Chapter Twenty-Three
Ughhhhhhh.
What a gross, gross feeling. I have become West’s emotional rag doll.
Let me be clear: I am incredibly proud of myself. In the past week I’ve spent with this mess of a man, I’ve learned that I am capable of more than I ever imagined. I can mostly hide my horror when people around me discuss buying giant swaths of land for tax write-offs. I can make a single vodka soda last three hours. I can have my butt massaged without giggling, and I can wear a satin gown like a motherfucking boss.
But one thing I cannot do, even if I’m being paid handsomely, is allow myself to be emotionally manipulated.
My mom left when I was five—ostensibly just to “take a break” and “find herself”—and the games she played over the next nine years really fucked us up. She would call every few months and tell Dad she missed him and wanted to come home to us, and then remember that she was above it all and leave again. She would send postcards out of the blue with nothing but the words Thinking of you, but never remember our birthdays. She refused to sign divorce papers until I was fourteen and my father finally filed for abandonment. I saw the way she manipulated him, and as an adult, I can spot a mind-fuck a mile away.
See, West? You aren’t the only one with fucked-up family dynamics.
But his family, whew, it is fucked up. And if he thinks he’s going to find a gently placating and toxically enabling woman in me like he has in his mother, he is mistaken.
I will not be the toy to West’s anxious cat, even if he is paying me. I will fake-kiss him and smile at parties and wear every hideously expensive gown Vivi picked out for me, but I will not let my emotions become part of the game. And seeing the way he freaked out this afternoon, the cool distance he forced between us—fine. I can handle that. I fully support him deciding he needs to focus on the Weston detritus and on cooling whatever lusty, real, or vulnerable thing we have brewing. But what I am unwilling to do is be jerked back to his side the minute I talk to someone else.
Outside the tent, the night air is humid and thick; it feels like a storm is rolling in and man, if I didn’t think they’d make the people who work here clean it up, I’d hope for it to settle right over us. This party is gorgeous, but we’re on a perfect island in the middle of the ocean, a lush, protected jewel of land, and these fuckers have carted more junk here than I could fit in my entire apartment. I’d love to see how their props hold up in a downpour.
“You, too, huh?” a voice says from the shadows, and I squint into the darkness to see Reagan. She’s sitting on a low tree branch in a blue-and-white-checked dress and glittering ruby slippers. An adorable Dorothy.
“Did I just say that out loud?” I ask.
She looks up at me with the trademark Weston eyes. “Say what?”
“About how I hope the storm lands directly over us?”
She laughs. “No. I just meant you ditched the party, too?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“What’s your reason?” she asks, looking back down to where she’s drawing with a stick in the sand.
I squint at her in the darkness. “What’s yours?” I bounce back.
“Grown-ups being annoying.”
“Hey, bestie, same.” I walk closer, offering a high five and sitting down beside her. “Didn’t you go snorkeling with Eko today?”
Blaire mentioned Reagan having zero interest in spa day, and frankly, after West’s weirdness made an appearance, I wonder if I should have made the same call.
“Yeah, she took us to the reef off the north side of the island. It was amazing. I asked her to please not bring us back here.”
I laugh. “Bet she didn’t pack enough food for the boat trip back to Singapore, eh?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Ugh. Planning fail.”
Reagan laughs down at her sand drawing. “Five more days,” she says. “I’m having fun but I miss my dog and my friends.”
“Bet it feels like an eternity.”
“It does.”
I remember this feeling, the sense that everything was boring when I was home but that being away for even an hour meant that I was missing something intensely fun and irreplaceable, that everything, always, was completely out of my control. Being an adolescent fucking sucks.
But I know that in all the times Dad sat with me on the swings in the backyard while I cried over friends or boys or school or my mom, never once did he tell me to cheer up, to try to see the bright side, to have a positive attitude. He knew I was an upbeat kid, and when I wanted to feel bad, he let me feel bad. The only thing he ever said was “It’ll get better.” And he was never wrong.
“It’ll get better,” I say to Reagan now.
“I hope so.”
“It will,” I assure her. “In a few years you’ll have more independence. More autonomy. Do you know what that means?”
She shakes her head.
“It’s like having control over your own decisions,” I say. The tide is coming in about twenty yards away, and I wiggle my toes in the cool sand. “Soon you’ll be old enough to say no to things you don’t want to do. Right now is the time in life that teaches you you’ll get through it even if you hate it.”
At least I get a small smile out of her. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“Boredom never killed anyone.” I bump her shoulder with mine. “It just made them wish it would.”
She laughs and we both turn as a twig snaps behind us.
West steps into view, one hand in his pants pocket, the other drawing back a branch so he can see us. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Reagan says, and it’s for both of us because I don’t bother.
“What’re you two doing out here?” he asks in that low, soothing voice. I straighten my back, reminding myself I’m mad.
“Planning the downfall of the patriarchy,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Cool.”
“What are you doing out here?” Reagan asks him. “Looking for Anna, probably.”
“Yeah… I was wondering if my wife would like to dance with me.”
I tilt my head to the convenient excuse of the kid at my side. “I’m Reagan’s ride-or-die tonight.”
The way West’s smile falls hits me like a shove. The confirmation that he got my meaning isn’t as satisfying as I’d expected it to be.
He blinks away, aiming a wry laugh down at the sand before he looks back up again. “Shots fired, okay.” He looks over at Reagan. “Then would my niece like to dance with me?”
Reagan recoils. “Absolutely not.”
“You sure?” He huffs out a surprised breath. “You sound a little conflicted.”
“No offense, Uncle Liam, but I wouldn’t even know how to dance to this old-timey shit.”
I pull back, looking at her in feigned surprise. “She swears!”
“Sorry,” she mumbles.
“I could teach you,” I tell her.
West’s honeyed voice slides between us. “Or we could teach her.”
He holds out a hand to Reagan and I can’t blame her for the way she seems to enter a trance and take it, following him inside. I can’t resist following, either, and I was actively trying.
Just as West sets his wineglass down on an empty table, the band breaks into a song I remember from high school band—Benny Goodman’s laid-back “In the Mood”—and West leads Reagan to the floor, where she absolutely refuses to move her feet. Laughing, he steps back and shows her the basic choreography of a dance I’ve definitely seen on Dancing with the Stars.
The pair practice together a few times, and when Reagan starts to get the hang of it, West picks up the tempo, slowly drawing her into his arms and setting off around the floor, much to the delight of the growing audience. With a wicked grin, he deftly leads her in a simple dance around the room while I watch from the sidelines, stunned. Reagan’s expression goes from reluctant and mortified to amused as he turns them to face the same way, kicking up their heels, then pulls her back to him, lifting her up to twirl her in a smooth circle. Her smile grows the more he sweeps her around the dance floor, and she breaks into delighted hysterics when he flips her over his arm. The captive audience watches as they come to a laughing, gasping stop at the end when West dips her and she throws her head back, laughing.
With a sweet kiss to the top of her head, he mouths, “Thank you, sweetheart,” and she runs over to Lincoln in the periphery, covering her face but beaming beneath her hands.
A hefty number of ladies observe West appreciatively as he makes his way over to me, the viper. His gaze is tentative, and he accepts a glass of water from a waitress with a small mumbled “Thanks.”
“Well, Satan, that was fucking adorable.”
West laughs. “She swears.”
“She sure as shit does.” I lift my chin to the dance floor. “Where’d you learn all that?”
“Granny had us all in dance classes when we were young. Charlie did cotillion. Alex, Jake, and I did young men’s. We basically learned how to be gentlemen. To my granny, dancing was a big part of that.”
“I suspect it makes me a bad feminist to think that’s hot.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
And of course, a slow song begins to play.
His expression straightens, eyes turn earnest. “Would you dance with me?”
I wrap my arms around my stomach. “No, thank you.”
“I know you’re mad at me. And I know why.”
“Good.”
He gazes down at me. “Want to dance anyway?”
I chew my lip, thinking it over. He doesn’t look away, doesn’t shrink from the direct way I’m studying him.
“How do I know you won’t do a one-eighty and freeze me out again?”
“I’ve been spending the past hour or so thinking about that exact question.”
“And?”
“And let’s talk while we dance.”
Finally, with a deep breath, I let him lead me to the floor, where I resist his attempt to pull me close to his chest.
“This song is called ‘Cheek to Cheek,’?” he says, smiling cutely. “We can’t do the jitterbug to this one. You should come a little closer.”
This is all in-bounds, I think. Dancing in front of his family. Fake-kissing at a party. I will build a wall of pillows between us tonight to keep my body firmly on my side of the bed.
I let him draw me close. His big palm feels like fire on my lower back, and a rough groan rumbles deep in his throat at the contact. West tucks my hand against his chest and bends, pressing his face to mine as he begins to move us around the floor.
Frankly, he’s an amazing dancer. I saw it when he was with Reagan, but I feel it now, the way my feet barely touch the floor. Which is good, honestly, because I have no real idea how to dance to this kind of stuff. I was basically going to show Reagan that there’s no wrong way to dance, but I suspect in this crowd, that isn’t true.
“Anna,” he says, his lips brushing my ear. I ignore this subtle call for my attention, and I definitely ignore how much I like it when he calls me Anna. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you think you’re apologizing for?” I say quietly into his neck.
“For disappearing after what you said at the spa. For coming back and being a weirdo.”
“You know, I don’t mind that you disappeared. After the initial sting of it, I didn’t mind that you got weird, either. I’m sure all of this acting is draining. I’m sure keeping your shit together with your family here is exhausting. This is an objectively weird situation. And I’m weird all the time. But I’m not cold weird. I’m not hurtful weird.”
“You are, in fact, one of the most level-headed people I’ve ever met. And have more class than me, or anyone here.” He spins us a few times, fancy moves. Hot moves.
I will not be swayed.
“I know this is one big game,” I say, “but at least keep the rules consistent. You keep changing them on me. You came to find me at the spa and kissed me so sweetly, and then ran away when I said something nice.”
“Understood. I really am sorry.”
“It’s probably easiest if we continue to be fake-happily-married in front of everyone and keep it simple. Just for show.”
He nods against me, turning us, and we dance our way along the long side of the floor.
“You’re right.” He says after a few quiet moments. “That’s probably easiest. But if it’s okay with you, I’d like to explain why I went for a walk today.”
“I think I understand. I mean, anyone with a father like yours—”
“It wasn’t my father. Well—let me amend that. I’m sure anytime I’m weird, he’s part of the why. But I think the real issue was that today, in the spa with you… I’ve never had someone be firmly on my side before. At least, someone who wasn’t asking for more from me. I know I’m paying you, but when you said that you didn’t care about the money, when you were touching me and looking like you wanted to kiss me… it felt real.”
I swallow around a tight ball of emotion in my throat. “Well… yeah. That’s why it was hurtful for you to shove me away and then act jealous the second I simply spoke to another man.”
“I haven’t felt real things with a woman in a long time, though. It’s disorienting to get blindsided by that here. Especially when it went against everything I had planned. I think the idea of opening myself up to another kind of hurt sent me to a strange place.”
I pull back, looking into his eyes, impressed with how open he’s being. “I get that.”
“Are we okay?” he asks.
I squeeze my eyes closed, feeling the tight, clenching sensation mirrored in my chest. I don’t love how attracted I am to him. It feels precarious, like walking a tightrope and the fall would be so easy and so deadly. But I also know myself: there’s no cork inside me to bottle it back up. Besides, this talk was good, his transparency is good. I do feel so much better. “Yeah. We’re okay.”
He pulls back, looking at my mouth. “My instinct is to kiss you now.”
“That certainly is what a married couple would do.”
“I’m not really sure what the rules are anymore,” he admits. “I agree we need them, but I don’t think I can make them alone.”
I study his face, wondering if I can give in to this. I think I can, especially if I stop taking it so seriously. “I mean, truthfully, a kiss doesn’t have to mean everything,” I remind him. “I read the contract this time, and there’s nothing in there about physical intimacy. Kissing doesn’t change the terms of our agreement.”
“Correct.”
“And whatever we do,” I reason, “we can agree it’s only for this island.”
“That’s true.”
“So we’re in agreement?” I ask. “Collaborators with benefits? Vacation ride-or-die? No strings attached beyond this?”
He nods, a small smile curling his lips. “Collaborators with benefits.”
West sends one hand up my side, over my shoulder and higher, where he cups the side of my neck with his big, warm palm. His eyes fall closed, and he leans in, pressing his mouth to mine.
I’ve kissed guys. A lot of guys. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s great. But mostly it’s fine. Mostly it feels good but doesn’t hit me like a spear to the chest and a slap to the lady parts. But this kiss? It’s chaste but has me melting. It’s soft, no tongue, just the lingering press of his mouth to mine followed by the easy parting, a pull of my bottom lip between his. Slow, deliberate kisses. Chaste, because we’re in front of everyone, but still so intentional, so claiming, so thorough I feel the sweet exploration in my fingertips and my spine, I feel it in my chest and my belly and between my legs. But most of all, I feel it in my brain, a firework flash, a dopamine flood, the sealing of a happy memory firmly into place.
We pull apart and stare at each other.
“That was nice,” I say.
“Nice?” he repeats, feigning offense. “Looks like I have my work cut out for me.”
“I may invade your side of the bed tonight.”
He gusts out a laugh. “For once?”
“Listen, wise guy, tonight I’m warning you.”
“I’ll brace myself.” His grin widens, and we stop moving as the song comes to an end. West leads me off the dance floor to an empty cocktail table. “Want a drink?”
“Would Janet Weston frown at a dirty martini?”
“Please,” he says. “Janet Weston drinks dirty martinis for breakfast.” He kisses me one more time. “Be right back.”
I watch him go and wish the jacket of his tux didn’t cover his ass, because watching West Weston walk away from me is my new favorite art installation.
“Hey, little sis.”
I turn, startled, to find Alex standing, swirling his cocktail, right next to me.
“Hey… big bro.”
“Enjoying the party?”
“It’s amazing.” I struggle to find something more to say, coming in with the brilliant follow-up, “It’s all been amazing.”
He shrugs, lifting his highball glass to gesture to the splendor around us. “Yeah, but come on. I’m sure you’re used to this kind of thing.”
“Yes, totally. Very used to fancy parties.”
“You were the same year as Jake in school, right?” He lifts his glass to his lips, eyes fixed somewhere in the distance.
“That’s right. That’s how I met West.”
“Funny—I’ve only heard his guy friends call him West. Girlfriends called him Liam.”
My smile drips with sugar. “I guess the wife gets to call him both.”
“True, true. So, you’re—what? Twenty-five?”
“That’s right.”
“And medical school at…?”
I scrape my brain for what West told me in a rush of information on the plane. Alex turns to look at me and the pressure to answer rises. Oh, duh. Of course. “Stanford” bursts suspiciously out of me.
He snaps with his free hand. “That’s right,” he says. “Aquarius?”
I turn to look at him. That’s random. “Yeah. January 28. How did you know?”
He shrugs, laughing. “Blaire went through an astrology phase. I thought it was bullshit but sometimes it seems spot-on. I absorbed more than I thought.”
“What’s your sign?”
“Scorpio.”
I wince, and Alex laughs easily. His smile warms his face and I remember what Blaire said, about how he can be fun when he’s not around his dad. Is that what this is? Is he not the actual worst human?
“Did you keep your maiden name?” he asks.
But at this, uneasiness returns. What an odd question.
With relief, I watch West return, our drinks in hand. His expression darkens when he sees Alex at my side. He approaches, handing me a glass and bending in to kiss my jaw.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
I nod, smiling a smile that means Everything feels weird, let’s skedaddle. West reads it, setting his hand on my bare lower back.
“We’re going to grab some fresh air.”
Alex wordlessly raises his drink to us.
We leave the tent, walking a few minutes down the path, and he stops me at a stand of mangrove trees. “What was that about?”
“He was asking me about what year I graduated UCLA, where I’m doing medical school. At first, I thought maybe he was just making conversation and is generally socially awkward, but then it got kind of weird.”
West takes a sip of his drink, and I want to lick the taste off his mouth. “I don’t like it. Alex doesn’t really do conversation for the sake of conversation.”
The tension ripples through him.
“There’s nothing for you to do about it tonight,” I tell him, taking his hand.
West looks down at our interlocked fingers and then up at me. “You’re right.” Slowly, he backs me into a tree, bending to speak into my neck. “What do you think I should do instead?”