All the Pretty Poses (Pretty #2)(45)
Author: M. Leighton

I grab her wrist in an iron grip and pull it away from me. “She’s not my latest anything, Claire. And no, we won’t be spending any time together this trip.”

Her bottom lip juts out in a pout. “What a shame. Your father did warn me that you like to slum it, though.”

I grit my teeth, reminding myself that Claire is, in fact, a woman, therefore I can’t physically hurt her. No matter how much I’d like to.

“The best thing you could do right now, Claire, is to get the hell off my boat, get the hell off Fiji and give me some time to cool off.”

I walk to the door and hold it open for her. She hesitates only for a few seconds before she glides out into the hall in her beauty-pageant gait.

She continues a few steps before stopping right in front of Kennedy’s door, saying loudly enough for practically anyone to hear, including Kennedy, “See you in a few weeks, lover.” The smile she gives me before she walks away assures me that she did that very much on purpose.

I wait until I hear the click of her heels on the floors of the lounge above before I go back into Kennedy’s room. She’s still sitting exactly where I left her, still pale as a ghost, still looking like I cut out her heart and threw it into the ocean.

“God, what an awful way to wake up. Can we just go back to sleep and try that again?” I ask, hoping to diffuse the situation rather than trying to explain it when she’s upset.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asks.

It was worth a try.

“Of course,” I tell her, swallowing my sigh as I sit on the end of the bed. Something tells me she won’t want me very close until we get this straightened out.

“Who was that, Reese?”

“That was Claire Norton. She’s the daughter of a business associate of mine and my father’s.”

“I don’t care about any of that. You know what I’m asking. Was she telling the truth? Is she your fiancée?”

Her voice cracks on the last word, as though she almost choked on it as it came out.

“She is, but it’s never been anything more than a business transaction, trust me.”

“Trust you?” she whispers. And then more loudly. “Trust you?” Her laugh is bitter and I can see tears glistening in her eyes. “How in the world can you even ask that? We’ve spent nearly every waking moment together for weeks and you’ve somehow neglected to mention a tiny detail like the fact that you’re engaged. Of course I can’t trust you, Reese.” She gets up and paces to the bathroom door, stunning in her nudity. It’s hard for me to ignore, but now is not the time to be appreciating her physical attributes.

“If it were important, I would’ve told you sooner, but it’s just…not. In fact, I haven’t given Claire a single thought since I saw you dancing that first night in Chicago. That’s how not a big deal this actually is.”

“Reese! How can you say that? You. Are. Engaged.” She pauses, the breath whooshing out of her as if the notion just struck her all over again, a physical punch. “To be married. How could this not be a big deal?”

“Kennedy,” I say gently, getting up to go to her. Carefully, I place my hands on her shoulders. “It is a business arrangement. Nothing else. There is no love between us. She will never interfere with us. In fact, you’ll probably never even see her again.”

“So your plan is to…to…what? Have us both? Marry her and have me on the side?”

“It’s not like that, Kennedy. I’ll be married to her in name only. It’s just business. Nothing more. She will never mean any more than that to me. She will never mean even a tiny bit as much as what you mean to me.”

Her mouth is hanging open and she’s staring at me incredulously. “And that doesn’t sound the least bit scummy to you?”

“Kennedy, what does it matter if a piece of paper ties my family to hers when it’s you that has my heart?”

“Reese, you can’t give someone your heart and then marry someone else. It just doesn’t work that way.”

“But why not? Why can’t it work that way?”

A dark cloud rolls over her beautiful features. “It could never work that way with me, Reese. Never. I won’t share you.”

“You won’t be sharing me.”

“So you’ve never slept with her?”

“I didn’t say that, but I can tell you that I will never be sleeping with her again. You’re the only one I want, Kennedy. Can’t you see that?”

“How could I? You’ve never told me that, and now, when you finally do, it’s because your fiancée showed up. What do you expect me to think, Reese? How do you expect me to feel?”

“I had hoped you felt the same way about me that I feel about you.”

“Obviously that’s not the case. I could never…would never…marry someone else if my heart wasn’t in it.”

“It’s just business, Kennedy,” I repeat in exasperation. “Stuff like this happens all the time.”

“Not in my world it doesn’t.”

“But my world is your world now. We can be together. I promise you that Claire won’t be a problem.”

For the longest time Kennedy says nothing. I watch the anger and indignation leave her face as an incredible sadness sweeps in. It causes my heart to freeze right inside my chest. I know before she opens her mouth that she’ll be saying goodbye.

“I told you I’m a simple girl, Reese. I don’t need diamonds or expensive perfumes. I don’t need to travel all around the world and eat food that costs more than my rent. All I need is someone to trust. If you can’t see that Claire is already a problem for me, then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

When she turns to walk away, fading into the bathroom and closing the door behind her, I know our time has come to an end.

I also know that I can’t let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR – Kennedy

An unbearable explosion is happening in my chest. It threatens my wholeness. As soon as the bathroom door is closed, I fold over, wrapping my arms around myself to hold together the jagged pieces of what used to be me.

I stay like that until my legs start to tingle with numbness. When I rise and stumble to the sink, I see the tear-stained face of a fifteen year old girl who made the mistake of trusting the wrong man fourteen years ago, the same man. As bad as that hurt, it now seems insignificant in comparison.