Chapter 25
Begonia
It’s almost nine thirty before Hayes gets home, and I’m about to crawl out of my skin by the time he walks in the door.
I leap off the stairs, where I’m waiting, the minute the door opens, but he hustles in with his head down, phone against his ear.
“No, Dexter, if you want approval, you’ll need to send it through the proper channels.
I’m not interested in acting as your shortcut.
No. No. No. Do I need to say no once more?
Call my office and make an appointment if you want to discuss this further. We’re done for now. Good night.”
He hangs up, drops the phone into a potted plant, and loosens his tie, and all of my own frustrations and worries fade away as concern for him takes hold.
I want to be mad. I want to remind myself that I deserve better than this, but I can’t.
For one, this is all pretend.
For two, his profile is etched with weariness, his shoulders are drooping, and the sigh that leaks out of him is like an overstretched balloon finally giving up the last that it has to give.
When he turns his head and spots me, guilt flashes across his features. “Begonia. Apologies. This afternoon turned into one crisis after another, and I lost track of time.”
It’s so damn familiar.
I’m working late, Begonia. Eat without me.
Sorry I forgot to call. I was tied up.
The boss needed me. You know how it goes .
I know better.
I do.
I know better than to pretend everything’s fine and I can roll with this and I wasn’t worried he’d died in a helicopter accident, but my indignation is warring with knowing that Hayes Rutherford is a million times the man Chad was, and I’m not talking about his bank account.
Chad wouldn’t have walked across the foyer to wrap me in a hug and hold me tight as if he were holding on for dear life the way Hayes is right now, like he truly didn’t want to be in the office and is glad to be home.
He wouldn’t have bought me so much as an at-home clay-painting kit, never mind a pottery wheel and clay.
And Chad and I could’ve afforded a used pottery wheel and clay.
I’d sometimes stalk them on eBay when I was feeling unsettled.
And I’m not letting Hayes off the hook because he bought me a pottery kit to use at his house, kiln and all, and had his staff set it up for me in a room with a window overlooking his solarium with all of the pretty plants and hot tub and indoor waterfall.
I’m letting him off the hook because he has zero obligation to apologize to me, to acknowledge that he made me worry, that he should’ve called, that he broke our date, because this is all fake , but he’s doing all the things someone he’s in a relationship with deserves anyway.
“You must be famished,” he says into my shoulder.
“I had some duck with your family. And it was only mildly awkward when Uncle Antonio started talking about a few women he knows that he could invite out here, and then when your mother asked if he was ready to date again to try to cover for him, and then when Keisha pretended she was whispering to me that they’re all a-holes, when she wasn’t actually whispering at all and everyone heard her. What about you? Have you eaten?”
“We stock Razzle Dazzle treats in all the offices.”
“ Hayes .”
I can feel his smile as he shifts his head on my shoulder. “I’m shocked, bluebell. You seem the type to embrace snacks for dinner.”
“On vacation. Not when you’re working fourteen-hour days.”
He kisses my neck, sending delightful shivers dancing across my skin. “Apologies for your awful dinner.”
“That was actually just the soup course. Dinner itself wasn’t all bad.
Francoise and I made friends today, so she snuck a live cricket onto your mom’s plate, and then Marshmallow tried to save her from the scary cricket and ended up running across the table and almost catching his fur and another tablecloth on fire.
I think you should have a no-candles rule as long as Marshmallow and I are in residence. ”
Hayes’s whole body is shaking.
“Are you laughing or having serious regrets about bringing me here?”
Marshmallow stalks into the room with an umbrella clenched in his jaw, and he growls low like he’s threatening Hayes to not answer that question wrong.
“I’m laughing.”
He is. I can hear it, and it makes my stupid back-stabbing heart freaking sing. “At me, or with me?”
“Out of sheer regret that I missed the show. Is my mother packing her bags yet?”
“She says she has to be in Los Angeles for a dinner for some foundation tomorrow.”
“Excellent. Did you make lovely art today?”
“Shh. No more talking until you eat something good for you.”
He kisses my neck again, and this time, I can’t ignore the way his touch electrifies my skin and makes my nipples pebble and sends my vagina into a tailspin of can we try last night again without the fire and literal sprinklers to put us out, please?
“F-food,” I try to order.
“I believe I’d prefer sleep.”
“You need both. And I mean sleep in the real sense of the word sleep .”
“Is the bedroom fixed?”
I sigh. “No. Your housekeeper and Keisha had an argument over whether the table that was under the flaming tablecloth could be saved, and the chairs still smell like smoke and stale water, and apparently having a clay art room assembled in an hour is as far as your money went today.”
“Hm.” He pulls away from where his breath is tickling my neck, grabs my hand, and drags me deeper into the house, past the formal sitting room in front, the dining room across from it, then the doorway to the east wing, and around the corner and through the arched stone entryway to the massive kitchen.
I smile. “A- ha ! You are hungry.”
He hands me a massive picnic basket topped with a blue checkered picnic blanket that’s sitting on the island. “Can you hold this?”
“It’s a little heavy, but yes, I think I can— erp !”
In one swift motion, he hefts me into his arms and heads for the back door, me clutching the picnic basket in my lap, him holding onto me.
“ Hayes .”
“Robert, close the door behind us, and don’t let anyone else leave this house if they want to live,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Yes, sir,” Robert answers behind us.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t hurt yourself, sir.”
Hayes smiles.
He smiles .
“Don’t do that,” I warn him.
The man isn’t sweating or huffing as he carries me out to the courtyard, Marshmallow trotting beside us, which is more than Chad could’ve done too. “Do what, love?”
“Smile. Do not smile.”
“I had the most fascinating text messages all day long today.” He keeps marching past the edge of the courtyard, me clinging to him like my life depends on it while still wanting to be ready if he drops me and also trying not to drop the picnic basket nestled into my lap.
And he’s not struggling at all.
Does he work out?
When?
“I wouldn’t call our text messages fascinating .”
“Jonas is enjoying his honeymoon,” he muses, as if he doesn’t have a frazzled me clinging to his neck and an eager dog leaping around his legs while he strides across the moonlit lawn.
“My mother also has opinions about an interior designer for renovating my bedroom suite. Uncle Antonio is sorry he thought Liliane would be a welcome guest. He tells me he helped set up your pottery wheel himself. And Keisha tells me she told you all of my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“She only did it because she cares,” I say quickly.
“Yes, clearly breaking trust is a sign of caring.”
“Would you have told me about Brock Sturgis?”
His shoulders bunch. “She truly did tell you everything, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t go into detail.”
“Hm.”
“I won’t repeat a thing. But I think I understand better why your mom hovers. Everyone worries about you.”
“I am not a frail flower, Begonia.”
“That’s really funny, because technically, a begonia is kind of a frail flower, so it’s like you’re pointing out that I am when you’re not.”
“You are not a frail flower either. God help the person who mistakes you for one.”
“I know I’m not, and I know you’re not. You’re just…”
“I’m just…?”
“Stuck in a world where you can either let it suck away your soul or be alone. And that’s not fair. Or easy, I’d guess. How does everyone else in your family do it?”
“They don’t feel it as personally, I suppose.
Didn’t have the magnitude of betrayal. Or they don’t mind.
Or they appreciate the luxuries enough that the trade-off is worth it.
My father married well. And not in a money sense, but in a trust and true love sense.
My parents were high school sweethearts, in fact, from a time before my mother understood what would be expected of her.
He’s never worried about her stabbing him in the back, nor has he had to.
Uncle Antonio didn’t fare as well, but he’s my mother’s brother, so he’s shielded from the expectations of being a Rutherford. ”
“And he’s a man,” I point out.
Hayes snorts. “That does present another level of protection in the eyes of the world, doesn’t it?”
“But you didn’t escape it.”
“I did for a time, leaving the country to study abroad and ignoring the tabloids and letting my family handle any issues. Ignorance truly is bliss sometimes.”
“Would you tell me what happened?”
“You want details?”
“Yes.” I don’t want details. I don’t want to know the horrific levels of torture that a spoiled high schooler with money and connections could resort to. I see it enough in my own world.
But I want him to know I’d listen if he wants to talk.
“Begonia, this is too lovely of a night to ruin it with old memories that I refuse to let haunt me anymore.”
“So, you needed a fake girlfriend because you’re perfectly fine and well-adjusted and have no lingering trust issues after your fiancée committed the ultimate betrayal like fifteen years ago?”
“You’re so very cruel, yet so very irresistible at the same time. However do you manage?”