by Sierra Rose
“Abigail!”
“Max had to drag him out of the pool, and then—”
Nick clapped his hand over her mouth to stop her eyewitness testimony, then pinned her against his chest to silence her. “The exact details of the wager aren’t important. The point is that I lost.”
James folded his arms across his chest, grinning at them with tender affection. “So what were the stakes?”
Nick hesitated, then proceeded with caution. “Well, if I won, we would race across the Great Wall of China on dirt bikes, which I know you said wouldn’t be as fun the second time around, but Abby’s never done it.”
James glanced at Abby as if that was entirely unacceptable, but I pressed, “And if Abby won?”
Abby’s eyes shot up to gaze at her husband’s pained expression as he slowly lowered his hand from her face.
“Since Abby won, we’re going camping. It’s something she always loved doing growing up. And she says we don’t get enough of it.”
James nodded, but I could tell he was unfamiliar with the word, probably because, being of coddled British descent, practically royal and not to prone to roughing it, he only knew it from childhood comic strips and slasher films. “Like...out in the woods, with a tent and everything?”
A little grimace flickered across Nick’s face, but he forced a cheerful smile. “Yep.”
He and James locked eyes again before James looked away and chuckled. “Well, have fun with that. Call me if you get back...and remember, only you can prevent forest fires.”
“Don’t worry, love,” Abby said. “I’ll make sure he properly minds his wood.”
This time, it was Nick and Abby who exchanged a look, and she lifted her eyebrows and cocked her head in our direction, giving him a pointed smile.
“You know,” Nick said brightly, throwing his arm around James’s shoulder as we started moving slowly down the street, “it might be fun...for both of us.”
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t lose a bet, buddy,” James glanced down at his friend’s arm, then quickly extracted himself. “Loads of fun for both of you.”
Nick paused a second, hedging his bets, then flashed his most winning smile. “Maybe...for all four of us.”
Chapter 21
I QUICKLY REALIZED that in the world of billionaires, life could change in the blink of an eye. Nick, James, and Abby were used to it, but I was still trying to reconcile how I’d woken up that morning in a London penthouse, only to end the day in an alpine tent in the middle of the woods.
It certainly wasn’t easy to get there, not by a long shot. While Abby and I were rather excited to spend a week out in the middle of nowhere, our pampered boyfriends were a bit more hesitant.
“I just don’t understand why we have to do this,” James complained for the umpteenth time, throwing things at random into a designer suitcase. “It would be awesome to spend some time together, the four of us, but must we do this? Why can’t we go to Bali? I love Bali this time of year.” It was like listening to a child; the internationally famous sex god emotionally digressed to a whining four-year-old the second he saw his boyhood friend.
“Why are you so resistant to the idea?” Abby shot back, perched beside me on the couch. After all that time, she was immune to their antics and had long since carved out a place for herself beside them. “C’mon! You love the outdoors, James. I thought you were born to be adventurous. You spent an entire year living in a mountaintop hut with that Sherpa. What was his name?”
“His name was Pema...and how dare you pretend you don’t remember?” James shot back with a glare, throwing in a pair of swim trunks, along with a lone fork.
Nick flopped down on the opposite sofa and rolled onto his back like some demoralized invertebrate. “He’s right, Abby. Bali is gorgeous right now. Plus, there could be lions or tigers or bears. Oh my!”
James’s hands froze above his bag. “Wait. Bears?”
Abby and I shot each other a look, and I leaned forward with a giggle. “There aren’t bears in England, babe. Now just finish packing so we can get on the road.”
Still frozen, he glanced out the window like he could see them already. “What do you mean, bears?”
Nick glanced up at his wife and actually whined. “Abby, can’t we just—”
“No!” she said, promptly cutting off his complaint. “I won, so the choice is mine. Those are the rules. Quit being a sore loser. You keep promising to take me camping and never do.”
James shot Nick a dirty glance from the corner of his eye, muttering resentfully under his breath. “Why did you teach her the rules?”
Nick never broke eye contact with his wife. “I had no choice,” he said, stifling an involuntary shiver. “She frightens me.”
“Yes, I can be quite the bear, can’t I?” Abby teased.
Two hours later, after James decided he’d packed everything necessary to live off the grid for a whopping couple of days, we finally piled out the front door, only to be stopped almost immediately by a group of people heading up the front steps. In the front of the pack was a dignified older gentleman who stared down at me from behind a monocle.
“Ferdie?” Abby shrieked and smacked both boys upside the head. “You’re actually trying to make Ferdie a stowaway?”
I had no idea who Ferdie actually was, but he stared at James the way Batman’s loyal butler always looked at the caped crusader. The only difference was that James’s version of Alfred didn’t seem to think the dark knight was capable of pulling off a camping trip.
After a brief argument about whether or not we should invite wait staff, we finally piled into a limousine and headed for the English countryside. Four hours later, Abby and I were sitting atop a rather rustic picnic table, watching as two of the most powerful, allegedly talented men in the world mentally collapsed when tasked with making a simple fire.
“How long can it possibly take?” I asked her quietly, watching as the boys quickly destroyed the piles of kindling the two of us had gathered while they sat in the car, sullenly texting their complaints to the civilized world. “What’s it been? Thirty minutes already?”
Her eyes warmed fondly as she watched them with a patient smile. “They’re still in the arguing stage. The actual fire-building has yet to commence.”
We laughed softly, then leaned against each other once more, huddled beneath the same blanket. I found it strange that we bonded so quickly, that we were comfortable with one another almost right away. I certainly didn’t make new friends very easily, and I had the feeling her life under the spotlight with Nick kept her rather guarded as well, but for reasons unbeknownst to either of us, but the sixth hour, we’d already become fast friends.
Crash!
There was a mighty collision as the precarious pyramid the boys had been building toppled and landed in ruins. While Nick appeared to be ready to rip his own hair out, James obliviously employed the help of his phone, calmly browsing for an app that might help them.
Obviously thinking along the same lines, Abby swept her light brown hair into a quick ponytail, before glancing over at me with a little smile. “You know, under any other circumstances, I’d be sitting up here alone.” She glanced at me again, looking almost shy. “It’s nice to have a little more—”
“Estrogen?” I guessed.
We glanced across the campsite to the men who had momentarily abandoned the fire and were loudly complimenting each other’s hair. A faint crease flickered across my brow as Abby pursed her lips patiently.
“No, we’ve got plenty of that here. I was going to say sanity.”
I giggled behind my hands.
Next, she slid forward on the table and spoke with the practiced voice of one who’d had to refocus two such charismatic, distractible minds many times before. “This isn’t rocket science, boys. You’re not exactly re-creating some Jules Vernian race around the globe, not crashing the stock market as part of an initiation prank. It’s only a campfire.”
James flipped her off, whil
e Nick gave her a gallant salute and returned to the process with gusto.
I grinned, shook my head, and folded my arms across my chest. “Do you think they even have a shot?”
Abby shook her head. “Not a chance in hell, but let’s give them more time, just so they have something to argue about later.” Without another thought, she reached into her purse and pulled out a flask. “Vodka?”
I accepted with a grin. “James was right. I do like you.”
She grinned as well, then took a huge swig when I passed it back. “I’ve always said James has very good taste.”
I looked at Abby. “So you’re the woman that tamed Nicholas Hunter?”
“Guilty as charged. James and Nick both had the title as notorious playboys.”
“You worked for him. Did you always have feelings?”
“No, not in the beginning. We were nothing more than friends. He was my boss. Nick is the last guy I would’ve ever dated. He was crazy, wild, and I was always getting him out of trouble. I’m telling you Nick was a train wreck. And after a few years, he started to see me more than a friend. I think we were always attracted to each other from the very beginning. But he didn’t want to hurt me, so he stayed away. He knew what a jerk he was. And I stayed away because I didn’t want to get hurt by him. But little by little, things changed. Eventually, we crossed the line of friendship.”
“Were you scared, you know, with his reputation?”
“Yes. Very. Especially when I got pregnant. And then after we jumped out of a window to escape a bar fight, it hit him like lightning. He was tired of that life. And he wanted me, and nobody but me. He swore he was going to change. And he did. We got married and we’re crazy about each other.”
“He just needed to find ‘the one’.”
“Yeah. I think so. I love doing things like this because we never get a chance. My daughter, Arabella, is spending the week with her grandparents and they’re spoiling her rotten.”
Abby pulled out a picture and showed me an adorable little girl. “She’s lovely. How old is she?”
“She’s eight. Her grandparents are taking her to Florida. We have a week, so we figured we’d have a little fun. Nick wanted exotic. I wanted simple. So we placed a bet and I won. I picked camping. But enough about me. How are you and James doing?”
“It’s early. But I’m absolutely crazy about him.”
“Could you fall in love with a man like James?”
“I think I could.”
“I think James could fall in love with you.”
“Really?”
“I know he’s serious about you. The fact that he isn’t dating anybody but you is a huge sign. Are you dating anybody else?”
“Just James.”
“Then you’re serious about him?”
“I am.”
“We should do more double dating kind of things. I’d love to visit the Caribbean.”
I smiled. “Well, I’m always up for that.”
“So did you read about my story or did James tell you?”
“Internet.” I raised my hands innocently between us, one of them still gripping the flask. “I used to live in New York. It was kind of hard to avoid your shadow there for a while.”
Abby laughed quietly, then shook her head and wore a pained grimace. “You know, if I was still Nick’s publicist, I never would have allowed that stuff to be spilled to the media.”
Frustrated beyond fathomable belief, James and Nick had simultaneously taken to trying to set fire to more interesting things, like the edge of the canvas bag that held all our supplies, as well as Nick’s shoe.
“There’s really only so much you can do in terms of damage control, right?” I said.
“My goodness, you have no idea!” Abby shook her head slowly, covering her face with her hands. “I tried everything with Nick. I tried to humanize him, make him seem...real and relatable, within reach. Not a single time did I even come close.”
We both glanced again across the campsite, staring speculatively at the two Greek gods toiling obliviously before us. They both looked defeated, as if they’d angered the higher-ups on Mount Olympus and had been sentenced to community service, forced to work amongst the mere mortals.
“I wouldn’t take it personally,” I said with a grin. “Like I said, there’s only so much you can do.”
Abby shook her head and smiled at me fondly, her eyes growing distant as she remembered. “It got so bad that I even gave him a pet, just to make him seem more human. Do you know what he did? That lunatic set the cat free! He did the same thing with the bird. I finally settled on a dog, and... Well, you get the general idea.” She shook her head again and shoved her hands in her pockets to warm them. “It wasn’t until he tried to adopt the same policy with his housekeeping staff that we really had a problem.”
A burst of sudden laughter exploded from my lips, so loud that the failing fire starters paused and looked over at us suspiciously, before returning begrudgingly to their work.
“Well, at any rate, it seems to have worked out all right.” I glanced between the lovely couple and couldn’t help but notice the blazing adoration in both their eyes. “You’re living the fairytale.”
Abby grew abruptly pensive. “I worked for this fairytale, worked harder than you’d believe. It hasn’t always been easy with Nick. People like him and James... Well, their world isn’t what people think it is. It comes with a price, a weight that’s never really lifted.” She glanced over at me suddenly, as if she was worried she’d said too much. “I promise, though, it’s all worth it in the end.”
We stared at each other for a moment, before I took another sip from the flask. I swallowed the warming liquid and let out a sigh of disappointment. If only I was at that stage, the point where I’d have to decide whether or not life with an international celebrity is something I really want. As it stood, I didn’t have a choice. At the moment, James had yet to put that on the table. I was willing, and I had put myself out there, but something seemed to hold him back, something I didn’t understand, something I feared was stronger than either of us. Is that the weight she’s talking about? I wondered. And more importantly, will we ever be able to crawl out from under it like these two did?
“What about you?” Abby’s coaxing voice brought me out of my reverie and back into the present. “It isn’t often that James introduces anyone to us. What’s up with you two?”
My shoulders collapsed as the very question that had been haunting me audibly left someone else’s lips. “That’s the problem,” I said suddenly, staring down at my hands. “I-I just don’t know. We’ve been together for a little over a month. I know that isn’t that long, but in all that time, we haven’t really talked about it, not a word. At this point, I don’t even know what to call him. I mean, I don’t know if he’s my boyfriend or just...” I glanced miserably at Abby, seeking some sort of sisterly sympathy, but there wasn’t a trace of it on her face. If anything, she looked excited.
“Wait. Over a month, you say?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, just about.”
Her face lit up with a beaming smile. “Honey, that’s about seven years in James time. The guy never stays with anyone for more than a few days. Hell, he never stays in the same place for more than three weeks. How long has he been in London this time?”
A little smile curled the sides of my lips. “Longer than that.”
Abby grinned knowingly. “And how has he been spending all his time here?”
I flushed, trying to ignore the little butterflies taking flight in my stomach. “With me.”
We shared a secret smile before she turned back to the men and offered a little wink. “Well, there’s your answer.”
As if on cue, the men in question marched suddenly across the site, abandoning their mission entirely.
Nick snatched the flask from Abby’s hand and poured half the vodka down his throat. A second later, he passed it to James. “We don’t really need a fire,” he said confidently. “
The early pioneers survived without them, didn’t they? We can follow their example, live off the land.”
I glanced up at Nick, nervous to disagree with him but unable to let the point go. “Even the cavemen had fires,” I said.
“She’s right, you Neanderthal,” Abby teased.
James smacked him in the shoulder. “I told you. Shit,” he said and collapsed on the bench beside me, dropping his head into my lap and gazing mournfully into the sky, as if pleading with the fire gods to help him. “As if this trip could get any fucking worse.”
Abby turned quickly to hide her face, while I bit down on my lip to keep from laughing.
“James, we’ve been out here for less than an hour.”
His dark eyes locked on mine, full of adorable despair. “Has it only been that long? It feels like a lifetime.”
Abby snorted with laughter, then pushed briskly to her feet. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. How about you boys go out and do something important, like finding a couple big rocks we can use for protection. Della and I will get out the rest of the booze and take care of your little fire problem.”
Big rocks for protection? Does she really think that will work?
“Brilliant!” Nick’s eyes lit up as James simultaneously leapt to his feet. “How many rocks do you think we need, babe?”
“What do you say, Della?” Abby asked, turning to me speculatively. “Sixteen?”
I folded my arms across my chest with an authoritative nod, trying my very best to control the expression on my face. “Sixteen is pretty standard for a site like this.”
James nodded seriously. “Maybe a few extra, in case you were wrong about the bears.”
Nick strode forward for a valiant kiss. “Don’t worry, love,” he said, dipping Abby low to the ground in a cinematic show of passion before setting her back on her feet. “We’re on it.”
She smiled sweetly, waving them off. “That’s my man.”
I knew they just played along to have some time away from the girls. Maybe Nick wanted to ask him if he was serious about me or what was going on between us.
