: Chapter 9

The problem with infinity is that you can’t count to it.

I’m trying.

I’m desperately trying.

I’m at six million, four hundred twenty-three thousand, two hundred sixty-one, with my eyes closed, a sheep pictured for every increase in count, allergy medicine consumed, headache medicine consumed, and my brain will not shut off.

“Are you mad at me?” Begonia whispers in the dark.

I stifle an irritated sigh. “Whyever would I be angry with you, my darling bluebell?”

“Sarcasm still isn’t attractive on you, but I’d probably be cranky if I hadn’t slept in seven days too.”

Three. Not quite three.

“You should’ve told me about the weddings and funeral,” she adds. “Your mother and Bachelorettes One and Two are not buying this fake relationship, because I don’t know enough about you.”

She’s on a pile of blankets on the floor—the side away from the door—because I refused to let her sleep in the closet, and she refused to sleep in my bed with me. This entire day has been one disaster after another, after two intense days of wedding-everything, and now I can’t fucking fall asleep.

I sigh again and roll to my left. The dog has been successfully locked away for the night, the French doors are cracked open to the balcony, letting in a hint of the cool salty breeze off the ocean and the sound of the surf rolling to shore. The sheets are clean and dog hair-free, and Begonia insisted on vacuuming in here herself after dinner to make sure the room was as clean as possible.

I should be dead asleep by now.

“Were you close to your cousin?” she whispers.

“Begonia. Be quiet.”

“I didn’t sleep for almost a week after I moved into my apartment when I left Chad. I was bottling up everything inside, lying in bed at night second-guessing myself and wondering where I’d gone wrong. I thought I could’ve done something differently, and that I’d been a bad wife when I’d tried so hard to be a good wife. Then there was my mother, insisting I was a fool for leaving a decent man and that I’d be alone forever. It took Hyacinth coming to see me and telling me she couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t sleep, and that we needed to talk it out so we could both sleep again. So we did. We talked it out, and then we both slept.”

Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t— “Why the hell couldn’t Hyacinth sleep?”

“Cosmic twin connection. Just like I had horrible cramps when she was in labor both times.”

I sigh.

She rustles on the floor, and a moment later, the light flips on in the bathroom.

I growl softly.

She did a decent enough job distracting two of the three women at any given time today so that I could get the study set up for the work I need to start on tomorrow, but she’s inept at managing three high-maintenance women at once, so I was never alone.

Amelia wanted my opinion on business topics and her website and to ask how long I intended to play boyfriend to a common high school art teacher.

Charlotte wanted to know what she could fetch me to make my life easier, and I’m fairly certain she would’ve fetched me herself in lingerie if I’d moved my face the wrong way.

My mother wanted to know how long I plan to be here, if I realize the dangers of dating a civilian unfamiliar with life as a Rutherford, and why I would ever choose to date a woman with not just a dog, but a dog who was clearly talented at uncovering things best kept in drawers and closets.

And Begonia was loud even when she was quiet.

She has a special talent.

Tomorrow, I’m kicking my mother and her guests out of my house so I can relegate Begonia to a guest room with orders to keep everyone out and invent creative stories about how madly we’re in love so that when we break up, I’ll get at least a six-month window before anyone starts hounding me again.

If I could take off in a private jet and parachute myself to the ground somewhere over an uninhabited tropical island that was miraculously stocked with food, alcohol, and an internet connection so that I could tackle all of my new duties for Razzle Dazzle remotely, I would in a heartbeat.

“Sit up,” Begonia says, suddenly near me.

Something earthy and feminine tickles my nose. Flowery, but not unpleasant. I open one eye and peer into the darkness at the woman nudging my shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Helping you get to sleep. Your mom said dogs and strawberries are your only allergies. You’re not allergic to lavender too, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. I lit some lavender incense. Breathe deep. It’ll help you relax. And sit up and scoot down.”

“No.”

“Sit up and scoot down. Don’t make me get your mother.”

“My mother would welcome any excuse to throw you out.”

“You really don’t understand who you’ve asked to be your fake girlfriend yet, do you?”

I know that I’m completely uncomfortable with how lovely that scent is, along with once again feeling blood surge to my cock the same way it did when I kissed her earlier.

I needed to convince my mother that I was falling for an ignorant disaster of a woman, not trick my body into thinking there was hope for a companion the next time I wanted physical release.

Instead, I have—well.

I have Begonia.

In my bedroom.

Lighting incense.

And bending over me with her breasts swaying beneath a low-cut nightgown that’s somehow simple cotton, yet the most erotic thing I’ve been up close and personal with in weeks, and oddly preferable to that pink lace bra her dog so helpfully pulled out of Amelia’s luggage.

“Yes, yes, you’re a terrifying woman,” I say. “It was your master plan all along to lie in wait here so you could surprise the weird Rutherford brother and score yourself the last eligible billionaire on the planet, and now you have me right where you want me.”

She twists my ear, and I barely stifle a startled shriek of outrage that my mother would hear.

She growls softly. “Sit. Up. And. Scoot. Down.”

I’m not sleeping.

Might as well be entertained.

I do as she orders, and the infernal woman takes a seat, cross-legged, on my pillow, then pats her bare thighs. “Lie down. Face up.”

“I’m certainly not planning to return to that pillow face-down.”

“Don’t be an ass. Lie down. I’d very much like to not fake being madly in love with a grumpy-pants for the next two weeks, and that means you need to get some sleep.”

I refuse to consider if it’s curiosity or the threat that has me reclining back onto the bed, settling my head into Begonia’s lap, but soon, that’s exactly where I am.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath,” she says softly.

I should not trust this woman, but my body is exhausted, my mind is beyond rational thought, and the lavender scent is rather nice. So I do as she orders, letting my eyelids drift closed while I inhale.

My body stiffens when she threads her fingers through my hair, but then she applies pressure to my scalp, and goosebumps race across my flesh.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” she says softly.

I grunt a response.

“Listen to the waves,” she whispers as she rubs my head. “Just breathe and listen to the waves.”

I’ve taken fake girlfriends before. Once at my mother’s request when her best friend’s daughter had been caught in a compromising position and needed her reputation salvaged. My mother wouldn’t have been disappointed if something had come of that relationship, but there was no chemistry, and even if there had been, I wouldn’t have trusted it.

The other times are hazy now.

It’s like Begonia is cleansing my brain of those memories. “Strong fingers,” I murmur.

“Is it too much?”

I try to shake my head, but it won’t move. It’s becoming cement in her hands. Cement on the shore, with the surf rolling in and out over it, but a dry surf.

No water.

Just lavender.

Her fingers move down my scalp to my neck, stroking the tension away with firm hands. Jonas has massages regularly. Weekly, possibly.

I don’t.

I don’t like strangers touching my body.

I shouldn’t let Begonia touch me, but if we’re going to fake intimacy, then I need to be comfortable touching her.

Letting her touch me.

Letting her rock me to sleep on the boat.

I want a lobster pillow.

I want her to use those hands on my cock.

Does her pussy smell like a spa?

Could I crawl inside and hide in there?

Am I—am I falling asleep?

There’s a muted knock somewhere in the distant sludges of my sleepy brain, and then my mother’s voice, both loud and quiet at the same time. I can’t understand what she’s saying, and I don’t want to.

I want to lie here, in my boat, with a woman’s hands stroking my neck and scratching my scalp, helping all the lights inside my brain flip off, until I finally float away, on my back in a rowboat with a fuchsia-haired mermaid in a cotton nightie smiling at me from the prow.