Chapter 16
Begonia
The next several days are weird. Giovanna and her entourage are gone when I finally get up Tuesday morning after all the drama in the middle of the night.
Hayes moves into the guest bedroom and informs his security team that no one beyond the two of us and my mutant dog are allowed on the property, and that I’m to be accompanied at a respectful distance for any trips I’d like to make into town or the surrounding areas.
Though we basically don’t see each other while we’re at the house, and he ends up having to work through the whole weekend—or so he says—rather than taking that impromptu trip to Paris, he still makes a point of taking me to lunch at the lobster shack in town or the soup and sandwich shop so that I can make him confirm for me that yes, curried chicken salad is the best.
And honestly?
I prefer that to Paris.
And I also don’t.
Paris would’ve been showy and blingy and uncomfortable, overly-romantic for the cameras, whereas this feels almost real when we’re together.
And the real part is what bothers me.
I don’t love Hayes Rutherford, but I could get addicted to our conversations, to his attention when I’m talking, to that soft near-smile that overtakes his lips when he’s watching me doing things that Chad would’ve grimaced over and asked me to never do again.
Like stopping in a small tourist shop on our way to dinner to have ourselves drawn as cartoon heads.
Or shrieking in joy at finding my first clam during a dig after talking him into taking two hours out of his workday for stress relief.
Or shuddering every time we walk past a boat.
I feel seen . But it’s still not real .
We have a romantic dinner in the garden one night, where he points out the boat sitting offshore taking pictures of us and tells me to act normal and like we’re in love .
Saturday night, I convince Hayes we need to spend the evening in the crowded bar, listening to mostly terrible karaoke, some of it provided by yours truly, of course.
I do love singing.
Singing does not love me back.
When we’re on our dates-for-show, he tells me about the job responsibilities of being CFO for Razzle Dazzle, which is way more boring than being a movie star.
Or an art teacher. I tell him about my favorite parts of my dad’s summer camp, about Hyacinth and me agreeing to only get each other terrible things that make us both laugh until we pee our pants every Christmas, and about things my students have said, done, and arted .
On our last night on the island, when I drop my favorite student story on him during dinner at the bistro overlooking the sea—it involves a clay giraffe, parent night, and the word fuckerella —he snorts clam chowder through his nose.
If we were in a real relationship, I’d offer him a blowjob to apologize for the pain, but we’re not, so when we get back to the house, he retreats to his bedroom, and I retreat to shower in the shower to end all showers.
I don’t know what kind of showerhead there will be in New York tomorrow, and just in case it’s not the rain shower kind, I want to enjoy it one last time.
But when I sneak down to the kitchen for a cup of tea, he’s at the high counter, freshly showered himself, his dark hair that perfect amount of damp to make me want to picture him naked, his chest covered with a gray T-shirt, those adorable dancing hamster pajama pants hugging his hips again, and he’s fiddling with my phone.
“You keep saying you don’t have cell signal here,” he says.
“That was kind of the point of looking at this part of the country for vacation.” I wince, because I don’t usually avoid people since it’s not kind, but— “My mom can’t call.”
“But you miss talking to your sister.” He hands it back to me. “You’re on the wifi now. It’ll carry a call.”
And this is precisely why Hayes Rutherford would make the best real boyfriend. He pays attention to the little things, fixes what he can, and understands what I need before I realize I need it.
And I want to kiss him senseless for being so kind and thoughtful.
But he’s not my real boyfriend. He’s a man that I’ve agreed to pretend to date who just happens to occasionally do nice things, especially when he’s had enough sleep and enough time away from his office.
“Don’t listen to the messages from your mother,” he orders. “I would’ve deleted them myself but your dog wouldn’t let me. Her emails too. Why the fuck is she still asking if you want to get back together with your ex-husband when she clearly knows you’re dating me ?”
I glance at the list of voicemails. The dozens of voicemails. Four from Mom for every one from Hyacinth, who definitely knows, because she still reads the tabloids.
Hayes has a legitimate question. Mom has to be thrilled I’ve upgraded to a billionaire.
Maybe he heard her wrong. She couldn’t possibly be saying I should get back together with Chad now.
I could listen to one . Just to test the theory.
“If you hit that button, I will throw that thing into the ocean, your dog’s opinion be damned.
She doesn’t believe you can keep me, and she thinks you need to cut your losses before you piss him off more.
” Hayes has his head buried in the fridge, rooting around for cheesecake, I’d bet, not looking at me, but still seeing right through me.
And that’s the most maddening thing.
He’s so normal . And attentive. And a strangely good cook, and also very polite about telling me my own cooking skills suck without telling me my cooking skills suck, but the note taped to the fridge yesterday— Begonia, there’s chicken salad in here.
I forbid you to spend your vacation time trying to top it when you’d enjoy making sand castles so much more —very clearly implied he likes edible food and is willing to make it himself to provide for both of us so I don’t have to cook something we’ll both regret, and he respects that I’m here to have fun at the same time.
Chad never cooked, and he always expected me to find something edible, so we ate out a lot, and then he complained about the credit card bill.
You’re shocked.
I know.
“I’m calling my sister and I’m telling her you still have a few things to learn in bed,” I tell Hayes as I drift toward the back door.
“I’d expect nothing less.”
I smile.
He knows I’m lying. I couldn’t insult him if my life depended on it.
Other than the whole be my fake girlfriend or I’ll financially ruin you thing, and his perpetual case of the grumps, and the two of us pretending neither of us keep thinking about me asking him to have sex with me, he’s a decent guy.
We’re in a weird situation, and he’s dealing the best way he knows how, especially considering he’s balancing his privacy and desire to not be the world’s current most famous bachelor with keeping his family’s name untarnished.
He can’t exactly tell the tabloids and his family and probably more than a small handful of women to go fuck off, not when he’s a Rutherford.
Well, he could.
But he cares about his family and their reputation too much to do it, and that says more about his character than his note that I found taped to the inside of my door yesterday morning informing me that if I attempted to cook eggs one more time, he’d personally murder all of the chickens on the island so that there were no more eggs for me to abuse.
He’s such a liar.
He’d re-home them before he’d murder them.
Although, that would take interfacing with the locals, and while most of the locals are kind and respectful of his boundaries—yes, even the ones I heard plotting to set him up with themselves or their personal favorite single women before they realized he was involved with someone—you can spot the tourists, and he’s definitely an object of lust among certain demographics in the tourist crowd.
I don’t usually notice until he starts touching my hand or my knee, or leaning in closer and making bedroom eyes at me when we’re out in public, but then, I don’t understand why people would chase a man just for his money.
So I get why he wants a fake girlfriend, and I get why he has trust issues, even if maybe I don’t understand all the nuances.
I probably won’t be sharing with him that his threat of bankrupting me wasn’t actually as terrifying as he thinks it is either.
Convenient? No.
But survivable? Yes.
My dad did it. I could do it too. And I took so very little in the divorce that the only thing I’d miss is if I had to sell off my great-grandma Eileen’s old dildo collection.
She painted them and sold them at traveling art fairs. The leftovers aren’t used.
Probably.
Before I can dial Hyacinth, my phone rings in my hand, and her face lights the screen. I head for the back door, check that the house alarm isn’t set, and then sneak out into the rapidly fading evening sunset.
“Hey,” I start as I answer the video call, but she barrels over me, her face a mirror of mine, but hers is brimming with the thrill of impending gossip.
“ Oh my god, Begonia, you are a fucking ROCK STAR !” She glances away from the screen. “No, Jerry, I won’t watch my language in front of the kids when my sister is dating a fucking billionaire . This is appropriate usage of the word fuck , okay?”
“Hey, Jerry,” I say to Hyacinth.
“B says hey,” she calls. Then she’s back facing me. “Talk. Now. Fast. Before Mom figures out we’re talking and tries to beep in. She is losing her mind .”