Chapter Six
Aweathered beachside restaurant comes into view.
Faded pastel paint adorns the rustic exterior, and the weather-worn wooden planks exude a nostalgic charm that calls to my vintage-loving heart. “What is this?”
Owen points to the battered sign gently swaying in the breeze—Seaside Serenade.
It draws me in, just like the villa.
Owen holds the door open, and I take the invitation. The coziness continues inside, with warm lighting casting a soft glow over the small arrangement of tables and chairs and the bar close to the open window. The murmur of waves draws my eyes to the view of the ocean, which is just as breathtaking as at the villa.
“This is gorgeous.”
Owen’s hand touches the small of my back as he leans close to my ear. “I thought you’d like it.”
He’s right, but how? This is the opposite of Eloise’s style.
The question slips from my thoughts as his breath tickles my ear and curls around my neck. The warm rush of air slips between my breasts and tightens my nipples. I press my arms together to hide the hard points, but that threatens to make me spill over the top because Eloise’s dresses are too damn tight.
And thin—as Owen leads me to our table, I can feel the heat from his fingers on my back as if no fabric separates us.
He pulls out my chair, and my traitorous body thrums with pleasure at the gesture as I sit.
“This reminds me of the villa.”
“Harold and Julia lived in the villa while Harold was the caretaker of the resort. Julia loved to decorate. When Harold retired, they used their savings to open this place. Their son, Louis, runs it now.” His smile softens. “I spent a lot of summers playing on the beach by the villa and drinking root beer floats at that window seat.”
He nods to a seat by the window that overlooks the beach.
“You grew up here?”
He nods. “My father bought the resort when I was a kid, so we’d come here every summer for a few weeks after my mother died. Julia would babysit me while he worked. Even though the villa is small, it was comfortable and felt more like a home than the penthouse apartment I lived in with my father.”
“That’s how I used to feel about my parents’ bed-and-breakfast.” My lips curl upward, genuinely happy to share a sliver of memory with him. “I love how Louis has kept the essence of his parents here and embraced the family of family business.”
I wish my own family-business history was that happy.
“Is that important to you?”
After knowing what it feels like to lose it, my answer is easy. “Yes.”
Owen looks contemplative for a moment before shooting me a playful look. “Wait until you taste the food.”
His eyes drop to my lips.
What did I taste like when he kissed me?
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and I drop my gaze to the menu. Ugh, stop acting like a sweet blushing virgin. He’s not yours.
But the more time we spend together, the more I wonder if marriage to Owen Phillips wouldn’t be so bad.
For Eloise, I mean.
“Look who decided to trade a white tablecloth and wine for sandy floors and warm beer.” A woman appears at our table, pen and notepad in her hand.
She’s all legs in her tiny black shorts, and she has eyes only for Owen.
“Hello, Amy.” He smiles at our waitress. “How have you been?”
“You’d know if you answered my texts.”
I look between them, a knot quickly forming in my stomach.
“Things have been… busy.”
She places a hand on his arm and squeezes, the touch comforting but overly familiar. “I heard about your dad. Sorry.”
Owen tips his head, acknowledging her words. “Thank you.”
They must be friends. I feel guilty about the weird spasm of jealousy I’m feeling.
“What can I get you?” she asks Owen.
I smile, waiting for her to look at me or even acknowledge that I’m here, but she doesn’t.
“We will start with a bottle of wine.” Owen gives her the name of a vintage so expensive it would make my lavish father giddy.
“I’ve always wanted to try that one. Save me a sip.”
My brow lifts automatically. Is she hitting on him?
Amy leaves before Owen can respond.
Well, I now have in-person proof that he didn’t need to negotiate a deal for a bride.
“Why did you make a deal with my father?”
He rests his forearms on the table and steeples his fingers as he looks at me. “Would you rather I let your family business go under?”
I’m not sure how to respond. I don’t want my father to lose his business. But being here reminds me of the first bed-and-breakfast he’d started with my mother and how quickly my father’s vision changed after her death, turning grander and leaving behind the quaint, homey style my mother had embraced. This is the style I wanted to emulate when I took over.
But that dream died with my mother.
“You don’t need to negotiate for a wife. You’re a billionaire—you can have any woman.”
Including the waitress.
“I know,” he states. The confident, teasing twitch at the corner of his mouth is frustratingly sexy. “But none have intrigued me quite like you.”
My heart goes into a spasm, my body thrumming with excitement until I realize who he is talking about.
Eloise.
It hurts even though I already knew it. He chose Eloise, not me. I can’t be angry. I’m the stand-in. At the end of the week, the bride he wants will be intriguing him herself.
“Why does my reasoning matter? Aren’t you glad the family business doesn’t have to be sold off?”
“It stopped being the family business a long time ago.”
He looks taken aback. “How so?”
The memories are old, the pain soothed by a decade and now sitting like a dull, distant ache in my chest. “My mother was an artist—her art hung all through the first BB my father owned—and she would teach guests how to paint. When she died, my father focused on expanding the business and turning it into something that didn’t remind him of his heartbreak.”
“But that added to yours.” His voice is soft, understanding. “Your mother is the reason you draw.”
I nod. I missed those days, when my father was full of passion and my plans revolved around following in my both my parents’ footsteps, running the family business and adding my art to the walls beside my mother’s.
But now my mother’s artwork sits in a storage container, and my father’s drive to outrun his heartbreak has turned our idyllic bed-and-breakfast family business into a large boutique hotel chain that his excessive spending almost bankrupted.
“My father isn’t a safe bet in the hotel industry.” (She shouldn’t say this because she is doing this for her father. Need a section where Owen understands why she is doing this)
“He has valuable experience in the avenue my father and I wished pursue.”
“Boutique hotels?” I ask.
“Hotels that cater to a younger demographic.”
A demographic that includes Eloise’s followers on social media. Is that why he chose to marry her and not me? “So the marriage is just a business decision?”
Does that mean he isn’t attracted to Eloise?
Before I can stop it, excitement starts to build inside me.
“Partly. It was also to stop the gold diggers. Since my father’s death, I seem to attract a lot of women with expensive tastes. I hoped a wife would make them back off.”
He shakes his head and lets out a self-depreciating laugh.
His embarrassment is cute and endearing.
“Why did you kiss me at the wedding?”
“Selfishness.” His gaze drops to my mouth. “You were right when you said I could have any woman I want.”
One long finger traces a path from my knuckle to my fingertip. “I want you.”
The excitement fizzles in a bucket of ice-cold reality.
Does he want me or the woman he thinks I am?
“Here we are.” The waitress is back and pouring two glasses of wine. “Did you decide what you want?”
His gaze darts to his arm where the waitress touches him, then lifts to meet mine.
I feel sick.
Panicked.
Guilty.
“Fish and chips.” I grab the glass of wine and swallow my panic.
I need to tell him but that would put my father’s business deal in jeopardy, and I’d no longer have Owen.
And I don’t want to give him up. Not until I have to.
Why did my father have to lose his mind and invest everything in a business he wasn’t passionate enough about to make it work?
And why did marriage have to be a part of the deal?
I’ve spent my life making myself uncomfortable and putting other people’s needs first to make sure they are happy and get what they want. I quit art school and focused on business because it’s what my father wanted. I played stand-in bride so my sister could interview for her dream job.
I’ve put my heart on the line for everyone else.
For once I want to put myself first, confess everything and ride off into the sunset with my romantic lead.
But this isn’t a romance novel or a sketch I can lose myself in.
Owen already admitted to not being able to trust women’s motivations. What is he going to think when he finds out I’ve been lying to him since we met?
But have I?
He’s seen me sketching. We’ve talked about my past. Outside of wearing Eloise’s clothes, it’s been me he’s spent time with.
Is it me he wants?
This is so confusing.
I gulp the rest of my wine and pour a second glass.
Two hours later the lights are dim, the music is thumping, and tables are pushed to the side to create a makeshift dance floor.
Alcohol and the avoidance strategy I’ve employed have kept me dancing. I don’t know how long I’ve been moving to the music, but I have that fluid lightness that goes with too much alcohol and dopamine.
Owen watches me from the bar, his gaze slowly sliding down my body, tightening the sensitive skin between my thighs.
I lift my arms in the air and rock my hips from side to side, calling him to me with my body.
His fingers grip the glass tighter.
I shouldn’t have had that last drink. It tipped me over the edge from avoiding Owen to burning with the need to feel him pressed against me.
He stands, pushing the barstool out of the way.
My belly tightens until Amy touches his arm.
Jealousy is hot and fiery in my veins, but I’m not quite drunk enough not to realize that if I go over there, sober Charlotte will regret it in the morning.
I should go home, get into bed, and sleep away the rest of the week until I figure out what the heck I am going to do.
“Your face is pretty even with that scowl.”
I look over my shoulder. The stranger’s voice is as smooth as his appearance, but there’s an arrogance about him that makes me feel uneasy.
“I like this dress.” He traces the lace pattern of Eloise’s dress down my waist and flattens his palm over my hip.
My body tenses, fear and panic taking over.
I’ve never been in a situation like this before. Logically I know this is one of those moments when I need to stand up for myself and say what I want—for him to get his hands off me and back the hell up—but my mind goes blank and my tongue feels paralyzed.
I can feel Owen before I see him. His body heat is pulsing behind me, his anger hot. I want to step back until I’m pressed against him, soaking in his heat and his protection.
The stranger lifts his head to meet Owen’s gaze. “Who are you?”
“Her husband.” Owen’s voice is a deep growl. “Now take your hands off what’s mine.”
The possessiveness in his tone sparks a shiver of desire so intense I feel it in my bones and deep in my core.I want his words to be the truth.
The guy mumbles some sort of apology and shuffles off the dance floor.
Tension leaves my body, replaced by irritation.
I don’t want to feel relieved when he comes to my rescue.
I don’t want to feel safe and desired when he calls me his.
I don’t want to feel anything for the man I’m playing house with until the one he really wants gets back.
“Are you OK?” he asks, his voice soft, soothing, and his breath like a soft caress on my neck.
“I’m fine.” I walk to the bar and order a bottle of water. “I’m surprised you even noticed what was happening. Where is your waitress?”
“You make it sound like she is my personal waitress.” Owen sidles up beside me, resting his elbow on the bar. With the wall on one side of me and Owen on the other, I’m shielded from the rest of the room.
His close proximity is doing all the wrong things to my already cracking avoidance strategy. “She wanted to be your personal something.”
“Are you jealous?” His smirk is back. “I can’t stop people from flirting with me, especially when the one who owns me doesn’t claim me.”
He wanted me to tell her he was mine.
I bite my bottom lip and close my eyes, the thought of saying that igniting a spark that will quickly turn into an orgasm once I’m alone.
Mine. I want it to be true.
But it’s not.
“You’re just the guy who paid my father to marry one of his daughters.” That’s not lying, right? “This is a marriage of convenience.” I think. My alcohol-muddled brain is having a hard time connecting meaning to words.“You already stole a kiss. I won’t let you steal anything else.”
Like my virginity. Heat fills my breasts with the thought, tightening my nipples. I fold my arms over my chest. “You might as well go and sleep with your waitress.”Please don’t. “Because you won’t be touching me.”
He steps forward until the edge of the bar presses against my back. He’s so close I can feel the outline of his body from the heat burning against my thighs.
My hips want to arch toward him on instinct, but I hold them still.
He tilts his head forward, bringing his mouth so close to mine I can taste the last glass of whiskey he drank. “You don’t want me to touch you?”
My throat bobs. “I don’t.”
His nose lightly brushes my chin. “You sure about that?”
No.
He bends forward slightly and slips one hand between us to touch my knee. “You don’t want me to do this?”
Short teasing strokes inch higher up my thigh with every pass. “Or this?”
My thighs open wider. “No?”
He chuckles. “Is that a question or an answer?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should check.”
“Check what?”
“If I’m wet.”
He curses under his breath. “Let’s go.”
Anticipation makes my hands shaky and my legs feel weak. Is this really happening?
My avoidance strategy is crumpled on the floor, just like my inhibition.
I walk out of the restaurant, trying to keep my feet steady as I turn toward our car, the driver already waiting on the side of the road. I climb inside; he follows.
Sitting side by side, I’m aware of every movement—the slight rise and fall of his shoulders with every breath, his fingers lightly tapping his knee, drawing my attention to the watch around his wrist and the way it highlights the muscles in his arms.
I press a palm to my hot cheek.
Owen’s gaze is on me, that sexy, confident smirk playing on his lips.
The car pulls up at the villa. I climb out first, open the villa door, and walk in.
There’s something in the back of my mind trying to remind me why being with him is a bad idea, but it’s foggy and muffled by the lust coursing through my body.
I grip the sofa to hold my body steady. Can arousal make the room look like it’s tilting?
Arms slip beneath my knees and around my back to scoop me up. I wrap my arms around his neck, press my nose to his skin, and breathe him in. “You smell like dessert. I bet you taste just as good.”
“Fuck, you’re driving me crazy.”
I press my lips to his neck and flick my tongue, tasting the saltiness of his skin and the ocean breeze. “You’ve been driving me crazy since you kissed me, and then it got worse when I found out you build houses for people who can’t afford them.”
I groan into his shoulder. “Why couldn’t you be old and wrinkly and unable to get it up?”
His chuckle is a deep vibration in his chest that rumbles through me. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve been hard since the moment I saw you.”
He lowers me to the soft, downy blankets on the bed and tries to pull away, but I tug him toward me, parting my knees so he can stand between.
He boxes me in with his hands on either side of my head and sinks closer until I can feel the soft fabric of his suit pants brush my inner thighs. “What are you doing?”
“Show me,” I whisper.
“What?”
“How hard I make you.”
His nostrils flare and his pupils dilate until there is barely any color in his eyes. He rocks forward, and I feel him, thick and rigid beneath his pants.
The ache in my belly moves lower until I feel a slick heat pulsing between my thighs.
“More.” I whimper.
“You’re drunk,” he whispers against my cheek, my arms still locked around his neck, unwilling to let go. “I should go.”
I shake my head. “No.”
I’m tipsy, but I know what I’m doing. I know what I want. “Stay.”