The Wedding Fling

by Meg Maguire

  “Well, I’m sure I get that channel at my place. Feel free to come watch a game, in exchange for tonight’s party.”

  He met her gaze squarely for a breath. “I may just take you up on that.”

  “You’ll have to make it worth my while, of course.” She rubbed her fingers together and bobbed her eyebrows at him, as silly as she’d been with anyone in weeks.

  “You’ll fit in just fine here, Miss Bailey.”

  Their gazes lingered longer than was casual before they turned back to the road. Leigh felt that heat again, the one she wished was as simple as sunburn. This time it had nothing to do with revenge, a shift that felt at once joyous and dangerous.

  “That’s it.” Will nodded to the farthest house in the settlement, bigger than his own but also on stilts, with rounded lavender shingles like fish scales. Tiki torches were lit along the beach, a grill smoking and a dozen people milling around it, cups and beer bottles waving as arms gestured. The breeze carried their laughter, and the aromas of sizzling meat and ocean breeze and that distinctive Caribbean scent, of flowers and sand and the vastness of the sky here. Leigh breathed it in, drank in the color of the clouds as dusk approached. She filled herself with this place, so full there’d be no room for a single bad thought.

  Will kicked off his sandals at the roadside as they headed for the beach. He glanced at her. “Ready?”

  She looked at the people. “Sure. Seems calm enough to me.”

  He grinned. “Wait till the sun goes down.”

  “You guys can’t be crazier than the nutjobs back in L.A.”

  They rounded the house to the beach, and a few partygoers cheered as they spotted Will.

  “Everyone!” he bellowed. “There is royalty among us peasants this evening.”

  More cheers and a few whistles sounded, and a couple of bottles raised in Leigh’s direction.

  “Her highness wants a taste of how the real islanders live,” Will went on with an indulgent grin. “So do be on your worst behavior.”

  He led Leigh across the warm sand and set his cooler near the grill. A tall, big-bellied man greeted him with a hand clasp and a slap on the back before turning his smile on the party’s newcomer.

  “Oscar, this is Leigh, staying at Shearwater. Leigh, this is Oscar, your host for this evening.”

  She shook Oscar’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you.” His attention shifted as Will pulled two shining blue fish from the cooler. “Ah, beauties! Bethany will be pleased.”

  Will handed off the gift and rinsed his hands in the ice. Oscar left them to deliver the fish to the immensely pregnant woman manning the grill.

  “You caught those?” Leigh asked Will.

  He nodded. “I go out most mornings. Motorboat, not canoe.”

  “Wow.” She caught it this time, mocking herself before Will got the chance. “Wow....”

  He smiled. “Get you a drink? Cocktail? Beer?”

  Not sure she was ready for whatever filled people’s plastic tumblers, she opted for a beer. Following Will inside to a bustling kitchen, she smiled nervously at the other guests as he found her a bottle. She was introduced in warmly teasing tones, a flurry of names and faces. Leigh’s nerves returned, seeing how intimately they all knew one another, how laughter seemed to quiet when her guest status was announced.

  She leaned close to Will. “Is it making people uncomfortable, my being here?”

  “Uncomfortable is too strong. Not like the boss is in the room. But you do change the atmosphere. You’ve got the power to complain.”

  “I don’t want to spoil anyone’s good time.” And she certainly didn’t want to be anyplace where’d she feel once again like an outsider.

  Will nudged her with his elbow. “Give them a few more drinks, an hour or so to get used to you. Just be yourself.”

  “Be myself.” Whoever that was. Leigh straightened, sipping her beer and deciding to do just what he’d said. She did know who she was. It was her family and Dan and all those strangers in Hollywood who’d tricked her into believing she was someone else, someone different, some face off a screen or magazine spread.

  Outside, a drum sounded. Will nodded to the exit and she preceded him into the cooler air, the darkening evening. She met a few more people, all polite but unmistakably distant once they learned she was a paying guest. She and Will wandered to the water’s edge, until they were wading in the sea, sipping their drinks, watching the torchlight bouncing off the dark waves that lapped at their shins. They’d both gone quiet, and Leigh wondered how much of a damper she was putting on his evening.

  Will cleared his throat before asking, “So, do you regret it? Leaving him?”

  She met his gaze, shocked. Shocked he’d been wondering something so personal, so sentimental, and equally surprised to realize the question hadn’t yet crossed her mind. But the answer needed no speculation. It would be ages before she could feel anything good about Dan. Though she hoped she could eventually forgive him, she knew he was now a figment purely of the past. “No, I don’t regret it.”

  Will nodded, expression neutral as he turned his attention back to shore.

  Leigh exhaled a long and melancholy sigh, and in its wake she felt relief unknotting her muscles. “It would’ve been a huge mistake if I’d gone through with it. The way I realized I couldn’t marry him... It hurts, anyhow. It’s humiliating and complicated, but once all that fades, I’ll be happy with my decision.”

  “You seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

  “For a celebrity,” Leigh said wryly.

  “For anybody.” He sipped his drink, not meeting her eyes. “How could you end up at the altar with any doubt in your mind?”

  “It’s hard to explain. You have to think of fame as a drug. It does stuff to your head. It gets you sort of drunk or high, and reality’s modified. Especially when everyone around you seems to see things the same way.” She watched the quavering reflection of her calves in the water. “Like you’re all seeing the world in a funhouse mirror, but everyone agrees that it looks the same, so you just... You get used to the warp, I guess.”

  “Enough to marry the wrong man?”

  “Nearly. I know, it sounds awful.”

  “Sounds typical, though. The Hollywood crowd aren’t known for their stellar marital track record.”

  Leigh nodded. “My fiancé—the guy he used to be, anyhow—I would’ve married him, no hesitation. But by the time the big day arrived, he was different. And it’s so easy in that world to tell yourself, ‘things will be normal again, after X happens.’ Your movie wraps or the ink dries on your next contract. But X happens and things don’t just go back to normal. Normal is something you opt out of when you sign up to be part of the entertainment business.”

  “Lots of people dream of having what you do.”

  “I know they do.”

  “But not you.”

  She sipped her beer, considering. “I never wanted to be famous. I was seventeen and all I wanted to do was dance, and maybe see if I could build a life out of it. The fame was a fluke, but it had its own momentum, especially when I saw how proud it made my parents. I’m sort of a people pleaser. Okay, I’m a massive people pleaser.”

  Will laughed, the rich sound as relaxing as the alcohol. As warm and intimate as she imagined his breath might feel on her neck.

  “It’s hard for me to admit I don’t want any of it anymore,” Leigh said, “knowing how ungrateful so many people would say I was if I quit.”

  “Fans, you mean?”

  “Fans, sure. But there’s way more guilt about your family, for whatever they may have sacrificed. And from all the people who believed in your talent, pushed you and promoted you. But I also know I’m expendable. I’m not the ‘it’ girl-next-door, twenty-year-old actress anym
ore.”

  He finally met her eyes, his blue ones seeming as bright in the torchlight as they were in the sunshine. “Washed up at twenty-five? That’s harsh.”

  “Twenty-seven, but yeah. I’m a certain kind of commodity, and my time’s peaked. There’s an army of perky replacements happy to take my old roles.”

  “Ouch.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, my expiration date’s fast approaching.”

  They shared a smile, again lingering just longer than was innocent. Her gaze moved to his bare chest before she got hold of herself and turned to watch the party on the beach. People were eating and laughing, and more musicians had joined the drummer, as children danced in the sand.

  “So what do you want to do?” Will asked. “If your dream of becoming a nobody comes true.”

  She kept her eyes on the party. “I want to dance.”

  “Like on stage or—”

  “No, right now. I want to dance.” No thoughts of what to do once she got home. Just enjoy the present, the simple pleasures of this place.

  She sloshed to shore and left her bottle in a milk crate full of empties. The two children who’d run past earlier were hopping and gyrating before the band, and as Leigh approached they looked up at her, curious.

  “What’s the best dance you guys know?” Leigh asked them.

  After a pause, the older child demonstrated her moves, a hip-thrusting motion accompanied by a rolling of her narrow shoulders, bawdy if not for the fact the kid was only about ten. Leigh mimicked the choreography, earning herself a hesitant grin.

  “Look, look,” said the younger girl. She offered her own signature moves, something equally raunchy she must have stolen from a music video. Leigh gave it a go, until the little girl dissolved into giggles.

  “What?”

  The child pointed to Leigh’s butt.

  “You got no ass,” said the older girl.

  Leigh laughed, faking offense. “Sure I do.”

  “You all flat back there. Like all them skinny, rich white ladies.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “You oughta eat more,” the smaller girl announced loudly, earning a reprimand and waggle of grill tongs from her mother. “Sorry.”

  “Anyhow,” Leigh said, “you can dance with whatever size butt you’ve got. Show me any moves you have, I bet I can do them as well as you.”

  “Bet you can’t,” the older girl taunted.

  “Bet I can. Go on, let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Will wandered over. “Careful, girls. She was in a movie about a dancer and everything.”

  For a stinging second, his comment made Leigh feel like even more of an outsider, but she was grateful for the credibility it seemed to earn her with this tough crowd. Two sets of eyes widened. “You was in a movie?”

  “I was. And I was the star. It was about a girl who learned how to tango. You want to see?”

  Vigorous nods answered her.

  Leigh demonstrated a flourish of moves, and her skeptical audience warmed before her eyes.

  “That’s cool,” the bossy girl said. “How you do that?”

  Leigh offered lessons, accepted tips in return from her young acquaintances. Before long the grown-ups were finishing their dinners and fetching fresh drinks, dancing in pairs on the sand. Seeking a partner of her own, Leigh scanned the growing crowd, but found Will busy at the grill, giving their pregnant hostess a break. No matter.

  Leigh danced by herself, enjoying the beat and the atmosphere, the flicker of firelight and the deep indigo of the sky overhead. She shut her eyes, absorbing the laughter and music, feeling free in a way she hadn’t in years. Feeling a high no vice Hollywood traded in could ever touch. Just some nobody girl, dancing on some nowhere beach. Just Leigh, for the first time in forever.

  Across the sand, Will caught her eye again, laughing at a friend’s joke. That damnable smile... Her energy shifted, dropping low in her belly, warm and curious, and Leigh wondered if maybe it wasn’t high time to get busy making some bad decisions.

  4

  WILL DITCHED HIS PLATE in the kitchen. Leigh ought to get herself some dinner before they ran out...or maybe she was planning on a late-night call to room service, not this lowbrow fare. Still, at the moment she was doing a fine impression of lowbrow herself. She was dancing with Rex, one of the younger drivers, and watching gave Will a funny pang.

  Jealousy was too strong a diagnosis, as was concern. Let the girl have her fun. He only hoped she didn’t go too nuts, as celebrities seemed so fond of doing.

  He wandered closer, if only to keep an eye on her. Well, fine—to have a better view of her. This not-quite guest, his not-quite date, the answer to his financial prayers...though he had yet to do a thing with what she’d told him in the plane. Just now it was hard to remember who she was supposed to be to him. Skin pale as the sand, smile bright as the torches. The hesitant, haunted girl he’d met on the mainland was gone, along with her street clothes, a vibrant creature now inhabiting her body. Will couldn’t for the life of him put his finger on who this woman really was, and until he did, he couldn’t bring himself to sell any details to the press, not even harmless ones.

  But whoever she was, it was exciting to watch her body moving this way, at once rhythmic and chaotic, like the waves. Will knew better than anybody how intoxicating this place was. He’d been high for seven years now.

  What would those stupid tabloids make of her? Runaway Bride Dances the Night Away with Resort Staff. Some picture of her, long hair whipping wildly. Some shot that made her look drunk despite the fact she’d yet to open a second beer. No photo would convey what he saw—a woman lost in her own infectious joy. The way a bride ought to look, dancing at her wedding.

  Will remembered how he’d felt the first time he’d set foot on a beach like this. He’d been eight when his father had taken him to Mexico—a future pilot’s first plane ride, a city kid’s first trip beyond the bounds of the subway. All that brown Bronx slush forgotten the second they’d lifted off, winter gloom eclipsed by the thrill of flying. He’d known from the moment his toes sank into the warm sand that he was going to live somewhere like that. Just a shitty little seaside town, but the best his dad had been able to afford. All Will had known was that for the first time since his mother took off, the world had seemed beautiful again.

  He wondered if Leigh had left some sad soul heartbroken in her wake. Will didn’t think so. She was an actress, maybe a decent one, but even a guy as simple as Will could sense the pain behind the performance. He wasn’t the type to pry or question, but he wanted answers from this stranger who’d managed to invite herself along on his evening. He was also a master of playing the free spirit himself, and if Leigh’s front was anything like his, he wondered what burdens it was designed to hide.

  He grabbed a fresh beer, dodged gyrating couples to make his way to Leigh and her dance partner. They were getting quite cozy, though surely not as cozy as Rex would prefer.

  “Mind if I cut in?”

  Rex departed with a shameless show of bowing and hand-kissing. Laughing, Leigh turned to Will. “You better deliver, Captain. He was good.”

  Will obeyed, moving in time with the music in his lazy fashion. “You might want to grab yourself some food before it’s all gone.”

  She glanced at the grill. “I’m not hungry just yet. All I want is this.” She stepped closer, and Will got distracted by the movement of her hips, the sheen of sweat along her throat in the firelight.

  “You afraid of me?” she teased, noting his scrutiny.

  “Only thing I’m afraid of is bats. I’m just trying to be professional, Miss Bailey.”

  She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, right. My chaperone. Very professional when you wheedled that bribe out of me.”

  “I returned it, didn’t I?�
��

  “You did. And you can earn it back if you’ll dance with me properly.”

  “What they call ‘proper’ dancing around this place will get you pregnant.”

  Leigh laughed again, a pure and thrilling sound. “Maybe not properly proper, then.”

  Will switched his bottle to his left hand and put his free palm to Leigh’s waist, stepping closer, close enough for their knees and thighs to brush. From this near, she made him feel big in a primal, aggressive way he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  She had that dancer build, a slender neck and long torso, proportions that seemed slightly improbable. Proportions women craved for themselves—the kind they respected, free of the more obvious curves that men’s magazines sold like prime rib. Leigh moved as Will hadn’t known American women could, as though no one was looking. As though she danced for the sheer physical pleasure the movement gave her. A supremely unprofessional thought had Will imagining what else her body might demand of his.

  They edged ever closer. The drumbeat seemed to slow to the precise rhythm of sex itself. Will’s thigh crept between hers, their hips separated by the barest of spaces. Her smooth hand settled on his ribs beneath his open shirt, her attention on his body as tangible as her touch.

  He opened and closed his mouth, his fuzzy brain unable to supply one of the taunts that had so quickly come to characterize their rapport. Blood redistributed to dangerous places, and he strained to think of something boring. Something safe. Something to distract him from the curious, agile body brushing his.

  As if someone upstairs had been misinformed that Will deserved a favor, the music wound down. The two of them stepped apart as the band disassembled for a break. Will and Leigh looked at one another, her pursed lips telling him she’d awoken from her little carnal trance. His collar somehow felt tight, despite all the buttons being undone.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “I do okay, as a partner?”

  She nodded. “You did just fine. You’re actually quite pleasant when you’ve got your mouth shut.”