: Chapter 30

The office is so hectic, I miss dinner with Begonia and Hyacinth in Manhattan, and even with their late night, I’m home after they are. Friday morning, I’m up before the sun, headed back to Albany, before Begonia’s awake.

I miss her.

Despite sleeping next to her all night, I feel as though I haven’t seen her in weeks.

It’s only been three days since we slept under the moon and stars, but it seems like an eternity. The text message updates she sent while shopping with Keisha and Hyacinth weren’t enough. I want to see the light in her eyes and watch her glow as she tells me the story of her day, in bed or over coffee, or in bed with coffee, or while sitting under the stars on a picnic blanket in the hills, and then I want to kiss her and strip her and seduce her until she’s screaming my name for all the world to hear.

It’s a sure sign this is more than the fake relationship she’s signed up for, and it’s a sure sign I should cut my losses, tear up our contract, and get out now.

But when I arrive home at six Friday evening, early enough to get ready for the Windsor Charity Gala tonight, there’s no cut your losses at the top of my mind.

Only dear god, she’s beautiful.

She and Hyacinth are both in the sitting room in my quarters—easily fixed this morning from the accident early this week once I gave orders to the designer and contractors to only accept Begonia’s opinion—each in robes that I suspect they picked up at the spa yesterday, both of them having their hair done.

Begonia’s entire face shines like a full moon on a clear night when she spots me. “Hayes! You’re home! Guess what? I made a bowl that looks like a bowl this morning.”

I do not deserve this woman and her sunshine. I know for a fact that packages have begun arriving for her, gifts from companies hoping the world’s last eligible billionaire’s girlfriend will get caught wearing or using their products in public—and yes, I do mean diamonds, pearls, high-end fashion, and more electronics than you can find at a computer show—yet the first thing she squeals about is making a clay bowl.

How anyone could not adore her is utterly beyond me.

I cross the room, and her stylist retreats as I lean down to kiss her.

I miss kissing her.

Those plump lips and that sweet tongue and her soft noises—she’s exquisitely, uniquely perfect.

“Wow,” Hyacinth says. “You should keep this one, B. I’m getting turned on just watching.”

I pull out of our kiss, and Begonia smiles at me while she wipes at my lips, where I presume I’m now wearing her lipstick. “It’s like having two Keishas in the house,” she whispers.

“I have another house in the Hamptons. We can be there alone by eight if we leave now.”

Begonia laughs. “Of course you do.”

“Hello, Mr. Billionaire. You invited me.” Hyacinth sounds so very similar to my Begonia, but there’s no mistaking the difference between them.

“No arguing,” Begonia declares as she loosens my tie for me. She glances at her sister. “Not when you’re abandoning me right before this ball.”

I lift a brow at Hyacinth.

She sighs. “I miss my babies and my husband and my bed and I kinda can’t wait to walk through my front door looking like a fucking queen. Plus, this dress is totes amazeballs, but I’d spend half the night tugging it up and down to pee, and I’ve needed to tell Jerry he’s getting snipped for a while, and what better time than now, when I can walk through my front door and start issuing orders like I’m the love child of Martha Stewart and Cleopatra? Begonia swore you wouldn’t mind if I took the dress and ran.”

I have no idea what my face is doing right now, but I manage to push aside thoughts of Jerry and his impending doom as I nod. “Correct. Enjoy the dress and run.”

And I get Begonia to myself tonight.

I hardly mind.

She’s already tossing her head back and laughing. “It’s not as bad as she makes it sound,” she assures me.

Hyacinth snorts. “B, you can’t tell a man that. It’s always as bad as we make it sound.”

“Speaking of bad,” I interrupt, “Begonia, have you been to a gala before?”

“In Richmond with Chad. Kind of. Not in New York with the Gossip Girl crowds.”

“If you’ve seen Gossip Girl, you’re prepared.”

“She hasn’t seen it,” Hyacinth offers. “She quit reading the gossip magazines because she was upset when some celebrity went into rehab and it was all the headlines were about for months, and Gossip Girl was like an extension of that.”

I remember. And the reminder of Begonia’s sensitivity for others makes knowing that my time with her is limited even harder to bear.

“Mr. Rutherford, we need to finish,” Begonia’s stylist murmurs.

I acquiesce and retreat to my own dressing room, despite the fact that a leisurely shower will have me ready well before Begonia.

And by leisurely, yes, I do mean I lock the door and double-check it so that the dog can’t get in, close my eyes while the hot water pounds my neck and shoulders, grip my cock, and jerk off to images of Begonia’s glorious body and the memories of her panting my name in the meadow.

And nearly two hours later, I’m waiting in the sitting room off the foyer, reading a biography of Catherine the Great and not comprehending a damn word, when I hear voices.

The ladies are ready.

Hyacinth for her private flight home—she’s reiterated the request through my staff, and all is prepared for her—and Begonia to accompany me.

I step out of the sitting room, casually stroll to the door for the best vantage point despite wanting to jog, and when I glance up, all I can do is stare.

I’ve seen Begonia in a gown before. She was lovely for our evening picnic in Maine.

But tonight, she’s more.

Her bright hair has been trimmed and styled and frames her face, which seems to glow even brighter.

Whatever she’s done with her lashes and her eyes—they utterly pop. Her lips are ripe cupid’s bow cherries, her cheeks soft and round and perfect. She’s selected a few pieces from the family jewels, with emeralds around her neck and dangling from her ears, all complementing her hair.

And the dress—

I’d thought her mermaid dress, as she called it, made her shine.

Tonight’s ensemble puts every other dress in existence to shame. It’s silver, sparkling in the light of the chandelier, with a strap over one shoulder but bare on the other, the fabric clinging to her from her breasts to her hips and flowing down to the floor, with a slit just high enough to let her thigh play peek-a-boo as she descends the stairs. She looks like an elegant holiday package topped with a bright bow, and I would very much like to unwrap her.

Begonia in her leggings and an oversize T-shirt, coated in clay and muddied water, is beautiful.

Begonia in jeans and a crop top pushing a bike along a dirt path on an island in Maine is perfect.

Begonia dressed to the nines for a gala takes my breath away.

And it’s not the dress.

It’s Begonia in the dress.

I do believe she’ll fit in better tonight than I will.

Somehow, she’s managed to dress to fit in with the highest of the high-class in Manhattan, but still maintain everything that makes her her.

“Aww, B, he’s speechless,” Hyacinth whispers, and yes, it’s every bit as loud as you’d expect of Hyacinth whispering.

Begonia touches her cheek as if she’s testing its temperature. “Makeup does this every time,” she whispers back in a much more whispery voice.

“Right? Remember freshman homecoming? You were batting them off like maggots on poop.”

“Hyacinth.”

The brown-haired twin laughs with glee.

She’s in a lovely ivory gown, flowing around her belly, crisscrossed with crepe across her breasts and accented with thin, gold-trimmed straps holding it aloft.

And despite their identicalness, she can’t hold a candle to Begonia, whose eyes are dancing, smile beaming so bright the sun itself would shield its eyes, her shoulders held back, chin high, as if she were royalty in a previous life and will carry this essence of confidence with her until the end of all time.

“Hayes?” she says softly, though that twinkle leaves no doubt she knows why I’m speechless.

“We’re not going,” I hear myself say.

One of her newly-sculpted brows arches as she reaches the bottom step. “No?”

“You’ll outshine the host, though you’ll have her eating out of the palm of your hand within minutes, and then the vultures will descend and they won’t stop with what’s in your hand, but rather they’ll attempt to eat you alive. You don’t belong to this crowd, Begonia. They’re too cutthroat, and you’re too perfect.”

I need to stop talking.

There are witnesses, and I’ve just nearly confessed to adoring her beyond reason.

She smooths a hand over my lapel. “Hayes. We’re going, and I’m going to try caviar and hate it and dribble it down my dress and horrify your crowd, which is perfect, since you hate hanging out with them, and then they won’t invite you back.”

Hyacinth laughs, the sound echoing throughout the foyer. “You two are seriously a match made in heaven. Also, call me when the caviar thing happens so I can talk you down. It will not be as bad as you think it is.”

Begonia squeezes her sister’s hand. “What if I spill red wine on someone wearing a dress like yours?”

“Then Hayes will come to your rescue,” Hyacinth replies. “And he gets out of ever going to these things again. Why don’t you like these things, Hayes? Are they terrible? Or is this just not your crowd?”

The stylist is long gone.

My housekeeper is quietly retreating back upstairs.

Keisha, Millie, and Uncle Antonio have departed.

It’s just us.

“Hyacinth, would you like to spend your days doing nothing more than operating the preschool’s parent club?” Begonia asks.

She shudders. “Hush your mouth.”

“High society is to Hayes what preschool parent club is to you. Great for some, but not for all.”

“Oh, jeez. At least my kids will eventually outgrow preschool.”

I choke on an unexpected laugh, which earns me another of those magnificent Begonia smiles.

“Will Liliane or Amelia be there?” she asks with an innocent bat of her lashes.

I can’t stop smiling back at her. “My world is not ready for you, Begonia.”

“Keisha operates in your world. They are more than ready for me.”

The front door opens, and Robert steps inside. “The helicopter is ready, sir.”

“Oh my god, take all the pictures!” Hyacinth tackles Begonia in a hug. “And can I pee before we get on the helicopter? I can’t hug you after I pee or I might have to pee again.”

Begonia laughs, then bends to kiss her sister’s belly before hugging her tight. “Go on. We’ll wait.”

Hyacinth waddles deeper into the house to reach the bathroom.

Robert ducks out the front door.

And I turn to settle a hand on Begonia’s waist and brush a kiss to her jaw. “You are breathtakingly gorgeous this evening.”

“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I thought…”

“Whatever you thought, you thought correctly. We do, unfortunately, have to go. What’s this scent? It’s intoxicating.”

“You like it?”

“I’m enraptured. You wear it well.”

“Keisha gave it to me. She’s working on a secret project to take over the world with beauty products on the side.”

“Hm.”

“Hm?”

“She’ll overcharge me exorbitantly to buy the scent so only you can wear it.”

Begonia laughs as she arches into my body, but stops suddenly. “Oh my god, you’re serious.”

“If I have to endure society and people because of my family’s success, I may as well reap the benefits of a private perfume for my girlfriend.”

My cock is rock-hard, again. Touching Begonia’s smooth skin, inhaling that delectable fragrance complementing her unique sweet scent, pressing my body against her curves—she’s a land Siren, and I am hopelessly devoted to her.

There are so few ways this can end well.

And right now, I don’t care.

Right now, all that matters is that she’s here, and under whatever guise, right now, she’s mine.