Chapter 3
Emma
Jonas Rutherford smells like a hungover ponderosa pine tree in the summer sun.
Like stale whiskey and yesterday’s sweat and butterscotch.
And it makes him seem so real, but also, butterscotch ? It’s not enough that he’s movie-star handsome and a billionaire by birth, he also smells like butterscotch.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but this will pass,” he tells me while he pats my back.
That’s the other thing.
I’m a total stranger.
I could be planning on doing something horrible, like—like—like burying his body if he were a reporter.
And I don’t think I ever truly believed he was a reporter. Or an imposter. Or even possibly everything his ex-wife recently painted him to be when she went public with why they got divorced.
I believed the best of him.
Which is likely half of why I ended up nearly marrying Chandler despite all of the not-great things he’s done to other people I love.
My friends.
My brother .
God.
I cannot believe Chandler set Theo up to take the fall for something he did ten years ago. Theo went to jail . For something Chandler did .
And I’m mad at Theo for not telling me and for not fighting back in court and for just taking it.
For not believing in himself.
For not believing that I would’ve believed in him.
Jonas squeezes me tighter. Is this an act? Or is he actually a nice person?
“You can go,” I say again. “Truly. I don’t need help. I just want to be alone for a while.”
“Have you been alone the whole time you’ve been here?”
He doesn’t say since your wedding , so the man gets points for thinking on his feet while he smells like an intoxicated tree. “The airport was…uncomfortable.”
“Here?”
“No, in Hawaii.”
“Did people?—”
“It’s fine.” Don’t think about it, Emma. Do. Not. Think. About. It . “It’s fine. It’s over. I’m here. Everyone’s leaving me alone. It’s lovely on the beach.” In the early mornings before anyone else is around. “And the house is very comfortable. It’s a good place to?—”
Nope.
Not finishing that sentence.
But my brain whispers it to me anyway.
It’s a good place to think about everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life while you recover from a broken heart and wonder why your friends put up with someone who’s as big of a backstabbing idiot as you currently feel like you are.
“To heal,” Jonas says quietly.
I shudder and my eyes get hot and my nose stings. “To try.”
He squeezes tighter.
And it feels so good to—no.
No .
I’m done blindly trusting people.
So I shake him off and put some distance between us. “Did you really trick your wife into getting married so she’d quit Hollywood and have designer kids with good genes with you?”
He winces, then winces harder like wincing reminded him that he has a hangover.
And I desperately try not to wince right along with him. Who asks a stranger a question like that?
You do, Emma Monroe. You do now. Don’t be a sucker again. Do. Not. Be. A. Sucker .
“I changed my mind about when I wanted a family shortly after the wedding, and I don’t blame her for being mad about it. The position I put her in was…not okay of me. I was wrong. And then I dug my feet in and kept being wrong.”
There is so much more to this story.
But it doesn’t matter. He’s leaving. I’m staying here.
Even if my friends would lose their minds at me meeting Jonas Rutherford—well, my friends that were my friends last week who rightfully might never want to see me again after I picked Chandler over them time and again for what feels like half my life—I don’t need Jonas’s side of things.
He steadies himself against a wall, scowls like he’s trying to perfect the expression for his next role, and gingerly makes his way to the sofa to sit and put his head in his hands.
“I know I don’t know you,” he says, “but if it helps, from what I saw in that video, you dodged a bullet, and I’m glad you get to be somewhere quiet for a while.”
I lean back against the wall. “Or I was stupid to think I could love him enough to make him change.”
He squints at me, still rubbing his own temples. “You’ve watched one too many Razzle Dazzle films, haven’t you?”
That shouldn’t be funny.
It truly shouldn’t.
But for the first time since I left my groom at the altar after finally confronting him about one of many things I pretended were just human imperfection instead of completely wrong , I laugh.
And it’s an honest laugh.
I’m not faking it for him.
“Probably,” I concede. “But I also…I just like to believe everyone’s doing the best they can. And give them the benefit of the doubt. And?—”
Dammit .
My eyes get hot again.
But I need to say it out loud. Not like Jonas Freaking Rutherford will remember this.
“And I thought he was the best I could do,” I finish.
His head jerks up, which is clearly uncomfortable if I’m reading his face right.
It says: Shouldn’t have done that. I’m gonna puke again .
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “You don’t have to tell me I can do better.
I don’t want to do better. I’m off dating.
I’m off relationships. I’m off—well, honestly, I think I’m off being gaslit, except I don’t think I’ll notice the next time it happens either, which is why I’m off dating and relationships. ”
“You need to meet my brother’s girlfriend,” he says.
I laugh again, but this one’s sheer he does not mean that .
“You do,” he insists. “She had the balls to divorce her husband because he didn’t appreciate her. Everyone thinks she’s a na?ve country bumpkin who can’t navigate a black-tie dinner, but she slays. Every time. If Begonia and her dog can live in my world, I know you can get back into yours.”
“But did she betray everyone in your world?” I whisper.
“How did you betray them?”
“I always took Chandler’s side and that made my brother and one of my very best friends get hurt. Badly. And if he hurt people that close to me, he probably hurt so many more people than I can begin to guess.”
He glances around the sitting area, shakes his head, grabs it like he’s trying to stop his brains from sloshing around in his skull, and then blows out a short breath. “You haven’t left this villa since you got here?”
“I have really had enough of people.” The airport was an absolute nightmare.
Whispers. Weird looks. Gasps and points.
I told myself I was being paranoid and nobody knew who I was.
But then someone asked for a selfie with me.
Someone else said Chandler’s name. I walked into the bathroom and found a group of women gathered around a phone while the sound of my own voice screeching at Chandler bounced off the walls.
That’s her. Did you see her? She’s here. She’s alone. I wonder where she’s going?
The people who didn’t know who I was were quickly filled in.
And the flight?
Theo is both an angel and a pain in the butt. Despite all the ways that my wedding week was horrible for him, he paid to upgrade my flight so I’d be in first class.
Which would’ve been fine if I hadn’t seized on the opportunity to board first.
Boarding first meant every single other person on the plane walked past me and gawked when they boarded after me.
“There aren’t people here,” Jonas says.
“Oh, the staff and housekeeping crew are aliens?”
He grins that movie-star grin, and I lose my breath.
Off men and off relationships or not, knowing he’s recently divorced and claiming he was an asshole or not, I can’t deny that a grinning Jonas Rutherford is the stuff of heart-squeezing, panty-melting, romantic-delusion dreams.
Knowing he’s here temporarily as a blip on my life radar is incredibly comforting though.
I need to not face that kind of smile from a man right now.
“They’re paid well to keep their mouths shut,” he says.
“There are other guests.”
“Like twenty-three of them, total, between the two resorts on this island, and every last one of them is here to get away from the world. Nobody cares who else is here.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“The people with the money to come here are the people who don’t want to be seen any more than you and I do.”
The money to come here.
The money to come here .
I’m going to murder my brother.
I thought this was the wrong resort. I thought I didn’t have to take another airplane to get to my honeymoon.
But when I landed here in Fiji, there was a man waiting with a sign with my name, just as Theo said there would be when he texted to tell me he was leaving Hawaii and I should go on my honeymoon solo.
And the man with the sign with my name answered the code word exactly as Theo said he would.
Except instead of driving through the lush rainforest to get to my hotel, we boarded another plane—this one private with only two other people who didn’t look at me the whole time—and flew to a smaller island.
And I was so tired that I didn’t question it. I didn’t even care if I was being kidnapped.
I should’ve asked questions.
“You okay?” Jonas asks.
“My brother accidentally got rich being a mega-star on an adult entertainment website,” I whisper. “Like, stupid rich. I didn’t realize he’d paid to take care of me here too.”
“Is this bad?”
Aside from feeling like that idiot who needs everyone else in her life to take care of her? “My fi—my ex did really bad things to him, and then Theo paid for my wedding and didn’t tell me, and I think he paid to upgrade my solo honeymoon. And he shouldn’t have. I don’t deserve this.”
“All I did to earn being able to afford coming here to hide was being born into the family that created Razzle Dazzle. How about we just go with it’s okay to be here and take it from there?”
“That was weirdly self-aware.”
He grins again, and then grimaces again like grinning hurts.
We are both a mess.
There’s an odd comfort in that.
“You ever toured a tropical rainforest?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“Excellent. You’re doing it today. Time to come out of hiding. Trust me. It’s a good thing. You think people are judgmental? Wait until you see the attitude on some of the monkeys around here. It’ll make going back to the real world feel palatable.”
“I’m a stranger and you’re Jonas Rutherford .”
“My brother was all over the tabloids last year for an unfortunately delicate public situation and he hates the spotlight with the passion of a million grumps. I can appreciate what you’re going through even if the spotlight doesn’t usually bother me.
You can also consider this my apology for puking in your bushes and my thanks for some super dry toast.”
“ Oh my god . You know Theo. You know Theo, and he set this up too. He set up you meeting me, didn’t he?”
“Who’s Theo again?”
“My brother? The online adult entertainment star? Knits hearts while he’s naked and says motivational things that I probably should’ve listened to a little more when it came to understanding who I should and shouldn’t marry?”
Jonas points to himself. “Razzle Dazzle family-friendly sappy-romantic but no kissing ever film star here. Prior to my divorce, the biggest scandal I ever faced was that I wore a wet t-shirt and you could see my nipples in a movie once. Don’t think your brother and I operate in the same circles.”
They probably don’t.
And Theo was very happy to be an anonymous adult entertainment star.
He never showed his face.
He’d be anonymous still except Chandler outed him at my wedding .
And now the entire world has seen the video.
The entire world knows Theo’s biggest secret. They now know the face that goes with the penis.
He has to be absolutely miserable right now, but he’s still putting me first, texting every day to ask how I am and making sure I have as much privacy as I need in a way that I couldn’t provide for myself.
I shouldn’t be here. I don’t deserve to be here.
I have so much to make up for.
But at least I know not marrying Chandler was a good idea.
“C’mon, Emma,” Jonas says. “I need someone to make sure I don’t touch another pina colada and puke in someone else’s bushes tomorrow. They’d be far less understanding.”
“Why do you trust me?”
He blows out a long breath. “I don’t know. But I do know I don’t have much else to lose.”
Well.
What’s a girl supposed to say to that?
It’s definitely not the you’re cute, you’re friendly, I just want to help a fellow human being that I might’ve expected.
But it resonates.
My favorite movie star and I have a lot in common right now.
Who saw that coming?