“Oh?”
“It’s about us. I wanted you to know, I—”
My stomach flipped as he spoke, and I felt a sudden tingling deep inside me. Not the fun kind. The decidedly less-fun kind.
Oh no.
I stood up so abruptly that my chair fell over in a loud clatter. “Sorry, I have to go,” I blurted out, cutting him off midsentence as I snatched my purse off the table.
Nate lifted an eyebrow. “Oh. I thought we were having fun.”
“We were. I mean, we are,” I said hurriedly. “But I… bye!”
I couldn’t wait a moment longer. I had to go. Now.
As I ran away, I turned my head over my shoulder for a split second. Nate looked so confused and offended, watching me dash off as if he’d just informed me that he had fleas and leprosy. I felt bad, truly. For him and myself. My guts were churning, and if I didn’t make it to the nearest bathroom right now, there might be some sort of explosion.
Unfortunately, Nate’s feelings would have to wait.
28
Nate
I stared at the empty space across from me, dumbfounded. What the hell did I do wrong? I was just about to tell Georgie I wanted to make a real go of this, slap an exclusive label on our budding relationship. But before I could get all the words out, she got up and ran away like her ass was on fire, as if she knew what was coming and couldn’t stand to hear it.
Perhaps she wasn’t ready to have any sort of commitment discussion with me. It wasn’t exactly shocking, given her history with relationships, but still, after last night I thought this was seriously heading somewhere.
I guess I was wrong.
She left so fast that I didn’t even see exactly where she went. I thought I’d seen her running toward the restaurant bathroom, rather than the exit, but when I got up and checked, a sign said the restrooms were all closed for maintenance after some sort of pipe burst.
Sighing, I settled up the bill with a waiter, then left the restaurant with Georgie’s thin cardigan thrown over my shoulder. She’d left it on her chair, which she knocked over in her haste to get away from me.
When I arrived back at the resort, which was a short three minute walk from the restaurant, I took the elevator straight to the second floor. I wasn’t going to play these guessing games anymore. Georgie could damn well tell me what her problem was straight to my face. If she didn’t want to date me, then fine, I’d have to get over it. Eventually. But until I heard the words come out of her mouth, I wasn’t going to give up on us.
I rapped on her door. “Georgie?”
No answer.
“Georgie? Everything okay?”
No answer again.
“We have each other’s spare keycards, remember?” I called out. “I know you’re here, so if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I’m coming in. I have your cardigan, anyway.”
She finally responded. “No! Don’t come in!”
“Why not? Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?”
I heard her cough nervously. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m just… tired.”
I sighed. “Listen, I get what you’re going through, all right? You find it hard to trust men. Believe me, we’ve well and truly established that. But I’m not Matthew, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. If you need more time to think about us, then I can manage that. Whatever it tak—”
The door opened a crack, and Georgie cut me off. “It’s fine. Really. I know you aren’t my ex. Please just go, Nate.”
Sweat was beaded on her forehead, and her hair was damp. I frowned. “What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you sweating so much?”
“I….” I could tell by her vacant expression that she was racking her brains for an excuse. “I was… um… I was having sex. I totally forgot I had another date tonight.”
I couldn’t help but snicker at that. I knew she wasn’t sleeping with another guy, but if she was willing to claim something so drastic to get rid of me, then obviously something serious was happening. “What’s the lucky guy’s name?” I asked, my lips twitching with amusement.
Her eyes widened. I could practically see the hamster fall off the wheel in her mind. “…Harold,” she finally croaked out.
“Of course it is.” I caught a whiff of something acrid. “What’s that smell? Did Harold die during your little romp?”
Georgie sighed and threw the door all the way open. “Fine. Obviously, you aren’t giving up, so here it is. I have a horrible stomach flu, okay?”
“Wait… you’re sick? That’s why you ran off?”
She nodded miserably and wiped her chin. Then she looked down at her feet. “I think it was the seafood,” she mumbled. “I wasn’t quite ready to let you watch me crap and barf my brains out for an entire night. We’re not really at that stage yet, are we?”
“Shit, Georgie, you could’ve told me that.”
She shook her head wildly. “No! We only just started dating. I can’t let you see me like….” Her voice trailed off for a second. “Oh, shit. It’s happening again.”
She dashed off to her bathroom. The sound of chunks hitting the toilet bowl echoed in my ears only seconds later.
“Nate, please leave!” she called out after hurling her guts up two more times. “I can’t let you see this. It’s… both ends…” She gasped, and the bathroom door slammed shut. The lock clicked a second later.
I stepped over to the door and knocked. “Georgie, I don’t give a shit if we only just started dating. I’m gonna take care of you, okay? That’s what I’m here for.”
“It smells so bad in here. I’m so embarrassed. Please just go,” she groaned.
I snorted. “I don’t give a fuck about the smell. We all get sick sometimes. Now let me in. I’m not leaving.”
The toilet flushed, and I heard the telltale sound of an air freshener canister being sprayed for a full ten seconds. Georgie opened the door a crack a moment later. “Sorry I said I was having sex with someone else,” she said in a small voice. “I wouldn’t really do that.”
I chuckled. “Just let me in, doll.”
She let go of the door and sank down to the tiled floor, resting her chin on the porcelain edge of the toilet bowl. Her throat pulsed, and within a minute she was vomiting again. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back with one hand, holding her hair up with the other. “You’ll be fine, I promise,” I said in a soothing tone. “I know how bad it feels. You just have to let it all out.”
She made a gurgling sound, then leaned forward and deposited more chunks in the bowl. “I’m sorry,” she choked out.
“Nothing to be sorry for.” I spied a purple scrunchie on the bathroom sink. I grabbed it and gently pulled her silky hair into a ponytail. She shivered under my touch.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She curled into a ball on the bathmat, and I kept rubbing her back. “It feels like knives in my guts.”
“Yeah, it’s shitty. Where’s your phone?”
“My phone?”
“I need to call your mom to help take care of you.”
“Why? There are terrorist networks more nurturing than her.” She sat up again and crawled off the bathmat, back to the toilet. “Oh, god, I’m gonna barf again.”
I rubbed her back. “I don’t want to leave you, but I need some stuff to help you feel better. Electrolyte tablets, bottled water, mouthwash, pineapple juice.”
“There’s water in the mini bar and mouthwash in the cupboard,” she said, shakily motioning to her right. “Why pineapple juice?”
“For some reason, it’s the only thing I can stomach when I’m sick. Dunno how it works, but it makes me feel better. My mom used to give it to me when I got sick as a kid, mixed with the electrolyte stuff.”
She nodded shakily. “That actually sounds okay. My phone is on the bed. But don’t be surprised if my mother massively overreacts.”
I squeezed her shoulder, then went to get her phone. Fifteen m
inutes later, Margaret appeared at the door, arms laden with bags. “Thank you for calling me, Nate,” she said as I let her into the suite. “Where’s my poor girl?”
“In there, feeling very sorry for herself.” I nodded toward the bathroom.
She briskly stepped over to it. “Georgina Miller, you should have called me immediately!” she said, narrowing her eyes as she entered. “It’s lucky you have Nate now. If he hadn’t been here, you could’ve died.”
Georgie looked up from the toilet bowl long enough to shake her head at me. Then she looked at her mother. “It’s just food poisoning, Mom.”
Margaret sniffed as she put the bags down and began to mix up a concoction of electrolyte powder and juice. “Well, I’m your mother. You know I worry. Vomiting and diarrhea can kill, you know.” Georgie’s face turned even redder, and Margaret rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be so delicate. Trust me, when you’re a mother, you’ll be talking about poop all the time.”
She handed the glass to Georgie and soothingly stroked her hair as she drank. Then she spent the next half hour clucking around us like a mother hen in the first display of maternal affection I’d seen so far, ensuring Georgie wasn’t about to drop dead of the plague. On three separate occasions, she even checked her pulse, as if she might’ve been replaced with a zombie version of herself.
I smiled as I watched her smooth Georgie’s hair. Despite all her shortcomings, Margaret wasn’t an entirely awful human being. She obviously cared about her kids.
She stopped fretting over Georgie for a moment and looked over at me. “Thank you again for being here, Nate.”
“It’s no problem. Happy to help.”
She hesitated, then reached over and patted my arm. “We got off to a pretty awkward start, didn’t we?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled. “Well, I’d say you’re practically part of the family now that you’ve seen this and not run a mile.” She nodded down at Georgie, who was curled up on her bed between us, looking like death warmed up.
A week ago, I would’ve smiled and nodded politely, feeling a stab of guilt for pretending to be with her daughter. But now, I was really with her. No pretending. No guilt. And hey, I really could be part of the family one day.
For the first time in my life, I actually wanted that, and for the first time, I felt like I could actually do it. My mind went into overdrive at the thought. I hoped Georgie felt even remotely the same way. She didn’t know it yet, because it was far too early to spring shit like this on her, but I was falling more for her every single day. Every single minute. I didn’t want this to end.
Ever.
29
Georgie
It was a gorgeous day. Humid air bathed me in sultry tropical warmth, and sweat beaded on my forehead beneath my floppy wide-brim hat. I didn’t mind. The heat, the perspiration, and the sand between my toes was all part of the island experience.
A gull squawked in the distance. At the same time, I yawned and stretched as I reclined on my beach towel.
After an evening of crippling sickness and pain, my stomach virus had passed, and I was feeling much better already. Nate had some work to do on his laptop, and he’d suggested that I come and read a book down here on the beach while he busied himself with that. He said the sunlight would do me some good after spending the better part of a night curled around a toilet bowl. I had to admit, he was spot on. Sickness or not, I hadn’t spent enough time truly relaxing on this vacation, and that was the entire point of it.
Aside from the wedding, of course.
Ah, the big day. Just four sleeps away now. I was beyond excited to see my sister’s glowing face and gorgeous dress, and I sighed dreamily and smiled as I pictured her slowly walking down the aisle toward her blissful future. Then there’d be me, just as happy, sitting in the church pews with a wonderful man I no longer had to call my fake boyfriend. After last night’s incident—not to mention the previous night’s hours of lovemaking—I think we’d well and truly established that he was my real boyfriend now.
My smile faded, and I groaned out loud as I recalled my stupid lie to keep Nate away from me after I did a runner from our dinner date yesterday. Why did I do it? I’d already embarrassed myself around him more than once on this trip, and he’d stuck around, so obviously he didn’t care. Then I remembered the sounds I made in the bathroom before and after he came in, and my cringe worsened. Yeah, that was why I tried to keep him out. Blergh. Nothing like a bout of food poisoning to kill the mood.
I didn’t regret letting him in upon his insistence, though. It actually turned out to be quite a night. It wasn’t the same as the evening of passion we’d spent just twenty-four hours beforehand, but somehow, it was better. Apart from the barfing and stabbing stomach pains, of course.
Nate had taken wonderful care of me, even enlisting my mother’s help despite their rocky start. After she finally left, he cuddled me all night, not even caring if I was contagious. That was true intimacy. He’d shown me that he was willing to be around and support me through pretty much anything. Case in point, I got the runs and he didn’t run.
Hey, that could make a good Hallmark card…
“Georgie?” Tentative shuffling on the sand and a familiar voice saying my name made me glance up from my book again ten minutes later. Bobby was standing by my towel, his thumbs slung through the belt loops of his shorts. His posture was stiff and awkward. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.
“Hey,” I said lightly, trying to ignore the elephant on the beach. “Nice day, right?”
He nodded, playing along with my small talk. “Sure is. Mind if I sit?”
I patted the towel. “Go ahead.”
He sat down next to me, digging his bare feet into the sand. “I wanted to have a chat about a few things, get some stuff off my chest.”
Uh-oh, this sounded serious. I pushed my sunglasses up my nose. “What do you want to talk about?”
I wasn’t sure why I asked. I had a feeling I could answer my own question with just one word. Nate.
“My brother,” Bobby replied, confirming my suspicion. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I doubt I’d be the first to say that certain parts of this trip have been awkward as hell.”
I let out a short, humorless bark of laughter. “No shit.”
He looked out across the ocean, eyebrows pulled down in concentration. “I can only imagine what he’s told you about me. He wouldn’t be exaggerating, either.”
My eyes widened slightly. “How so?”
He sighed and began to trace random patterns into the sand with his fingertips. “It’s a long story. Guess I should start at the beginning.”
I smiled. “That’s exactly what Nate says.”
Bobby smiled faintly. “Well, he is my brother.” The smile slowly faded. “I assume he’s told you about our mom?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t want you to think I’m using this as an excuse or a crutch, but after she died, I had depression for a while.” He quickly cleared his throat. “A long while.”
My eyebrows drew together, and I scooted a little closer to him. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. Libby never said anything.”
“Not your fault. I asked her not to, and you and I haven’t really had a chance to talk about this stuff in the past.” He shrugged. “And you know what I’m like. Keep shit to myself.”
“Yup, I kinda figured that when I showed up here with your brother without a clue you were related.”
He smiled thinly. “Yeah. Anyway, like I said, I know it’s not an excuse, but when I was going through all that stuff, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. Guess you could say I was being self-destructive.” He paused and puffed out a breath of air between his lips. “I treated Nate like total dog shit. I’m sure he told you what I said to him when his company blew up.”
I nodded stiffly. “Yeah, he did.”
He arched a brow. “And I’m also sure you wanted to push me off a cliff and make Libby call off
the wedding when you heard it.”
I shook my head. “It’s up to Libby who she marries. Wouldn’t be my place to ruin things for you two, and she mentioned the other day that you had quite a few regrets regarding Nate. So I figured you probably felt bad about what you said, at least.” I hesitated for a second and fidgeted with my hat. “Having said that, it was a really shitty thing for you to say. Nate’s been messed up about it for a long time.”
Bobby held up his hands. “Believe me, I know. I felt like fucking trash the second I said it. But it’s one of those things you just can’t take back, you know? Once it’s out there, that’s it.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t even mean it. I just… I don’t know. I can’t even try to rationalize my thought process at the time. I was all screwed up. But I guess some horrible part of me wanted to drag him down to my level, or something like that. I was jealous of how well he was suddenly doing. Even though he’s a year younger than me, he’s always seemed so far ahead. I’ve always just been along for the ride.”
“He said you helped him set up his company in the early years,” I said gently.
“Yeah, but I did fuck all. He did most of the work.” He looked down at the sand again. “Either way, I was a monster to him, blaming him like that. I’m surprised he even let me stay at the brokerage.”
I was too, but I didn’t have the heart to say it. Bobby obviously felt terrible enough already.
When I didn’t say anything, he kept talking to fill the awkward silence. “I’ve always wished I could build a time machine and go back to the moment before I said that shit to him and stop myself. Our relationship pretty much died the second I said it.”
I tilted my head to the side and fixed him with a critical gaze. “Did you ever apologize?”
“I tried, but after what I said, the only time he ever spoke to me was when other people were around at work. Obviously I couldn’t say anything in front of them, and then whenever I managed to get him alone, he’d make some excuse to leave before I could get the words out. That’s what it’s been like with us over the last few years. We’ve only interacted in a business context.” He sighed. “I can’t blame him, honestly. It’s my fault.”
Mr. Man Candy: A Fake Boyfriend Romance Page 23
