Chapter 1
Emma Monroe, aka a normal ray of sunshine with so many, many regrets
Tripping over a body on the porch of my Fiji beach villa wasn’t the way I planned to start my day, but then, what has gone right in the past few days?
I go down with a surprised oof , landing on top of the person. Pain radiates through my elbow after it smacks the wood of the porch. If there are any gods listening, please don’t let this be a reporter.
One more thing to be filed under things I never thought I’d worry about in my life .
But here we are.
Also—“Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.”
Even if this person is a freaking reporter.
Why can’t I be the badass who’d hope the next thing on my agenda today is burying a body?
Bonus, if I were that type of badass, I wouldn’t care that I’ve become the world’s most notorious runaway bride.
But I’m not that kind of badass.
Which means I need to find a different way to deal with this.
It has to be at least eighty degrees out here, but my teeth are chattering and I’m battling a whole-body shiver that makes me want to curl into a ball.
I’m also still sprawled across this human lump.
What would Theo do?
My brother—who is, unsurprisingly, yet again one of my favorite people in the world while simultaneously sitting at the top of my shit list—would pull a wrestling move, flip this person on their back, and use the power of his morning breath to add some extra fear when he said—something.
Probably get the fuck off my porch before I gut you like a fish .
No, actually, that’s not Theo’s style.
But then, hiding in an apparently high-end villa and ducking into closets anytime the resort staff drops by, even to leave the food you ordered from room service on the porch, also isn’t Theo’s style.
So how does the new and improved , doesn’t let people walk all over her Emma want to handle this?
Do I scoot off this person, hit the porch light switch and make whoever it is think I am the type to not blink at starting my day with burying a body? Can I?
Can I be a warrior woman for once in my life?
I’m trying to think of another dastardly plan when the person beneath me groans.
And rolls.
And wraps a heavy arm around my waist.
“ Why , Peyton?” moans a deep male voice that smells like dead fish steeped in whiskey. “Give me back the whalebone.”
“Excuse me, sir.” I poke him while I try to lift his arm off of me. “You need to leave.”
“I should’ve known it would be you. There’s never been anyone like you.”
I freeze, and goosebumps erupt over my shivers while déjà vu takes hold.
I’ve heard this man say those words before.
Why have I heard this man say those words before?
“Sir, please let go ,” I repeat.
“Making you happy is my favorite thing in the world.”
What’s bigger than goosebumps? Ostrich bumps?
That’s what I have now.
I’ve heard that sentence before too .
Am I losing my mind?
Am I actually awake?
Is this a bad dream?
Okay, yes, it’s a bad dream. This whole last week has all been a bad dream. Except it’s currently my reality, and I’m nearly certain I’m awake.
Panic has me finding strength I shouldn’t have after being unable to stomach hardly anything the past few days.
And that’s another thing pissing me off.
I’m having gourmet meals delivered when I call for room service, in Fiji , and the thought of eating them makes me feel ill.
Worse?
The person I’m most pissed at is myself.
I did this by insisting for the past seven years that Chandler Sullivan was the man of my dreams, even while knowing he wasn’t Theo’s favorite person and vice versa.
Despite the occasional hint that my friends thought he was annoying.
Including Sabrina, one of my two besties, who’s his cousin .
And despite the way his own aunts, uncles, and parents would look at him and sigh over some of his more ridiculous opinions.
The things I knew he did that I told myself he’d stop doing if I could just convince him I loved him enough.
Fuck him.
Fuck me too for doing this to me.
I manage to shove the man’s arm off me, dash back inside the house, and peer through the sliding glass door that I’ve just locked.
I flip on the outside light, and dizziness has me leaning against the glass.
But not because of hunger.
More because my brain is trying to convince me that I know the man who’s curling into a ball and wincing against the light.
“Love isn’t rational, but it’s not pathetic either,” he moans, his voice drifting through an open window with yet one more line that I’ve heard before.
I flip the light off, plunging everything back into pre-dawn darkness.
Then I pinch myself.
Yep. That hurt.
I flip the light on again.
And he’s still there.
Jonas Rutherford.
My favorite movie star on the entire planet.
The man whose movies I can recite by heart.
Number one on my freebie list that I only mentioned one time to Chandler, who got so offended at the joke— who actually meets their number one celebrity crush? —that I didn’t even tell Sabrina and Laney that I’d made a list. And the three of us don’t—didn’t— dammit .
Apparently we do keep secrets from each other. If we truly didn’t, I would’ve known what Chandler did to Theo years ago, and I wouldn’t be the world’s most notorious runaway bride right now.
But more important in this exact moment?
Jonas Rutherford is here .
Moaning and grabbing his head on the porch of the tropical villa where I’m hiding from the entire world.
Nope.
Nope nope nope. This isn’t real.
I flip the lights off again.
This is a job for resort security. Not for me.
“I thought we were happy,” the man who looks and sounds like Jonas Rutherford, but cannot possibly be Jonas Rutherford, says outside.
And my stupid, vulnerable, gullible heart wells up and sheds a tear for the sadness in his voice.
If that’s really Jonas Rutherford, and not some reporter dressed up to look and act like him in some elaborate scheme to get to me—paranoia is my new BFF—then I know what he’s talking about.
You basically can’t get on the internet without seeing the viral video of my failed wedding right next to the reports that Jonas’s movie star wife left him mere months after their wedding last summer, and that their divorce was recently finalized.
And now public.
With allllll of the details that mean this man should not be on my freebie list .
“Crap,” he mutters.
Crap .
Like that’s the worst curse word he knows for waking up hungover on a porch after someone tripped over him.
And does he even know I’m here? Does he realize he wasn’t alone?
There’s a shuffling on the other side of my door, and then the glass door rattles.
My heart freezes in my chest.
What is he doing ?
The lock holds though.
“Are you freaking kidding?” he mutters.
The door rattles again but doesn’t budge.
He groans, mutters, “Forget this,” and then all goes quiet.
I peer into the darkness.
Can’t see a thing, and pre-dawn is when I most like taking the short path down to the beach. I’m hardly Jonas Rutherford famous, and this is a gated resort with limited other guests in the half dozen or so other villas, but I still felt like I got funny looks my second day here.
Ten out of ten do not recommend starring in a viral video where you jilt your groom right before your vows after finding out there’s a massive list of shitty things he did to a lot of people you love and that all of your friends and family kept from you for years.
Twenty out of ten don’t recommend knowing that he did shitty things—though not the shittiest of the shitty things that came out just before I walked down the aisle—and convincing yourself you could still walk down that aisle and fix him if you just loved him enough.
And a billion out of ten don’t recommend living in shame, guilt, and regret for knowing what your choices have done to the people you love.
That’s the one I’ll have to face when I get home.
I count to five hundred, assuming that’ll be enough time for the man on my porch to be long gone, and then I flip the lock and slowly slide open the door again.
I click on my flashlight app on my phone.
And I whimper.
Why is he still there?
“Wha-hm?” a froggy, sleepy, Jonas-Rutherford-sounding voice says. “Who’s there? Where’s there?”
I hover in the doorway. “I think you’re lost. This isn’t your house.”
“Not my—where am I?” He pushes to sitting, groaning softly and grabbing his head. The white wicker egg swing just to my right sways lightly in the breeze, looking like a ghost. He fumbles for something in his pocket.
His phone.
He hits a button, the flashlight blinks on, and I wince and shield my face as he aims it at me.
“Oh. Sorry.” His voice is still froggy, but he seems to be more aware. “I thought this was—crap. This isn’t my bungalow.”
“It is not,” I confirm.
“Are we in Fiji?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a reporter?”
“ No .”
There’s a beat of silence like he’s weighing if he can believe me.
Ironic, considering I’m not sure I trust him. Nor do I think I want to if rumors about why he got divorced are true.
“Is the island having an earthquake?” he asks.
“No.”
“It’s not spinning?”
“No.”
“Am I spinning?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive.”
“Where’s my place?”
“I don’t know. What villa are you staying at?”
He doesn’t answer.
Because he doesn’t know?
Because he forgot?
Because he fell back asleep?
He’s pointing his phone’s flashlight down now. Coupled with the morning light rapidly coming in, I can almost see him clearly.
Dark hair falls across his forehead. The strong nose. Rugged jawline. Stubble thick enough to make me wonder how long it’s been since he shaved.
Or was sober.
He’s bigger than I thought he’d be. Aren’t movie stars usually short? Underwhelming in person? But even hunched over on the porch, I can tell his shoulders are broad, and he has to be tall. Maybe not six feet, but at least as tall as I am.
Maybe he’s not really Jonas Rutherford. Maybe this is his doppelganger.
That makes way more sense.
Yep. This is Jonas Rutherford’s doppelganger, who just happens to love Razzle Dazzle films so much that he quotes them in a hungover haze.
And who was saying Jonas Rutherford’s ex-wife’s name in his drunken sleep-stupor.
And who’s afraid of reporters.
“When did I get here?” he asks hesitantly.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you…see me…last night?”
“No.”
“So you don’t know how I got here?”
“No.” I squash the urge to add sorry , which is what Emma who lets people walk all over her would do, but Emma breaking out of bad habits is trying not to do.
“Where…is here?”
“The Morinda.”
His gaze flies to mine, and a soft oh, fuck , escapes his lips.
So Jonas Rutherford—or his doppelganger— does cuss.
That actually makes me smile.
He doesn’t say another word.
He’s too busy leaping to his feet, then swaying, and then—oh.
Oh .
Well.
Those bushes probably didn’t need that kind of fertilizer, but they’re getting it anyway.
And Emma who doesn’t let people walk all over her, except apparently right now when they look like her favorite movie star makes a decision that I know I’ll regret entirely too soon.