Chapter 27: : Chapter 27

There’s nothing quite like waking up buck naked in the morning light with your fake boyfriend-slash-lover’s cousin standing over you. “Did you save some charcuterie for the squirrels and the birds, or did you do something super kinky with it?” Keisha asks.

Hayes grunts, rolls, and throws the picnic blanket over both of our bare bodies. “Go away.”

“Your mother’s looking for you. Something about the dog and a movie script she was supposed to be evaluating.”

I freeze.

“Ignore her,” Hayes tells me. “My mother doesn’t evaluate movie scripts. Not to say your dog didn’t attempt to help her with her perfume, but Marshmallow would not be stealing important paperwork.”

Keisha grins. “Nice tattoo, B.”

I freeze harder.

Hayes twists a look at me and frowns, and it doesn’t take a genius to read his expression. You have a tattoo?

“Go away, Keisha, or I’ll tell Millie what you do with your drummer when you’re on tour,” he says, still looking at me like he’s silently demanding to know where I have a tattoo and why he hasn’t seen it yet.

She gasps. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh my god, are you cheating?” I cringe and close my eyes. “I don’t want to know. No. I don’t. Don’t ruin this.”

“Yes, she’s cheating. And her version of cheating is three am runs to Baskin-Robbins,” Hayes murmurs to me. “She’s diabetic, and Millie worries.”

“Shut up,” Keisha squeals.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, dear cousin,” Hayes says.

“I’m not embarrassed. I don’t want to have a fight with Millie if she hears you talking smack and spilling my secrets. And I can have ice cream. I can. She overreacts to everything because she loves me so much.”

My dog.

My dog.

I jerk my head up, looking around, and I groan.

“Relax, B,” Keisha says. “Marshmallow’s inside. Françoise has him. She’s almost as good with him as Hayes.”

Hayes glances at me, the furrowed brow turning into resigned realization. “He took our clothing, didn’t he?” he murmurs.

Keisha cackles. “It’s aaaaall over the downstairs. He took Begonia’s bra in to your father, and your mom has your boxers. My dad got the strip of condoms. It’s too bad Liliane left, or maybe she could’ve gotten your tie and Begonia’s panties. This is like, the best morning ever.”

“How is it I still like her even when she’s evil?” I ask Hayes.

He’s giving her the growly eye. “I have no idea. I’m not suffering from the same affliction.”

She rocks back on her heels, and I realize she’s in plain black leggings, which feels almost too bland for Keisha, though her cropped pink sweater is so fluffy, it seems to be made out of cotton candy. “Robert’s coming with clothes for both of you,” she tells us. “But it was just too fun to catch you sleeping outside naked like randy teenagers.”

“Good. I’ll have him throw you out.” Hayes’s hand shifts under the blanket, gripping my hip while his thumb brushes my hip bone, and I wonder how long Robert will take.

Do I have time to sneak under the covers and enjoy an early breakfast?

“But where would I go?” Keisha asks. “You know Millie’s allergic to South Carolina this time of year, so that house is out. There’s a chance of wildfires out west, so those two houses are out. If I head into the city, I’ll eat cheesecake all day, so that’s out…”

“Antarctica,” Hayes replies.

I shift under the covers, rubbing my pelvis against Hayes’s bare body, and his cock immediately stiffens against me.

“Begonia, have you ever seen a K-drama?” Keisha asks. “We should totes have a girls morning and you can explain to me why penises are worth it.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Hayes grumbles.

“No one works on a forced sabbatical.” She wrinkles her nose, and Hayes cringes, like he’s sorry he brought it up.

“Why are you on sabbatical?” I ask.

“Do you know the best thing about being a distant Rutherford relative? They seriously cover up some shit. And I like you, B, but I’m not telling.”

“Understandable. If you want to talk, though, I’m around.”

Hayes scowls at her. “You have three seconds to leave before I treat you to a full frontal and chase you back to the house and tell Begonia all of your secrets. You told her mine. I’ll happily spill yours.”

She hesitates, but barely. “Fine. I’m going. Come find me for breakfast, Begonia. I want to know how you got that awesome hair color.”

And when she actually traipses away, I frown at Hayes. “Have you chased her naked before?”

“No, but she believes I’d do it. That’s enough.”

“Such a terrible threat, Mr. Rutherford.”

Keisha doesn’t matter. Marshmallow doesn’t matter. Being naked at the edge of a forest without my clothes doesn’t matter.

Hayes matters.

And a ruffled but smiling Hayes Rutherford with his cheeks and chin painted with scruff, his hair a tousled, bedheaded mess, and sleepy eyes slowly waking up, might be my favorite version of him.

“It was you or me, and she already has the advantage of seeing some mystery tattoo that I have yet to discover on your body. I have no intention of letting her see it more before I do.”

I smile back at him. “You didn’t look closely enough in Maine.”

“I was quite unaware of who I’d found in Maine.”

“And you were tired and cranky and expecting an empty house.”

He tilts his head into the crook of my neck again and sighs. “I’m tired of being tired and cranky,” he murmurs.

“Are you tired and cranky right now?”

“I’m far more content than I trust.”

I run my fingers through his hair and wiggle my hips, enjoying the feel of his rapidly hardening erection against my belly. I can’t imagine how vulnerable he must feel to confess that out loud. “Don’t question it. Just let yourself have it.”

“Begonia, I—”

“Your clothes, Mr. Rutherford,” Robert says from nearby. “Merriweather called and reported you’ve been requested for interviews with several news networks this morning.”

I sigh. It’s involuntary, and I wish I could stop it, but I can’t.

I’ve been here too many times. Sorry, Begonia, but if I don’t go to my job, I don’t get paid. We’ll have a glass of wine together tonight.

Hayes sighs too, and his sigh feels more weary to me than any of my own could ever be. “Why did Merriweather call you?”

“I located your phone in the freezer, sir,” Robert replies, which I guess is as solid an answer as anything else would be.

Hayes makes a noise.

I cringe. Marshmallow.

“Is that the weirdest place you’ve ever found a phone?” I ask Robert.

Hayes makes another noise, but it’s not like the noises he made when I first met him.

This sounds far more amused.

“Today, ma’am,” he replies.

“Nikolay would’ve told me.”

Robert doesn’t answer. He’s somehow staring at me as if I’m breaking some kind of unspoken rule about speaking to billionaires’ bodyguards while not actually looking at me, as if he doesn’t want to get caught gawking at his boss and his boss’s lady friend hiding their naked bits under a picnic blanket.

“We’ll be back at the house in fifteen minutes, Robert,” Hayes says.

“Certainly, sir. But as a matter of note, your father’s requested a video conference over breakfast.”

I frown. “Aren’t your parents here? I thought Marshmallow took them our clothes.”

“We’re an early-rising, early-working, early-traveling family,” Hayes replies. “Also, never trust Keisha.”

“Unless you’re broke and lost in Amsterdam,” Robert murmurs.

“Or facing down a gang of kangaroos outside Sydney,” Hayes agrees. “Fifteen minutes, Robert.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for the clothes,” I call after him as he heads back toward the house.

Hayes tilts his pelvis, pressing his hard length more firmly against my belly. “I’m quite irritated that your dog stole my condoms. And I would very much like to have been the first person in my family to have studied this tattoo of yours.”

I reach between us, wrapping my fingers around his cock. “Guess I’ll have to make that up to you.”

His eyes slide shut as I find the space and the angle to stroke him.

“Begonia?”

“Yes, Hayes?”

“I will never forget this moment.”

My heart warms even as fear dances at the edges of the glow.

I won’t either.

And I’m afraid it will be over too soon, but not soon enough to keep me from completely falling.