“Sorry, jeez.” He goes back to re-alphabetizing, his mouth all screwed up. “I assumed your grandma told you I was bi, and you… Well, never mind.”
“No, nonever mind. I, what?” I ask, interested.
“You’re very open and out in public. You’ve been spotted on dates with a lot of guys. That’s all, dude.”
“Excuse me,dude,” I shoot back. “I’ve been spotted out with a completely reasonable number of guys. Thank you very much.” I don’t love what he’s insinuating.
He dips his head, holding his hands up in truce. “I’m not judging you. I swear. I just got the wrong idea. It seemed like you were…” If he says checking him out, how could I deny it? “My bad.”
“Your bad is right,” I scold, fixing the collar on my coat so he can’t see me sweat. So I don’t have to come clean.
“So, what’s the other thing we have in common then?”
I pivot this conversation back to a comfortable place. “We both want to go home.” He rocks back on his heels, losing some of the rigid, frisky fight I saw tightening his muscles earlier. “Listen, after what you said last night, I realized we were fighting because we both want the same thing and neither of us knows how to get it.”
He seems taken aback, as if the exchange in our bunks last night existed only inside a lucid dream we were bound never to speak of, but I can’t stop thinking about it. The quiet intimacy of that conversation. The fantasy that sparked in my mind. It’s all too vivid and real.
“I’m listening,” he says.
“You want to go home to be with your family for part of the holiday. I want to go home so I can reclaim my rightful place as Party Prince for the new year.”
“Do you get a crown for a title like that or something?”
“Shut up, I’m not finished.” I roll my eyes. “But, yes, if you must know, I do own a crown. It’s unrelated though.” His jaw drops. “Only a small one. My last name’s Prince, for God’s sake. It would be ridiculous if Ididn’thave one. It was a gift from Cartier. Anyway, focus. We need each other.”
“How so?” His eyes go wide, sexier somehow.
Leveling is not an easy task when you’re fighting off attraction. “If you agree to team up with me to throw the charity gala, I will make sure you have a round-trip plane ticket to wherever your heart desires.”
Hector grips the orange book in his hand with frightening tightness. His knuckles turn a strange shade of red as something resembling hope spreads across his cheeks. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Imean”—I inch closer to him—“that right now I’m cut off because of a bad investment.”
“What kind of investment?”
“That’s none of your business,” I counter.
“You want me to help you, and you aren’t even going to tell me what you did to get sent here, dude?” he says. “Seems sus. I’m not interested in hearing any more about thispropositionuntil you tell me.”
“If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.” I raise my eyebrows, hoping that will be enough to placate him.
Undeterred, he raises his eyebrows back. “I’m not buying that.” He’s too good at challenging me.
“Fine. If I tell you, and you tell anyone else, there will be reproach from my very powerful, very litigious family lawyer. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“I bought a stupid island,” I murmur, backed into a conversational corner.
“You what?” He leans in closer.
“I said, I bought a stupid island!”
“You what?” he repeats, incredulity maximizing his reaction. “In my family, buying a used car is a big fuckin’ deal. I can’t imagine owning an entire body of land. What were you going to do with it?”
“That is on a need-to-know basis, andyoudo not need to be in the know,” I say, trying to shake off the project that was meant to pull me out from my parents’ monstrous shadow and into the limelight for the right reasons. Too bad I went about it the worst way and it all backfired.
It’s bad enough he knows about the island now. I can’t risk him learning any more information that he could leak to the media.
