bed and no make-up on the weekend were reserved for the terminally single.
If that was true, I’d end up alone for the rest of my life.
Beck and I were an act—for public consumption—but I couldn’t keep it up for long.
Not with someone I lived with and loved. It wasn’t who I was.
Beck came back to the table with two extra glasses. “Gordy will be here soon, right?” How had he remembered Florence’s boyfriend’s name? No wonder he’d told me not to worry.
“Yeah, he just went to put our coats in the cloakroom. Thanks, Beck. You gotta stop it with the champagne or I’m going to get used to it.”
“You know Gordy?” Karen asked.
“I’ve only heard about him through these two,” he said, lifting his chin toward Florence and me.
“You’re going to get on brilliantly,” Florence said.
“We have to get that dinner in the diary for next week. And we’ll go to that restaurant I was telling you about,” he said as he turned to me. “Where they serve the best oysters.”
No! Things were going so well.
My mouth went dry and I tried to swallow so I could say something and rescue the situation. Anyone who’d known me for longer than twenty-four hours knew I hated shellfish.
“Why would you take Stella to somewhere they served great oysters?” Karen asked, her smile much more genuine now. She’d caught us out.
Karen’s eyes were fixed on me even though she’d asked the question of Beck. She wanted to gloat.
Who was this woman? This girl I’d shared secrets with, dreams, fears—I had a huge history with her. Yet, she’d betrayed me as if I were nothing to her. Like my life, my happiness was meaningless to her.
I took a breath. There was no point in trying to deal with her with honesty and openness. She didn’t respond to those things. Perhaps lies were the only thing she understood. “Beck’s messing around,” I said, pulling back my shoulders, ready for a fight. “He knows I hate shellfish.”
Beck chuckled next to me. “I keep hoping I can change her mind. It really is the worst thing about you, Stella.”
Karen tilted her head to one side. “It’s weird. You didn’t seem like you were kidding.”
“I guess you don’t know me very well.” Beck shrugged. He was good. But I doubted he was good enough to throw Karen off the scent.
Karen was like a sniffer dog and there was no way she was that easily placated.
We needed to be more prepared. Karen would now be looking for other things that didn’t add up between me and Beck. And the only thing more humiliating than your boyfriend running off with your best friend was being found out to be bringing a fake boyfriend to the wedding.
There was no way we were going to pull this charade off for a week in Scotland unless we were a thousand times more prepared.