Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76470 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
I may be anti-marriage, but I’m still pro-romance. Case in point? That sexy curmudgeon I met last year during my cousin’s tropical bachelorette getaway.
That grump was Dorian, the groom’s old college roommate, there for the bachelor party. I couldn’t get enough of his messy brown hair and gorgeous turquoise eyes. We connected on a deep level—emotionally and physically.
But the timing wasn’t right. So we made a pact to reconnect in two years. Now I’m starting a new “job.” It’ll take a lot of work and pays really well—I’m talking seven figures here. All I have to do is pretend to be my boss’s new fiancée…and spend eight weeks with his family on their private island. How hard could it be?
Turns out, a lot harder than I thought. Because the man I’m pretending to love? He’s Dorian’s brother, and now all bets are off…
A sizzling romance about two people who fall in love, go their separate ways, and then try to reconnect against all odds.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
BRIAR
One Year Ago
“You can’t tell me all of these people are having fun.” A turquoise-eyed stranger sporting a five o’clock shadow and messy chocolate-brown hair takes the barstool beside mine. He swirls the amber-hued liquid in his lowball tumbler before pointing around the bar. “They’re all pretending. They have to be.”
Stealing a better glimpse of my new neighbor, I recognize him as the man who mostly kept to himself in the back of the party bus, even when one of the bride’s college friends shamelessly tried twerking in his face. The way he looked through her, she might as well have been invisible. As soon as we stepped inside this place, he ordered two fingers of whiskey and disappeared—until now.
“I don’t know.” I scan the dark and neon space that surrounds us. He and I are the only ones not singing, dancing, or falling over drunk. “Hate to say it, but I think we’re the wet blankets.”
“There’s a reason we’re an hour into this thing and these people are already trashed. It’s the only way you can have fun at a joint bachelor-bachelorette party.”
A Lil Jon song comes on, and behind me, the sash-and-tiara-wearing bride-to-be begins whoo-hooing and grinding against her fiancé, who is so hammered he can’t stand upright without stumbling backward. His near fall is broken by one of his big-muscled buddies, who swoops in to catch him. A few seconds later, the groom is back with his beloved, pretending to slap her ass to the rhythm of a song about sweat dripping down someone’s balls.
“Glad to see romance isn’t dead,” I say.
The night is young, and these people remind me of sheltered church-camp kids sampling freedom and adulthood for the first time.
“Twenty bucks says at least one person in our group will be throwing up before midnight,” I say.
“I’ve never understood the whole joint-bachelor-bachelorette-party thing,” the guy beside me continues, turning away from the spectacle behind us. “They said it’s more cost effective and the more the merrier, but you know damn well the bride and groom don’t trust each other, and that’s the real reason.” He takes a generous drink before sliding his empty glass toward the bartender and giving a nod. “How can you marry someone you can’t trust?”
I don’t disagree with any of what he’s saying—I would just never say those things out loud . . . to a fellow partygoer . . . at the actual party. Everyone here knows about Vivi and Benson’s colorful relationship saga, which is peppered with unproven cheating allegations and more breakups than any of us can count on our fingers.
“Even toxic love is love,” I say. “Just be happy for them. That’s all we have to do.”
“Hard to do that when odds are they won’t make it to their fifth wedding anniversary. It’s like watching a train wreck about to happen and doing nothing to stop it.”
“It’s not our train wreck to stop. And you never know, maybe they’ll beat the odds?” I say this knowing damn well those odds against them couldn’t be stacked higher. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Dorian.”
“Briar,” I say. “How do you know the groom?”
“We were college roommates a lifetime ago. Syracuse. How do you know the bride?”
“Vivi’s my cousin.” I sip my blackberry mojito, catching a lime seed in the straw. I swallow it like the bitter little pill it is, trying not to make a face.
“So you’re here out of familial obligation.”
“I mean, I’m also in her wedding,” I say. “Just here to show my support like everyone else.”
The bartender tops off Dorian’s whiskey, using a bottle he grabs off the highest shelf.
How this painfully attractive grouch of a man can be drinking expensive liquor at a flashy club in the Caribbean is beyond me. He should be tossing them back, hitting on beautiful women, and living his best life—god-awful music be damned.
“What would you be doing right now?” I ask. “If you weren’t here?”
He exhales, contemplating his response. “Probably catching some shitty sleep in a tour bus, making sure the bassist doesn’t try to quit again.”
“You’re in a band?”
“No,” he says. “I manage one.”
“So you’d rather be working right now?”
“They do better when I’m there to keep them in line,” he says.
“What band is it?” I ask.
“Phantom Symphony.”
“Stop.” I smack my palm against the bar top. “You manage Phantom Symphony? Are you serious? I have their entire album and their new EP in my iTunes. I was just listening to them on the flight this morning. I must’ve had that new song . . . ‘Moon Drop Envy’ on repeat for a solid hour earlier. When I tell you I’m ob-sessed . . .”
Fishing into my clutch, I pull out my phone to show him, but he waves me off like he doesn’t need proof.
“You and everyone else,” he says.