He laughed, recapped the water bottle and leaned across the counter, slapping me on the back. “No, she seems very determined, but not my style. Mari is just a tool—a little help to get the job done around here.”
How did Pierce talk so cavalierly regarding another human being? Sometimes I understood why he had a shit reputation in this town. He was a wonderful philanthropist, but he let his quest to win and play a game based on his own rules impede being a decent human being.
“Be nice, cousin. She is a person.”
He rolled his eyes and walked out of the kitchen, finding his way up to the second-floor office with me trailing behind him. “I’ll provide what she needs while she’s here. Food, clothing, shelter. You have nothing to worry about for her sake.”
Mari’s basic needs weren’t what concerned me. Pierce could be a bulldozer who plowed over everyone in his path if they stood in the way of what he wanted. My trip to Pelican Bay wouldn’t be a long detour from my operations in Africa, but I wanted to pop in, meet Pierce’s new fiancée, and then put him in charge of the decisions on the East Coast.
But maybe that needed to change.
Someone needed to monitor him. Pierce had a great business mind, but I was better at oversight, meeting with the people at locations. I didn’t have it in me to spend long hours at a desk. I needed the wind on my face and the surrounding community. Pierce played in the boardroom while I played in the field and in the dirt.
Now, the thought of leaving Pelican Bay didn’t sit well. I needed to protect Mari from Pierce, and possibly the town. She would need an ally in her corner when Pierce locked himself away in his office for days at a time while working through the final details of acquiring the bed-and-breakfast. And after that would come his next conquest. There was always something else.
“You cool if I stay here while we look over these factories?” I asked, taking the seat in one chair in front of Pierce’s office and propping my feet up on his desk.
Pierce scowled at my foot placement but didn’t push them off. “I thought you wanted to stay on your yacht? Isn’t that the reason you gave me for buying the ostentatious thing? So you’d always have a place to lay your head?”
“I’m ready for a little dry land.”
Pierce smiled. “Sure, Oliver. You’re always welcome here. Your room is available.”
I frowned and flicked my ring finger with my thumb. I forgot my standard room at Pierce’s home was on the other side of the mansion, away from where he and Mari were saying.
“Thanks,” I said, unwilling to let Pierce see my disappointment.
Mari was Pierce’s fiancée, even if she was a fake one, and I didn’t want to get in the way of my cousin’s plans. Peirce had never been good with sharing.
3
Mari
Ididn’t plan to stay in Pelican Bay for more than a day or two while Pierce and I worked out the conditions of our agreement on funding. I never expected him to ask me to be his fake fiancée. In order to get through the next six months, I needed to message my aunt and see if she held on to any of the boxes I tucked into a corner of her basement when I left the United States two years ago.
Life might be more fulfilling now, but I started out on this planet growing up in luxury in San Francisco. From my first day on Earth, my family trained me to take over a portion of the Chambers’ family business. Then, after a situation of my making, life thrust me into a completely different arrangement with a life of poverty in a small village in Guatemala. But now I was back, and even if my life was mostly a lie, I would spend the next six months sleeping in a comfortable bed in my private room in Pierce’s home.
It wouldn’t be so horrible.
I flopped backward on the bed, letting my head rest on one of the comfortable pillows. This bedroom alone was bigger than the entire apartment I stayed in while in Guatemala, plus it had a en suite bathroom with running water. In my years away, I’d forgotten the small conveniences so many people take for granted. A flushing toilet never looked so good.
I may have been granted a small reprieve, but I refused to take my eye off the prize. Not only had I gotten myself caught up in a fake fiancée plot, but I’d settled myself between two men. One I was pretending to be engaged for the next six months and the other I found hot and incredibly engaging. Somehow, regardless of what happened, I always ended up in the most confounding situations.
Two quick knocks sounded on my door and then it opened.
“We are going to dinner at the bed-and-breakfast,” Oliver said as he tipped his head in my room. I sat up on the bed. It seemed Pierce was ready to get to work on my first official day since gaining a fiancé.
“Are we scoping out the place?”
Oliver laughed. “No, that place hasn’t changed in over a hundred years. We’re going out to showyouoff to everyone in town.”
I didn’t miss the way he emphasizedyouor that he saidwe. As if I belonged to him and Pierce.
My heart thumped.
I slipped off the bed and walked to the door with my eyes cast downward, and then I caught a glance of my outfit—a simple pair of jeans and a gray college t-shirt. I didn’t bring much with me to Pelican Bay. My expensive clothing had either been sold when I lost everything in San Francisco or left behind at my aunt’s home. The only things I brought in my carry-on bag were jeans and t-shirts and the one skirt. I hadn’t purchased any new clothes besides wrap-around skirts or t-shirts in the last two years. There wasn’t much use for formalwear in Guatemala.
Oliver caught the slip in my face and stepped further in the room. “What’s wrong?”
