Mr. Man Candy: A Fake Boyfriend Romance

by Alessandra Hart

  “And if you’re wondering why I lied to her and said I was heading off on a business trip… well, let’s just say I wasn’t keen on explaining to a child that I was taking two weeks off to be someone’s fake boyfriend on a tropical island,” Nate said, running an exasperated hand through his hair.

  “Oh.” I was beginning to sound like a broken record.

  He sighed and stood up to gather his clothes. “Look, I know you probably think it’s creepy as fuck that I’d go and hang out with an eleven-year-old girl, but it’s not like that,” he said as he stepped into his jeans, looking back at me over his shoulder. “It’s the whole family—we’ve all become really close. I love them, and they care about me just as much. And being able to help them kinda helped me too. Couldn’t help my mom all those years ago, but now I’m in a different position. So doing what I could for them sort of helped with all that guilt. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded. “I get it. It’s not creepy at all,” I murmured, averting my eyes. It was actually the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. How the hell did I get this so wrong?

  I could’ve asked him point blank. I could’ve walked right up to him and said ‘Who is Ginny?’ But I didn’t. I danced around it with other questions instead.

  So why didn’t I ask him?

  Deep down, I had an inkling as to why. After being screwed over so much, I had a long-held subconscious belief that all men were cheaters and liars. I assumed the worst in every situation. Shoot first, ask questions later.

  No wonder I was still single. I had more issues than Cosmo.

  My eyes snapped up a second later. Nate was putting his shirt on now, and that reminded me of something. “Wait. What about the clothes comments? If Ginny is a little girl, then why the hell did I distinctly hear you say the words ‘would love to take those clothes off’?”

  Nate shook his head, a confused expression marring his handsome features. Then comprehension dawned, and he grinned. “Oh. Wow. You really didn’t hear much, did you?”

  “So I misheard?”

  “No, I did say those exact words. But you missed a lot. Ginny’s friends all love animals too. They’ve organized a clothing drive in their school to get stuff to donate to a local thrift store which sends its proceeds to animal shelters. She was telling me all about it on that call, and she told me they’d already managed to get eight full bags of clothes to donate. So I said something like, ‘Congratulations, proud of you, I bet that store would love to take those clothes off your hands. It’ll raise a lot of money for them’. That’s all. I’m not some fucking sex offender creep, Jesus.”

  I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

  Nate rubbed his eyes, then sighed. “Oh, and the email thing you mentioned earlier. That was Ginny Bennett too, asking for more info about the animal sanctuary. She’s a kid. She puts emojis like that in every single thing she sends. And obviously she’s excited about the animals, hence all the hearts. She can’t wait to go.”

  “But the email address….”

  “What, GinnyM81?” he said. I nodded, and he went on. “I think M81 is the name of some Brit boy band she’s into. I don’t know.” He shrugged.

  Before I could say anything in response, he began to chuckle. “Fuck, it really looked bad for me, didn’t it? No wonder you thought I was sleeping with Ginny Morell.”

  “Nate….”

  He held up a hand, still chuckling. “I kinda don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions now that I know all this shit.”

  I didn’t laugh with him. Instead I bowed my head, hiding my eyes with my hair. My legs felt weak, and there was a hot, aching pain in my chest as I slowly crumpled to the floor.

  I’d never been this ashamed and humiliated in my entire life. I’d spent the last couple of weeks assuming the worst of Nate and essentially treating him like trash as a result. I was so mortified I wanted to melt right into the carpet and vanish from the face of the earth forever.

  I peeked up at him through my hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I choked out. “I’ve been really mean to you. I honestly thought you were having an affair with that woman.”

  He gave me a tight smile. “Like I said, I don’t blame you for jumping to conclusions. I get it now that you’ve told me everything. The things you saw and heard… it added up, and it didn’t exactly look good for me.”

  I whimpered. “But you didn’t actually do anything wrong. I assumed the worst of you based on tabloid crap, just like you said earlier.”

  He shrugged. “I know, but it’s cool. A misunderstanding, that’s all. I could’ve told you about Ginny and her family from the start, but….” He hesitated and took a deep breath. “When we first met, I figured you didn’t need to know absolutely everything about my personal life. Sorry for that.”

  He was apologizing to me?

  I groaned. “Don’t say sorry. Please stop being so nice to me.”

  I didn’t deserve it.

  Something else suddenly occurred to me. Now that I’d gone on my furious rant about Ginny, thinking she was his girlfriend, it had become quite clear that I was jealous. It wasn’t just that I was upset about Nate possibly being a homewrecker, oh no. My rage was quite clearly two-fold, because I’d overheard the phone call (and subsequently never mentioned it) over two weeks ago and been frosty toward him ever since… but I’d only discovered the rumor about him and Ginny Morell six days ago when we arrived on the island.

  So in the week or so before that, I was jealous of him supposedly being with another woman. Any woman. Jealous, plain and simple. At least that’s what it might look like to anyone who thought about it for longer than two minutes. And considering what a psychotic tantrum I’d thrown this morning, Nate was probably going to be thinking about it for a long time… meaning pretty soon, he’d realize how much I secretly wanted him.

  Yeah, I really needed to melt into the floor right about now.

  I buried my head in my hands.

  “Georgie,” Nate said softly. “We aren’t done talking. You wanted to know what happened last night.”

  My eyes shot up, and my heart sank. Shit! In all my shame and anger, I’d already forgotten about our apparent wedding bells.

  “You already told me what happened. We got married,” I said, my voice shaky.

  Everyone was going to kill us. We’d come here for Libby and Bobby’s wedding, and now we’d upstaged them by getting married a week before them on the same island.

  Nate cleared his throat and smiled genially. “I was kidding when I called you ‘wifey’. You clearly didn’t remember a thing. I thought it would be funny to play you for a minute.”

  My eyes widened. “Wait, what?” I said, jumping to my feet again. “So we’re not married?”

  Nate’s grin grew wider. “No. You were absolutely fucked up on edibles last night.”

  I lifted my brows. If that was true, it explained a lot. “I was?”

  “Yup. You accidentally ate three laced cookies. Do you seriously think I’d let you get goddamned married in that state?”

  I planted my hands on my hips. “So you just let me stand here and believe we were legally bound for all eternity as a joke?”

  Nate held up his hands again. “For one, annulments exist, so you can quit it with the eternity shit. And like I said, I thought it would be funny to make you think we actually got hitched. I had no idea you would blow up on me, because I wasn’t aware you secretly despised me over the Ginny stuff, thinking I was some sort of lying, cheating prick. Oh, and just for the record, I never lied to you. I really don’t have a girlfriend.”

  I held up one of the Polaroids. “If we didn’t get married, then what is this?”

  “You really don’t remember anything at all?” Nate asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Because it was your idea.”

  I blinked. A few snippets from last night were coming back to me now. A plate of cookies. Someone laughing at me. A palm tree. Shimmering lights. Being chased by Secret Service agents.

&nbs
p; Hold on… there was no way that last part happened.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what I did.”

  “You did a lot. But as for the wedding stuff, we were on a ferry, heading back to Saint Clare from the casino. You started saying all this deep and meaningful stuff about needing to release the weight of what’s been holding you underwater, and how you could only float if you did that. You mentioned something you had in your suitcase, and you asked for my help.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t remember saying it, but I knew what he was referring to. Clearly, I’d decided to finally burn my old bachelorette party veil and sashes last night when we returned to the resort.

  “Then you descended into this… state. I don’t know what else to call it. You were so messed up and delusional that you were practically hallucinating. You pointed to Clare Chapel and demanded I marry you.”

  I groaned. “Really?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t let it go, so I had to humor you. We came back to your hotel room, and you grabbed those bride and groom sashes, and also a veil.”

  He jerked a thumb toward the chair that the sashes were hanging from, and then motioned toward another spot on the floor, where the crumpled veil lay in a condemning heap. “I figured you brought them here for the party and forgot to take them. But anyway, you said we had to wear them when we got married. I was just playing along, because you were quite terrifying by this stage. It was made very clear to me that if I didn’t marry you, I’d be thrown in the ocean with cement boots.”

  He chuckled, and another wave of humiliation washed over me. If Nate hadn’t already suspected that I had a secret crush on him, then last night might’ve very well done the trick, considering I’d literally demanded he marry me.

  He went on. “Anyway, I just wanted to keep you happy until all that shit wore off. So I took you to Clare Chapel and told you to wait outside while I went in and got the marriage license. Then I came out a few seconds later and asked someone to take our wedding photos.” He put the words ‘wedding photos’ in air quotes. “You were so out of it, you didn’t even realize that I was lying and didn’t really get the license.”

  “Okay. So we’re not married. But why were you in my bed when I woke up?” I asked in a small voice.

  Just because we didn’t get married didn’t mean we didn’t have sex. He’d convinced me we really got hitched, after all. So what if I dragged him back here last night and demanded we consummate our alleged marriage?

  Nate scratched his stubble-lined jaw. “I wanted to take care of you, so I stayed in here. I barely even slept, I was so worried. You were really messed up, Georgie.”

  “So we didn’t have sex?” My words came out in a squeak.

  He laughed. “No, of course we didn’t. I wouldn’t take advantage of a woman in that state.”

  “It’s just… I woke up stark naked.”

  He raised his brows. “When we got back here, you were raving on about how we needed to consummate the marriage,” he said. Bingo. “You ripped your dress and underwear off and jumped onto the bed.”

  I gulped. “You saw me naked?”

  “Not really. I tried to be a gentleman and avert my eyes. I threw a blanket over you.”

  My shoulders slumped with relief. “Oh. Thank you.”

  He grinned. “You did try to get a bit handsy with me once we were in bed, trying to touch my arms and chest. And you wouldn’t leave me alone until I hugged you goodnight. But don’t worry, nothing sexual happened, and you were mostly wrapped in the sheets by then.”

  I let out a groan. “Oh, god. Is that all?”

  “Well….” There was a glimmer of amusement in Nate’s eyes. He rubbed his chin. “I saw a little bit of ass when you stripped off, I’ll admit that.”

  “Nate!”

  “It was just before I threw the blanket on you. I was trying not to look, believe me. Didn’t seem right.”

  An icy fragment in the deepest part of me melted away. “Why are you so nice to me?” I asked in a small voice.

  He smiled faintly. “Because as fucking loopy and insecure as you are, you deserve it.”

  God, this man…. Tears stung my throat at his thoughtfulness, which he managed even though I’d been a frigid cow to him since we arrived. “I really don’t.”

  “You do. You’re a good person, and you care about people. Look how you were there for me the other day when I told you about the shit with my mom and brother. You listened. You cared. You made me feel a fuck-ton better, just by saying all that stuff about how you didn’t think it was my fault. And apparently, you didn’t even like me at the time. But you still did it. That’s the sort of stuff a good person does.”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You’ve just gone through some rough shit. I don’t blame you for being a bit standoffish and paranoid. Not one bit.”

  An awkward silence fell between us as a penny rolled in from the back of my mind, ready to drop.

  “You knew about my failed engagement already, didn’t you?” I finally said in a soft voice. “Because I’ve pretty much been a snob to you this whole time, and you’ve done nothing but be generous and nice in return. Why else would you put up with it?”

  Nate’s cheeks turned slightly ruddy. “I didn’t know the exact circumstances, but yes, I was aware. I figured that’s why you were being so hot and cold. Thought maybe the wedding was bringing stuff up for you. I didn’t want to add to your issues, so I just tried my best to be supportive.”

  Tears welled up again. I fought them back. “Right. Well, thank you for putting up with my shit.”

  “Hey, it’s fine. I get it. If I was totally convinced a guy was breaking up another person’s marriage, I’d probably deck him.”

  I gave him a half-smile. “I kind of wanted to punch you a little bit when I thought that about you,” I said, holding up my thumb and forefinger pressed together in a circle. “But I needed you here, remember? I’m a little bit selfish.”

  He chuckled. “That’s right,” he said with a wink. “You needed your fake boyfriend. So you were being a selfish shellfish, huh?”

  I smiled ruefully at the reminder of the dumb thing I’d said so many weeks ago. “Yes. That’s actually one of the reasons I never brought it up when I thought you had a secret married girlfriend. I hated it, but I thought you might get mad and leave if I told you I knew, and I didn’t want to admit to Mom that I really am still single.”

  “Makes sense.”

  I sighed and sat down next to him on the end of the bed. “I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done,” I said in a halting voice. “When I was mad at you, I didn’t want to appreciate any of it, because it was so… inconvenient. Seeing as I thought you were a dick. But you’ve really done so much for me, Nate. Even just getting the red dress for me the other day. That was so sweet.”

  He shrugged. “It was no problem.”

  I steeled myself and looked him dead in the eyes. “I promise from now on, I’ll be normal. No more psychopathy.”

  Nate laughed. “Thank god for that,” he said in a teasing tone. He glanced over at the clock and stood up. “Shit, I better go. You need to shower and get ready.”

  “For what?”

  “While you were out of it last night, you told Libby you’d have lunch with her today.”

  “I have zero recollection of that,” I said, slowly shaking my head.

  He grinned. “Figured as much. Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m glad we got all this shit sorted.”

  “Me too.”

  “Whew.” He mimed wiping sweat off his brow. “Now we can finally do this pretend boyfriend/girlfriend thing for real, huh? No more avoidance and mood swings?” He winked playfully. I knew it was meant to make me laugh, but it made my stomach drop.

  “Yeah,” I replied softly.

  He grinned. “Cool. I’ll see you at dinner. Unless you need me for anything else right now?” He raised an eyebrow, awaiting my response.

  I hesitated. Now that
I knew the truth, I wanted to ask him to stay. I wanted to cancel the lunch with my sister and drag him into my bed, trapping him between my thighs forever. He was such a great guy in every way, and I was damn lucky he was still here with me after the crap I’d put him through.

  But just like they always did, my old demons quickly crept back in. They were like sharks threading their way up from the blackest depths of my mind, reminding me why I couldn’t pull it off.

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why I had trouble letting men into my life, but it might take a rocket scientist to fix the issue for me. Four years now, and I still kept my guard up, even if the guy presented me with zero red flags.

  Like Nate. Not a single red flag. So why was it so damn hard for me to ask him to stay?

  He’s sweet. Famous. Perfect. Hot as hell. Can get anyone he wants. And you—you’re just the idiotic weirdo who went psycho on him for an assumption you made which turned out to be embarrassingly wrong, the logical side my mind told me. So why would he ever say yes to you, crazy woman?

  Annoying as it was, the voice of logic in my head had a pretty decent point. Up until now, I’d behaved like a complete and utter jealous bitch. Nate didn’t want that. No man did. Any sign of attraction or flirtatious behavior he’d ever shown toward me in the past was probably just part of the package as he played the role of my fake boyfriend.

  On top of that, I’d also totally humiliated myself in front of him last night. I needed to figure out some way to show him how truly sorry I was, because I felt like simply saying it wasn’t enough, but right now I didn’t know how. My mind was still whirling too much to come up with anything decent.

  “I’m okay by myself. I’ll go and get ready now,” I said, plastering on a smile. Nate nodded, and I chewed my lower lip as I watched him head for the door.

  “Enjoy your lunch. And hey, no more cookies, okay?” he said with an amused smirk.

  I laughed softly and shook my head. “I’ll never touch a cookie again.”

  “Good. Because next time, I might not be so good at fending you off. We might end up married for real, and we don’t want that, do we?” he said in a joking tone. Then he waved. “See you later.”