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  It’s an omen, I think. An omen that foreshadows the darkness inside him that I’m just beginning to see clearly. I know more about this man than a stranger should. I’ve been obsessed with him for years.

  Maybe that makes me the dark one?

  He huffs out a breath. “Did you hear something? Did you read something? I mean, you were normal this afternoon and now—” He changes position and flops down on his side in the sand, his hand propping up his face, his smile a devious smirk. “Now you’re…” He stares at me in the moonlight, his eyes darting back and forth between mine. “Now you’re… afraid.” He lets the word hang there between us. “Afraid of me? Or just of being with me?”

  I have no clue what to say, so I opt for the truth. “I saw you back there.”

  “OK,” he laughs, a look of relief washing over his face. “So… what did you see? I’m not drunk, so I know I didn’t do anything stupid. I’m still dressed, so I wasn’t humping the chairs.”

  I chuckle a little at that.

  “I didn’t eat the salad”—he swipes a finger over his teeth—“so I know there’s no lettuce distracting you from my disarming smile. I tipped the waiter and the band—”

  “I saw you with that woman.”

  “What woman?” he responds too quickly.

  “That tall brunette in the pink dress.”

  “Samantha?” he asks, sitting up with a smile.

  “I don’t know, is that her name?” I say back with a snarl that takes me by surprise.

  “You’re jealous.” And now he does laugh. “You’re jealous of Samantha.”

  “I’m not jealous, Mr. Asher—”

  “Whoa,” he laughs. “That’s so fucking hot.”

  I just stare at him. “What?”

  “Almost everyone calls me Mr. Asher, but holy fuck, hearing it come from your mouth.”

  I glance down at his crotch and see the unmistakable bulge of a hard-on. “I’m leaving.” I get up, all the way up this time, and he does not protest. I grab my sandals by the straps and turn away. He gets to his feet behind me and I’m a few paces up the beach when he calls out.

  “She’s my sister, Grace. Samantha is my sister. She got married today and she’s having second thoughts. I didn’t know what to say to her so we were… having a moment, ya know? Kinda personal. I’m sorry you saw it.”

  I stop but don’t turn around.

  “I’m not usually so… I don’t know, caring. But she’s having second thoughts and I didn’t know what to say to make it better and I was trying to help her believe it’ll be OK. I think she loves him, but what do I know? I want to convince her this is normal, but I don’t think it is. Because if I was getting married I would not have second thoughts. If I was the one who got married today, I’d be fucking my wife in the pool house, or here on the beach, or up in the hotel. My wedding night would be nothing but constant attention to the woman I chose to spend the rest of my life with. So I’m thinking she did make a mistake. But how can I tell her that?” He stops and lets out a long breath.

  When I turn to look at him he’s rubbing his hands down his face like this is eating away at him.

  “I love my sister. She’s fragile and perfect and if I told her what I really think she’d believe me and be crushed. And who am I to make her believe that? Maybe this is love to her? Maybe we just all love in different ways?”

  I shrug my shoulders at him. “Oh,” is all I manage. “I’m sorry.”

  “Would you have second thoughts?” he asks me in a soft and solemn voice. “On your wedding night?”

  I shake my head and he smiles for all the wrong reasons. “No,” I say decisively. “I wouldn’t. Because I’m never getting married so the opportunity for second thoughts would never occur.”

  His smile fades. “Well, I guess you’re not a romantic.” It’s not a question.

  I’m not sure what to think of this conversation. I’m standing on a tropical beach with Vaughn Asher, the movie star, and we’re talking about true love and romance. “I am,” I insist. “I am romantic, but in a very…” I shrug. “Fairy tale way, that’s all. It’s not real, it’s all fake. I don’t mind the fake as long as I keep the fairy tale where it belongs. My fantasy.”

  “So why did you meet me tonight?” He takes a few steps towards me. “If you weren’t daydreaming about a real-life romantic encounter—” He’s close enough to see the color of his eyes now. And then his hand reaches out and takes mine. I want to pull away. In fact, I try to pull away, but he’s got that grip on me again. “Then what other reason is there to come?”

  I huff out a breath and the laugh comes out along with it. “You’re a movie star. I’m starstuck. Can you blame me?”

  “Did you think I wanted to fuck you?”

  “Do you?”

  “I asked you first.”

  “I don’t pretend to read minds but I know your public persona well enough to say, yeah. I think you asked me out so you could fuck me. Am I wrong?”

  “No,” he says quickly. “You’re not wrong.” He grabs a hold of my shoes and tries to take them, but I pull back. “I’ll hold them for you. And walk you back to the bungalows by way of the beach.”

  “This beach goes to the bungalows?” I flash him a raised eyebrow. “They’re not beachfront. I know that for sure.”

  “No, but this beach winds around to the other side of them. We can get there from here. And I can replace my public reputation with my private one as we walk.”

  Well. I have to admit, I was not expecting him to be so… honest. “Will I want to know you privately?”

  “Are you interested in a relationship?”

  “What?” I laugh. “Oh, shit. Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? You’re a movie star. I’m an event planner from Denver. I’m not that stupid.”

  “I know who you are and where you’re from. Everyone at this resort has been background-checked, including you. So no, I do not think you’re stupid. I just wanted a date with you.”

  “A date that ends with me being shown the door in the morning?”

  He shakes his head as he laughs. “Grace, you’re sending me mixed signals. Do you want to be shown the door the morning after or not? I’m confused. One second you’re all swoony and the next you’re hostile. I told you that was my sister. Do you want to go talk to her and see if I’m lying? You were obviously on your way to meet me when you wandered by the party and saw us. So what I want to know is how did I become some asshole in your mind in the span of a few minutes if what you saw was a misunderstanding?”

  He’s right. I’m being a total bitch right now. I’m angry and defensive and I don’t even know why. And my surrender must show in my body language because he stops holding my hand and drags the back of his knuckles down my cheek. “Just relax,” he whispers. “Come for a walk on the beach with me. It’s the long way, sure. But I promise, I’ll get you home and you can see part of this island not many people have access to.”

  I bite my lip and nod. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m just… moody. My friend ditched me today and I’m being a jealous bitch in more ways than one. I misunderstood and I apologize. I’d love to see your beach.”

  I say the words and I really do mean them, but there’s this instant when I watch his smile that I feel I’ve crossed a boundary. I’m not sure what kind of boundary it is, but I know it’s going to change me. For better or worse, I think from this moment forward I will divide my adult life up into two parts. Everything that came before I met the movie star on the beach. And everything that came after.

  Chapter Nine

  #UnavailableToYouAsshole

  “I GREW up here,” Vaughn says as we walk along the beach.

  I look around at all the natural beauty and try to imagine this kind of childhood. “It must’ve been like a dream.”

  “Where’d you grow up? Your background check had no childhood information on you. It was weird really—”

  “Denver,” I say, cutting him off. “Born and raised.” />
  “Was it”—he looks over at me but I’m trying to avoid his stare, so I bend down and pick up a rock to skip into the waves—“a struggle?”

  I really hate talking about myself, but I don’t want him to think I’m evading. I don’t want to give him any reason to go looking for my past. So I tell all the safe stuff. “My younger years were not bad. They were close to middle-class perfect, in fact. We were never rich, but we owned a house. A small one in the Highlands area of Denver. It’s not a great neighborhood, it’s still Denver and that comes with certain truths about crime and public schools. But it’s nice. And quaint with all the whimsically painted Victorian houses and the small shopping district. A trendy place these days, where young professionals want to live because it’s close to downtown and yet secluded from it at the same time.

  “After my parents both died I sold the house to pay for college and even with my fancy new job, there’s no way I could afford to buy there now. Most of the homes start at half a million. My parents bought our house back before the revitalization, so prices were cheap and the hood was bleak. But now… it’s out of reach for me.”

  When I look over at him he’s got a solemn expression. I know it well. Pity. When people hear that my parents died when I was young I get that look often. I like to get past it, so that’s why I opt for telling instead of evasion. And then I always turn the conversation back around. “Is your family close? I mean, I knew you had a sister and a brother, and I’ve seen your brother in a few indie films, but I’ve never seen your sister before.”

  He nods as I talk. “Yeah, we’re close.” And his smile when he looks at me tells me that’s the truth. “We bicker and shit, but it’s all in good fun. We’re very close. Even my father, the great Adam Asher, is a big family guy at heart. But I don’t see Samantha often. She hates the spotlight. She hates the paparazzi. They wrote a story on her when she was a teenager, a real nasty one, and it about killed her. My father sued the magazine and they gave in and pulled the story before it ran. So all turned out OK. But Sam was… traumatized. That’s why we had everyone background-checked.”

  That whole story makes me shiver. “Why let anyone come to the resort at all? Why not just buy up all the rooms?”

  He stops and waves his hand at the expansive back lawn of a sprawling beachside estate. There’s a line of mature palm trees flanking a center walkway paved with pea stones that leads up to the Spanish-style house. “We own this place. The beach, the resort, the house. So we can do whatever we want with it. But—”

  He looks down at me and this is the first time I realize how tall he is. I know his actual height, six foot two, because I know all those trivial facts about him from my fangirl stalking. But seeing him in person is quite different. I have to look up to pay attention to what he’s saying and it makes me feel vulnerable.

  “But some people,” he stresses these words, “are on their honeymoons. And Samantha wouldn’t hear of ruining them.”

  I laugh a little. “We lied.”

  “Obviously,” he says back with a smile. “I wasn’t sure at first, no offense,” he adds with a chuckle. “You and your friend together are a fantasy come true. But the guy showing up and announcing himself as her boyfriend sorta blew your cover.”

  “It wasn’t cover,” I explain. “We just never thought about it, I guess. The rules never said you actually had to be newly married. And Bebe’s current boyfriend is more of a toy than a commitment, so she brought me with her instead of him.”

  “Looks like that might’ve backfired for her.” Vaughn’s genuine smiles leaks through his feigned attempt at seriousness. “She seems to have forgotten about you.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “I’m not usually a jealous bitch, but I was a little annoyed when the call came saying she was spending the night on some island.”

  “Well, I’m happy to keep you company and occupy all your thoughts while you wait for her to come home. Want a tour of the house?” He waves me forward and onto the little pea-pebbled pathway.

  “Wow, these stones feel so good on my feet.”

  “They really do, don’t they. You don’t normally hear those three things together. Bare feet, stones, and feels good. But they are smooth and polished. It’s like a foot massage as you walk.” He chuckles to himself and adds, “And if you ever find yourself lying on your back, they massage that too.”

  “Is that right?” My God, he just admitted to fucking someone on this path.

  “Wanna feel it? Here,” he says as he takes my hand and kneels down on the pebbles, pulling me down with him. “Lie down, I’ll show you.”

  “No.” I pull away, forcefully this time. With enough gumption for him to realize that’s never gonna happen. “No, I don’t want to.”

  “OK,” he says, getting back to his feet. “You’re a tough cookie to crack, aren’t you?”

  “Define crack?”

  “To break, to open—”

  “Now you’re the one sending mixed signals.”

  “Am I?” he replies quickly. “I think I’m sending all the right ones, to be honest.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you want? Why ask me out? Why all this strange interest?”

  He stares down at me with a flat line for a mouth, his eyebrows melded together in an expression of confusion. “Why not you? You’re pretty, you’re here, and you’re the only beautiful woman around who is not on her honeymoon or part of my family.”

  Oh my God. The god just insulted me by practically labeling me ‘available’. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?” I ask him. It takes a lot to undo my Happiness is a #Hashtag motto, but I admit, I am very, very annoyed at this point.

  “Are you looking for a compliment? Because I can dish them out, Grace. I can tell you your eyes are beautiful, your ass is perfect, and your tits make me hard just picturing them inside that flimsy little piece of fabric you’re calling a dress. Do you need to hear all those things right now? Do you need your ego pumped up? Because from where I’m standing, all those things are so obvious to me, I kinda figured you’d think I was some pathetic player if I said that to you tonight.”

  Well, thanks a lot, asshole. I’d like to say that, but I don’t because I’m uneasy with all the anger I’m experiencing right now. He’s affecting me in a very negative way and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. I cut right through his bullshit and lay it all out there. “Do you want to fuck me?”

  “Would you like me to fuck you?”

  This is going nowhere. I’m getting nowhere. And I can’t take the pressure, so I blurt out, “Yes! Yes, I want you to fuck me.”

  He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “I’m sorry, Grace. I don’t work that way. I mean, yeah, look at you. I’d like to fuck you sideways, upside down, and backwards, and not really in that order because I’m a total ass man. But I don’t date anyone without a NDA.”

  “Ah, there it is! I knew that was true!” I turn around and start walking back to the beach.

  He does not follow and I know this partly because I don’t hear the soft sound of feet on stones behind me. But also because when I get all the way back to the shore he calls out. “Hey, Grace!”

  I stop but don’t turn.

  “Want a trial run? To give you time to make up your mind. See if I’m worth the price of your silence?”

  I stop and throw up my hands but I don’t turn back around. “Are you asking me if I’d like to fuck you tonight without the contract?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “No strings?”

  “No.” He chuckles behind me as he walks down the path. “There are definitely strings, Grace. And if we go any further, you will verbally agree to them. You’ll give me a lady’s word that you will not talk to the media.”

  Well, he’s got no idea how much the media revolts me, so that’s a deal I can make. I turn and I’m surprised to find him very close. “What am I not talking to them about, if I give a lady’s word to take you up on the free tria
l?”

  He takes a deep breath like he has to steady himself to answer that question, and then he lets it out and replies, “Submission.”

  “I don’t really know what that means, so you’re gonna have to explain.” My heart is beating so fast at the sudden turn in conversation, I almost want to pass out. I steady myself by leaning against the trunk of a palm tree. “Will you hurt me?”

  “Maybe,” he says softly. “If you like that.”

  “What if I don’t like that?”

  “Then I won’t do it. But how do you know you won’t like it unless you try it?”

  “Was all this small talk just a way to break the ice so you could get me to agree to this?”

  “Yes.”

  No hesitation on his part at all. Just yes. I turn away and my heart pounds inside my chest, enough to make my vision blur, and before I know what’s happening I’m falling to the ground. “Did you drug me?”

  He laughs. “Drug you? How in the world would I have drugged you, Grace? Jesus. A little faith. I’m not a kidnapper, for fuck’s sake. I’m just a kinky bastard who wants to get laid. And I want to do that with you tonight. Stop thinking so hard.” He’s got me by the arm and I realize I didn’t fall. I almost did, but he caught me. “I can make it nice, if that’s what you want.”

  “Just tell me why? Why me?” I force myself to look him in the eyes. “You can have anyone and I’m not the only available woman at this resort. So just tell me what you see when you look at me—and not all that bullshit about eyes and skin and whatever, but what you really see. Do I have the word victim written across my forehead?’

  “Victim? What?”

  “That something that says you can take advantage of me. That says I’m vulnerable and needy and I will agree to this thing you ask for because I’m desperate for someone to love me and the only person who can do that is you. That’s what you want me to believe, right? I’m damaged—”