Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Rose

We lay on the beach in each other’s arms, contented, peaceful, with the water lapping at the shore. I could stay here forever. I don’t believe that any other thoughts cross my mind—what more is there to think about in these kinds of situations?

I listen to the sound of Brandon’s heart, and it feels like everything I ever needed crammed inside one person’s body.

I smile to myself—Jess always said I was too hooked on romance novels to see what was right in front of my face. But strangely, I do see him. I see his flaws, and his arrogance, and his privilege, and even though those qualities are high on the list of things I dislike most, there’s a whole lot more to Brandon Weiss.

His heartbeat is strong, but I feel like he is broken inside.

Do I want to fix him?

Doesn’t every woman who ever meets a broken man?

Brandon starts shivering uncontrollably, and stark reality comes crashing back into play.

I sit up and study his face. His skin is deathly pale and sweat beads his forehead and upper lip despite the shivers. “We should get you back to the house.”

He doesn’t speak. Instead, he nods, his teeth chattering.

I help him to his feet, straighten his clothes, and fasten his belt before trying to fix my own outfit. My shirt won’t do up—half the buttons are missing, and the rest are clinging on by a thread. Literally. It would be comical if Brandon didn’t have a lump the size of a tennis ball on the back of his head, covered with a mixture of dried blood and sand.

I should’ve gotten him back to the house sooner, but I can’t think about that right now.

He leans on me for support as we follow the raised wooden path back. We walk in silence. Comfortable silence to begin with, but the closer we get to the sprawling white house, the tenser we both become, like driving into standstill traffic knowing there’s no alternative route.

What happens next proceeds at lightning speed and slow motion all at once, the situation blurring into a hazy movie scene.

Ron is sitting on the porch swing seat cradling a crystal brandy glass in his hands. He rises when he spots us approaching, eyes narrowed like we’re some kind of apparition emerging from the soil of the island.

“What happened?” He inspects the back of Brandon’s head, holds his shoulders still, and peers into his eyes as if he knows the vital signs to look for.

“I-I found him on Swimming Beach,” I say. “He was in the water. Unconscious.”

Ron stands back and slides his cellphone from his pocket. “I’m calling the paramedics.”

“Paramedics?” I should’ve done that when I found him on the beach. Only I didn’t have my phone with me, and I stupidly thought that he was well enough to… What have I done?

Ron dials nine-one-one. He fixates on Brandon’s head wound as he speaks to the advisor on the other end of the phone, his eyes sliding across to my unbuttoned shirt.

I pull it across my chest and help Brandon to sit down on the edge of the porch.

“Police?” Ron raises his eyebrows at me, and it takes me a moment to realize what he’s asking.

I shake my head. “He was drunk.” I should’ve brought the empty bottle back as evidence. Yet another error to add to a whole list of errors I’ve made on Ruby Island.

“They’re on their way.” Ron crouches in front of Brandon. “Do you remember what happened?”

Brandon doesn’t move. He’s still shivering uncontrollably, and I dash inside the house to fetch a blanket to keep him warm while we wait.

When I come back, Ruby is there, an elegant shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a silver silk scarf covering her hair. She takes in my disheveled state, the ruined shirt, my damp pants, and looks away as if she finally understands that she made a mistake in hiring me.

“Go clean yourself up,” she says. “We’ll take over from here.”

That’s it. No ‘thank you’, no interrogation over what happened or how I knew where to find him. She doesn’t even ask if I’m okay.

That’s all that plays through my mind when I go back to my guest room and pack my bag. They didn’t ask if I was okay. They didn’t ask how Brandon hit his head, or how my uniform got ruined, or even what we were both doing out on the beach in the middle of the night. Their priority was Brandon—I get it, they’ll avoid a scandal at all costs—but it was more than that.

I wasn’t a priority because I’m not one of them.

I ruined everything.

I curl up on the couch with a coffee, New Girl playing on the TV with the volume turned down. It’s one of my favorite shows, but I barely even register the characters moving across the screen. Dad wanted to stay home with me, but I told him I wouldn’t be good company today, so he went to work begrudgingly, and has already texted three times asking if I’m all right.

I haven’t told him what happened yet. He’ll be disappointed that I didn’t stay till the end of the celebrations, and I don’t want him stressing over whether it will reflect on him when Brandon is back in the office.

I love New York. I’ve lived here my whole life, but for the first time ever, I wish we could move away, somewhere quiet, where people like Brandon Weiss don’t exist. Like an island in the Florida Keys for example.

The doorbell rings. I put the coffee cup down on the floor and unfurl my legs. I made sure Dad remembered his lunch, and Jess is at work. If it’s a cold caller, I’ll get rid of them firmly but politely, the way Dad does, instead of getting sucked into a conversation I have no interest in.

I open the door and freeze. For a beat. Then my heart starts galloping like a racehorse when I realize that Brandon Weiss is standing on my porch.

“Can I come in?” He’s wearing a suit and tie; his face is still pale, and there are dark smudges under his eyes, but his chin is stubble-free, and I can smell his cologne.

“Sure.” I stand aside and open the door wide. “Coffee?” I ask, when we’re within touching distance of each other in the living room.

“I can’t stay.” He looks awkward in this setting without the trappings of wealth and technology to hide behind.

I feel awkward too. It’s as if the rest of my life hinges on this moment, on what he is about to say, and I still have no clue which way it will go.

“You can sit down.” I gesture to the couch, wishing I’d plumped up the cushions before I opened the door.

I glimpse the room through his eyes and am inexplicably embarrassed about welcoming him into our home. My safe place. The home I’ve loved until the Weiss family opened my eyes to so much more. As if I’ve dipped my toes in warmer water and realized how cold the water was back home.

He smiles, the gesture barely making it to his eyes before it fades. He studies the floor, my coffee cup, the muted TV.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Fine.” He shrugs. “Sore. It probably has more to do with the bottle of brandy I polished off single handedly than the bump on the head.”

“And the champagne.”

“And the champagne.” He still can’t look me in the eye, not fully, and the blood that has been bubbling away crazily in my veins becomes a simmer. “Thank you, Rose. For what you did.”

What I did? Does he realize how ambiguous that sentence is?

“You saved my life.”

“Anyone else would’ve done the same. Lucky I found you first.”

Our eyes meet, and my heart performs a somersault. The question flickers across his face: what was I doing down at Swimming Beach so late at night? But he doesn’t say the words out loud.

“Rose, things are not…” He inhales deeply and swallows hard. “My life isn’t what you think it is, at least, not right now.”

Here it comes, I think. The whole I-like-you-but-the-timing-is-shit excuse.

“You’ve no doubt heard the saying ‘it’s tough at the top’.

Seriously? That’s what he’s going with?

“I know it makes me sound like an obnoxious asshole,” he continues, “and I’m not looking for sympathy, but people are always waiting to tear you down and trample you into the ground.” Another swallow. “I’m not doing a great job of explaining this, so I’ll cut to the chase. I have a proposition for you, Rose.”

“A proposition?”

Another job? A date? A potential relationship?

“Will you pretend to be my girlfriend?” He stares at me then, full-on eye contact, like he’s afraid to miss my life-altering response. “Well, fiancée rather than girlfriend. I’ll buy you a ring. We could announce the engagement in Vegas. You can keep the ring, Rose. I’ll buy you an apartment. Anything you want. Just until this— situation —blows over.”

“You want me to pretend to be your fiancée…”

I’m numb. If I couldn’t see my cooling coffee on the floor and Zooey Deschanel’s face on the TV screen, I’d think this was all a bad dream, and I’d wake up in my guest room on Ruby Island with the sun streaming through the windows.

“I realize it’s a big ask but?—”

“You don’t say.” I finally find my voice and the courage to speak up. “What does that even entail, being Brandon Weiss’s fiancée, huh? Do you want to dress me up and attend a few parties with you so that people can see I’m not a figment of your imagination? Do you want the paparazzi to follow me around and plaster my pictures all over the media? Or do you want me to be a real fiancée?”

My heart is hammering against my ribs and making me feel queasy. I was wrong. Brandon Weiss isn’t just an arrogant asshole who thinks he can buy whatever he wants—he’s the biggest fucker I’ve ever met.

“What? No answers, Brandon? You haven’t thought this through, have you?” I allow my mouth to twist into a smile. “Will we share a bed? Will we fuck every night, Brandon, like other couples in the early stages of a relationship, or will this be a purely platonic arrangement ?”

Tears well in my eyes when I spit out the last word.

“I…” At least he has the decency to hang his head. “It will be whatever you want, Rose.”

I shake my head and give a loud ugly sniff. I refuse to let him see me cry. “This isn’t what I want. I want to marry for love. I don’t care about a diamond ring; I care about the man sliding it onto my finger with a smile that’s all for me. I care about wanting the same future. About children, and a cute floppy-eared spaniel, and a home that we created together.”

He nods. “You will have all of that someday, Rose. I know you will.”

But not with him.

“I’ll deposit a million dollars into your father’s bank account today, Rose. He’ll never have to worry about money again, I promise you.”

And there it is: the final offer. The one he knows is guaranteed to win me over.

“Get out,” I whisper.

“Rose, please. I know that I can trust you. If there was any other way out of this situation, I’d have taken it, but there isn’t. I need you.”

“Get out.” Louder this time. I march back to the door and open it so hard it bounces on the hinges. “Get out!”

I slam the door behind him and lean against it, my chest heaving with the effort of containing the sobs building up inside me. Then I sink to the floor as the tears start flowing.