Chapter 20
Iris
The yacht’s in motion now.
We’re heading toward our first snorkeling location of the day.
Roman and the yacht boy are nowhere to be found.
Still breathing hard, I wander outside the main cabin and discover the pair leaning on the railing while overlooking the sparkling ocean.
As I get closer, I make out Roman’s low voice.
He’s chatting amiably with the crew member, and whatever he’s saying, he’s got the crew member’s undivided attention.
It occurs to me the woman in the grocery store was the same way. The cashier, too. Hanging on his every word. And now I know why. Because he’s Roman freaking Maguire, not some gym owner from Delaware.
I suddenly realize a whole bunch of people have been reacting to Roman exactly like those two women in the market and this crew guy, but I’ve idiotically chalked it up to Roman being jaw-droppingly gorgeous or memorable, for some reason, as a college player.
No wonder Roman wanted to get out of that market quickly on day one!
It wasn’t because he was protecting me from unwanted attention, like I thought.
No, Roman didn’t want those women unwittingly blowing his cover, the same way this crew member just did!
“Hey, you,” Roman says as I come to a stop next to him. “Everything okay?”
“It’s great. I was just feeling a little bit seasick, but I’m okay now.”
Roman furrows his brow. “This fast? We just left the dock.”
“It came on quick.”
“Would you like some Dramamine, miss?” the crew member asks politely.
“No, I think I’m okay now. Let’s do the tour.”
Roman takes my sweaty palm, and we follow the crew guy, Artemis, through the vessel as he provides us with factoids about everything.
Throughout the tour, Roman seems remarkably chatty and relaxed, and not the least bit suspicious of me, so I feel confident I’ve somehow managed to maintain a poker face for the first time in my life.
The tour ends, and Roman and I settle onto lounge chairs on the top deck to await the arrival of our cocktails and appetizers.
“I’ll tell Leo where to find you,” Artemis says as he departs. “Enjoy.”
“Isn’t this amazing?” I say brightly when the crew member is gone. “I’ve never been—”
“You googled me in the bathroom.”
My cheeks blaze. “Hmm?”
“You heard that guy say my last name, so you ran off and googled me in the bathroom.” Roman chuckles. “Don’t try to deny it, Iris. It’s written all over your face.”
I blush. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Did you do the same thing while I was gone?”
“Google you?” Roman shakes his head and laughs. “No need, when I already got a background check on you on day one.” When my jaw hangs open, Roman adds, “I took a photo of your driver’s license while you were in the shower and sent it to Cameron—my agent.”
I gasp. “Why?”
Roman shrugs. “To make sure you weren’t a reporter or a kook. A guy in my position can’t be too careful.”
“Cameron isn’t your business partner?”
“He is, in a sense. An agent is similar to a business partner. They work on commission.” Roman sighs at the sour expression on my face. “Please, don’t look at me like that, Iris.”
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t know me at all. I’m still the same guy you’ve been hanging out with. Nothing’s changed.”
That seems like a crock of bullshit to me, but before I reply, our nice waiter, Leo, arrives with cocktails and a fancy charcuterie board, which he places on a small table between our lounge chairs.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Nothing for now,” Roman says politely. “Iris?”
“Nothing, thank you,” I manage to say, even though my mind feels like it’s a computer that’s buffering. I don’t know if it’s fair or not, an overreaction or not, but I can’t stop remembering the moment I cracked into Brandon’s secret phone and my entire world came crashing down.
“What are you thinking?” Roman asks with a sigh.
I take a deep breath. “That you lied to me. That I don’t know you at all.”
“You do, though,” Roman insists, his jaw muscles tight. “Better than most, I’d argue, since you’ve had the unique chance to get to know me as me.”
I force air into my lungs. “Look, I get why you did it. You’re a prince cosplaying a commoner to escape the stresses of your royal life.
It’s a tale as old as time. Or at least, as old as Aladdin.
But understanding it doesn’t mean I can easily process it, especially after everything I’ve been through. ”
“You’re upset.”
I ponder that. “I think I’m more . . . shocked.”
He looks annoyed. “Okay, well, if you could get over that shock as quickly as possible, I’d appreciate it, because I’m excited about what’s on tap for us today.
” He picks up one of the drinks, apparently to emphasize his determination to have fun today, no matter what.
But while he sips, I continue staring at him, incredulous. He can’t be serious.
“Why lie about UT Austin?” I blurt, glaring at him.
“Honestly, it pained me to do it. I bleed Michigan maize and blue. But I knew Chad Roman went to UT Austin, so I figured if you googled Roman and UT Austin, he’d come up, instead of me.”
I can’t help smiling at that, despite the churning of my stomach. I bite my lip, trying not to smile, but finally, I exhale and admit, “He did.”
“Hmm?”
“Chad Roman. He came up on the internet when I tried to find you.”
Roman bursts out laughing, and I can’t help laughing, too. And all of a sudden, the situation doesn’t seem quite as dire to me as it did a moment ago. True, he lied to me. But he’s my vacation fling, not my fiancé.
“You tried to find me, did you?” Roman says flirtatiously. “You little sneak.”
I snort. “I sure did. Every which way I could.” I rattle off all the ways I unsuccessfully tried to figure out Roman’s identity over the past four days, and he hoots with laughter and tells me he’s duly impressed.
I bat his broad shoulder. “And it turns out, that entire time, you had a background check on me in your back pocket!”
“Sorry.”
He’s not sorry. In fact, he’s clearly deeply impressed with himself.
“You did that Longhorn thing with your hand, Roman! You know, when you told me you went to UT Austin! Did you really have to sell the bit that hard?”
Roman winces. “Yeah, in retrospect, that was too much.”
“Way too much.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Why was it so important for me not to know the truth about you?”
“Would we be sitting here now if I’d told you my true profession from day one?”
I consider that. But there’s only one honest answer. “No, I’d have been too freaked out to talk to you the way I did.”
“Bingo.”
I shift in my lounge chair. “But still, you’ve told me a shit ton of lies this week, Roman, and as you can imagine, I’m particularly sensitive to being told lies of any kind at the moment.”
He instantly looks remorseful. “I’m sorry, Iris. The last thing I wanted to do was throw salt on your wounds. All I wanted to do was make you feel good and help you forget your broken heart for a while.” He looks and sounds sincere. So much so, I can’t help patting his arm reassuringly.
“It’s okay. But can you please stop telling me lies from now on, now that I know the truth about you?” We’ve only got three days left together, after all. It shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Roman takes my hand and kisses the top of it. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I exhale. “Thank you.” Now that I’m past the initial shock, it occurs to me it doesn’t matter all that much to me that my vacation fling kept his football stardom a secret while also treating me to the best dates and sex of my life.
If all Roman’s gotten in return for all he’s done for me this week was some no-strings sex and the chance to escape the pressures of his fame for a while, that seems like a reasonable exchange.
Would I want to date Roman in real life, now that I know he’s this good at lying?
Hell no. But I’ll happily continue having a fling in paradise with him for the remainder of my time on the island.
“Now that I’ve promised full honesty, I should confess something else to you,” Roman says. “I’d already seen the video, when you showed it to me.”
I bat his shoulder again, making him chuckle. “No wonder you reacted so calmly to it. You’d already had your freak-out in private.”
“I didn’t freak out the first time, either. The way I reacted in your presence was the same way I reacted when Cameron sent it to me.”
“Which was when?”
“A few minutes before I came back to the bungalow from my run and you showed me the video yourself.”
“Why not tell me you’d already seen it?”
“Because to do that, I would have had to admit I’d sneaked a snapshot of your license for a background check.
That was simple due diligence, by the way.
I never sincerely doubted you.” He twists his mouth.
“I should also confess: The morning you showed me the video, I actually came back from my run earlier than it seemed. While you were talking on the phone talking with your friends, I hid near the door and eavesdropped for a while before making my presence known.”
“Roman!” I cover my face with my hands, remembering all the racy things I said about Roman to my friends. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. I loved everything you said.” He pulls gently on my hands, making me lower them.
“Everything you said made me want to invite you to stay with me for the week, even more.” With a soft smile, he leans in and kisses me, and my body reacts like it always does, even though my mind is still racing.
If I’d known about Roman’s superstardom when I walked in on him in that shower, I never would have had the courage to stick around and talk to him, let alone flirt with him.
So, in that sense, I’m grateful Roman didn’t scare me off by revealing his true profession before today.
On the other hand, however, did he really have to lie so freaking much—and so freaking well—to a woman who’s recently been shredded by endless lies?
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Roman says, like he’s read my mind. “I know what your ex put you through.”
I exhale. “There’s no comparison between what he did and what you did.” It’s the truth. “Like I said, I get why you concocted a fake persona. I’m sure it’s been relaxing for you to be a gym owner-slash-personal trainer for a while.”
“More than you could possibly know.” He pauses. “But I didn’t concoct a fake persona. I know I told you some lies to keep my life back home a secret, but I’ve been myself with you in every way that counts.”
I don’t see how that’s possible, but I also don’t see the point in arguing about it. Not when he’s given me the best week of my life when I needed it most—a perfect sweet escape—and I’ve always known our time together would be short.
“You’ve been a godsend to me this week, Iris,” Roman says, his dark eyes pleading for forgiveness. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and spending time with you has made me forget all about it.”
“What kind of stress?”
Roman looks around before replying, “I can’t go into too much detail, but I’m going to a new team next season. That’s why I keep talking to my agent, Cameron. He’s trying to negotiate a big deal for me.”
I bite my lip. “I’m assuming that’s a good thing? Are you happy to be making a change?”
“Very happy.”
“From what I read, you’ve done really well with your current team.”
Roman lets out a long sigh. “After three Super Bowl losses, a lot of people have branded me as a choker, though. But it’s a team sport, you know?
I can’t help it when my receivers drop balls thrown smack into their hands.
Or when my kicker misses what should have been an easy winning field goal.
” He runs a hand through his dark hair and stares at the choppy waves of the ocean beyond the railing of the yacht.
“The ownership of my current team wants me to win singlehandedly—without them shelling out money for some top-tier players to support me. But I can only do so much on my own; I need reliable targets.” He grunts in frustration.
“Five years ago, they brought in this head coach who’s such a goddamned prick.
I could go on and on about why I hate him, but suffice it to say he thinks berating me and calling me a slacker-choker-loser is going to be the magic bullet that somehow pulls the best out of me. ”
I scoff. “That goes against basic psychology. Nobody—I don’t care if they’re children or adults, schoolteachers or professional athletes—responds positively to being put down and belittled all the time. People respond best to positive reinforcement and constructive criticism from a trusted source.”
Roman beams a smile at me. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I mean that literally.”
I shrug. “It’s the truth.”
“Maybe you should be the head coach of the Crusaders. You couldn’t do any worse than the current guy, and you might do a whole lot better.”
I make a tipping scale with my arms. “Preschool kids, NFL players. Same-same.”
“Closer than you think.” With a chuckle, he sips his drink and looks out at the ocean again.
“Football’s a business. I know that.” He returns to me with blazing eyes.
“But I’m a human being, and I need the right support system around me to be happy and effective.
So, that’s what I’m gonna get myself. Happy. ”
“As you should.”
Roman looks down at his large hands. “I do sometimes wonder if the haters are right, though. If maybe I’m all washed up.”
“No, Roman.”
“What if I get to a new team and all the bullshit follows me? What if I never live up to all the ‘Roman Maguire’ hype?”
“You already have. You’ve broken records.”
“I don’t have a Super Bowl ring, though. That’s the only stat that matters in my line of work.”
“When you make the change to a new team, everything will click into place. I’m sure of it.
” I set down my cocktail and slide into Roman’s lounger with him.
“When you’re surrounded by people who believe in you and give you what you need to succeed, I’ve got zero doubt you’ll have your best season yet. ”
“Thank you, Iris,” Roman whispers with a shudder. He pulls me to him and kisses me, and for the next I-don’t-know-how-long, we kiss and make out on that crowded lounger like the world has melted away and we didn’t get the memo.