Harlequin E New Adult Romance Box Set Volume 1: Burning Moon\Girls' Guide to Getting It Together\Rookie in Love (6 page)

I mean, I have a “Caribbean Caramel” spray tan, long (and may I add very shiny) blonde hair with no split ends, a French manicure, I listen to Taylor Swift and don’t take antidepressants.

Perhaps he felt obliged to be polite since I was putting him up for the night?

The honeymoon suite was, quite frankly, the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever been in. I briefly wondered if Damian had seen better on the numerous expensive holidays he’d no doubt enjoyed with his rich family. It was spacious, equipped with sleek, modern finishes—and beyond comfortable. It was, however, far more open plan than I’d initially imagined. It
did
have a living room, but one that wasn’t very separate from the bedroom…something that would surely prove to be Awkward (again, with a capital A), since I’d offered Damian the couch.

More awkward, though, was the completely open-plan bathroom, complete with outdoor shower and sunken Jacuzzi bath. Someone had already filled the bath, and sprinkled a few rose petals on the surface. A feeling crawled up from my gut again as I watched the delicate petals bob about on the surface of the water. My bouquet had been made of roses, as were the centerpieces on the beautifully appointed tables. I thought about Michael again, and this time we weren’t rolling in beach sand.

No, this time I had taken a photograph of us, cut his face out of it, stuck it on a voodoo doll and was stabbing him in the crotch with a pin! (Maybe I did need antidepressants.)

I was angry. Very fucking angry! Where the hell was he? What was he doing right now? He probably didn’t even know that I was on our so-called honeymoon, and he certainly didn’t know that a strange man was with me. Suddenly I hoped he would find out somehow and die from the excruciating pain of jealousy. Or didn’t he care enough? Did he still love me? Did I love him? I was confused.

My face must have betrayed my feelings, because Damian slid up beside me and looked at the bath.

“I hate those bloody things, they always get stuck in the drain,” he said, bending down and scooping the petals out.

Although I would never have guessed it, or even predicted it, this was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for me.

“I’ll just chuck them outside,” he said, exiting with an armful of wet petals. He stopped at the door and turned. “I’ll go and have a dip in the sea while you bathe. I know you said you wanted one.” He paused. “You’re going to be fine, Lilly.” And then he was gone.

This guy didn’t know me from a bar of soap, and yet he had this uncanny ability to say, and do, the right things at exactly the right time. Michael had known me for years, but I guarantee you he would never have worked out that staring at floating red petals in a bathtub was making me feel homicidal. But Damian had.

Chapter Five

I met my fiancé, Michael,
ex-fiancé
I mean, when I was in my first year of law school. Just out of high school, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of youthful optimism and my half-full glass runneth over. Michael and I met at a very pretentious play, which might as well have been written in Greek, because I wasn’t able to extrapolate a single syllable of sense out of it. The play had been written, directed and acted in by my ex-stepsister—my mother briefly married a theater director when I was five. The marriage lasted only eight months, but I still remain friends with my stepsister, Stormy Rain. (The story goes that Stormy was literally born in the rain, I’m not sure how true this is, but I always loved to tell everyone that.)

People are surprised that Stormy and I are friends, because she is the complete antithesis of me; for starters, she wears a lot of knitted scarves and crushed velvet (even in summer), she lives hand-to-mouth as a theater actress, director, astrologer and fire juggler. Personally, I think we were forced to bond during those terrible eight months, when our parents were either violently fighting or drunk, high and partying.

But as much as I love Stormy—and I really do—I’d been dreading her play all week. I’d never enjoyed, or understood, any of them and the evening always ended with the inevitable, “So what did you think?” And that night was not different; she rolled on the stage, cried out for her mother, and bathed in a tub of green water. But what was different about that night, was that I happened to be sitting next to the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.

Michael is good looking, no doubt about it. He’s tall, muscular and blond with blue eyes and an incredible smile, which was something I’d been looking forward to seeing while walking down the aisle. Although, right now I wished he looked like a fat, hairy hobbit with a limp.

The attraction between us had been instant and mutual, and we’d found ourselves stealing glances at each other throughout the play. During the second half, when he turned to me and whispered, “What the hell is going on?” I knew I wanted to get to know him better.

We went for coffee after the play and worked out that his brother was the graphic designer who’d made the poster for
A Mother’s Jealous Tears
—obviously the reason for the green water—and that he’d been given a free ticket and felt obliged to go. During our initial conversation, we established that he was an accountant (very professional), his family belonged to a country club (very respectable), he owned his own house (very upwardly mobile) and we enjoyed several of the same hobbies, TV shows, music and movies. We also seemed to have the same ideals: he also wanted marriage and kids and dogs and a big house.

He was perfect. He checked off all my boxes. He crossed all my Ts and dotted the Is. It was even better when everyone said they liked him. So when he’d started playing golf with my dad and my brothers, I knew I was in love.

And Michael said he felt the same way, too.

The funny thing, though, the thing I can’t wrap my head around, is that our relationship had been perfect. We never fought, conversation was always easy and we fell into a predictable, comfortable daily routine.
So what had happened?

I’d played our entire relationship over in my mind, looking for the telltale signs of dissatisfaction. But I couldn’t find any. Unless I was missing something? Stormy Rain had said something to me once that was suddenly reverberating in my ears, “You know, if a guy’s not getting it, he’s going to go looking for it somewhere else!”

My blood ran cold. Had it been unreasonable of me to expect him to abstain for so long? He was a red-blooded male after all, and one who could probably get sex a million times a day with a million different women. Hot, thin women. It’s not like we weren’t sexual, though, we’d done everything else but the actual deed. God, my mind was spinning, my thoughts were going haywire and once again I was overcome with an urge to phone him. I needed to speak to him.

I reached for my phone and realized it was off. I suspected that my friends and family were panicking by now and had probably sent out search and rescue helicopters and sniffer dogs, so I dropped them all a reassuring message.

And then I logged onto Facebook, went straight to his page and scanned. Nothing.

Twitter. Nothing.

Instagram. Nothing.

I dialed his number and it immediately went to voicemail, and hearing his voice made me feel sick.

My heart started pounding and I broke into a cold sweat. A sick feeling was washing over me in waves.

I dialed again. Voicemail.

I dialed again. Voicemail.

Again. Voicemail.

Should I leave a message? But what would I say?

Hey Michael, it’s me, Lilly. I was just calling to ask WHY THE FUCK YOU LEFT ME AT THE ALTAR YOU BASTARD ASSHOLE JERK-FACE? Anyway, love you and chat soon, bye.

I was relieved when I heard a knock at the door, and I decided to take it as a sign that I should leave well enough alone. I was still wet from my bath and opened the door in my towel, just as Damian was coming up the stairs.

“Good evening.” A man in a black suit greeted us both. “Your dinner is ready.”

“What dinner?”

“The romantic dinner on the beach that Mr. Edwards…” he turned and looked at Damian now, “that Mr. Edwards organized for your wedding night.”

“That sounds great, I’m starving,” Damian said.

“No, I don’t think so!” My tone was fierce and the man in the suit looked surprised.

“But it’s all arranged, and it’s very beautiful.”

I was torn. The very mention of the word
food
made my stomach growl and mouth water. But the idea of a romantic dinner with Damian on the beach, well, that was just weird.

Damian jumped in; he was making a habit of that. “Would you mind giving us five minutes?”

The man in the suit left and Damian stepped forward.

“But aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“I am but…” I tried to pull my towel up so it covered as much of my body as possible. I wished I was wearing a burka.

“It’s not like I’m going to play footsie with you under the table or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

God, I was torn! I started mentally making a list of pros and cons, but my stomach wasn’t having it. I was starved.
Oh, what the hell, I guess.
Besides, maybe I could get someone to take a picture of us and post it on Instagram with a soft-focus romantic filter and make him jealous.

“Ok, give me a minute to get ready.”

* * *

There’ve been a few moments in my life when I’ve been overwhelmed by something so beautiful that it literally took my breath away. Like when I tried on my wedding dress for the first time, or met my baby niece for the first time. And right now was one of those moments. Looking around, I could see that this location had been carefully planned, manipulated and manufactured for optimal romance.

The actual setting was magnificent: the dinner was laid out on a table for two on a sandy embankment. You had to walk through warm, ankle-deep water to get there. In the middle of the embankment, in the middle of a heart made of candles placed on the sand, was a tent-like structure. It was open on all sides and draped with thin white curtains that were waving rhythmically in the warm breeze. The small table was scattered with pink flowers and more candles and was flanked by two chairs also draped in white fabric. All in all, it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.

It was stunning, and the feelings that it evoked in me were very overpowering; it simultaneously stole my breath away, while reaching deep inside and tickling every one of my senses. It really was…it was…well, it’s really hard to describe, I don’t even think I have the adjectives to do it justice. In fact, feel free to insert them yourself.

It looked like a (insert adjective), and it made me feel like (insert adverb), etc.

I hope I’ve painted this picture accurately enough, because it’s important for you to visualize it correctly in order to understand why my next reaction was so surprising. Because all I could do was look at it all and laugh.

And, oh, how I laughed. I laughed like a cackle of hyenas.

My shoulders shuddered as I struggled to get enough air into my lungs, gasping in between the shrieks. This was not a normal laughter either—this was hysteria. And I wasn’t able to stop it. In fact, the more I tried to control it, the worse it got. The laughter escalated until I had tears rolling down my face and was whimpering—at some stage, I think I heard myself snort. My ribs hurt, my stomach and my mouth hurt. I looked up at Damian—expecting him to be backing away from me with a look of terror on his face, clutching a fork in case he needed to stab and subdue me—but he wasn’t. He was also laughing, and then he said something that made me realize that he got it.

“I was about to say something witty about irony, but I see you’ve saved me the trouble.”

And then we both laughed.

There’s that corny saying about laughter being the best medicine. But it really is, because when our laughter had finally tapered off, I felt better than I’d felt in days! But I was bloody hungry, too. However, after reading the menu several times, it soon became clear to me that I had absolutely no idea what they were trying to serve us.

The menu claimed the dishes were “An adventure in molecular gastronomy,” and the kinds of foods listed included seared tuna on a bed of deconstructed salad, served with a ginger mousse. I kept reading and the word
deconstructed
appeared three more times, along with other confusing phrases such as sweet and sour tangerine veil, lychee bubbles and edible sand, sea foam.

“Um…” I looked up at Damian, hoping he was feeling the same way and that I wasn’t just some uncultured slob with no appreciation for the art of modern cooking.

“Is it me or is this a little…” I was searching for the words.

“Disdainfully avant-garde, a pretentious!”

“Wow, you don’t pull any punches.”

“Well, I have very strong feelings about this type of food.” His face was totally serious when he said this.

“Pray tell,” I was intrigued again.

“Well, my parents
love
this kind of cooking. It’s expensive and denotes good taste and culture, you see,” he said this last part in a very posh sounding accent, which made me laugh. “We once went to this restaurant in France where they actually served crab ice cream.”

“No they didn’t.”

“It’s true, you can Google it.”

We smiled at each other and our eyes locked for a few seconds. I felt the strangest feeling rush through me, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and as I was trying to, Damian broke eye contact.

“Hi.” He waved his arm in the direction of the waiter. “Hi, please can we have your other menu.”

“I beg your pardon.” The confused waiter looked at him blankly.

“You know, the one with the normal food on it.”

I tried to hide my snicker. I certainly didn’t want to offend anyone.

But still the waiter gave him a blank look.

So he tried again, “Let me put it this way. Can I get a hamburger with chips and, Lilly, what do you want?”

“The same, thanks.”

The waiter, although thrown, smiled cordially and walked off, splashing through the water as he went, and finally disappearing over the beach and into the hotel.