believe that. People have been wondering how on earth I caught you in the first place.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, gorgeous.”
She shrugged. Attractive? Yeah, she’d cop to that. But gorgeous? No way. She had never felt more inept and lacking as a woman than when she’d attended some of these L.A. parties packed wall-to-wall with women who were pretzel-stick thin, cover-girl perfect and runway model clothed. Oh, and saber-toothed-tiger clawed. Sheesh, the competition out here was insane.
“But even if it works, why should we do it now rather than sticking to our long engagement, slow-breakup plan?”
He thrust a hand through his thick, sun-streaked hair, looking boyishly adorable. If there’d been an audience, all the women would just have sighed, every one of them dying to smooth that soft hair back into place. Madison just grunted.
Melodrama over, he said, “It’s because of Simon.”
“He asked you to do this?”
“No. We’ve been talking about how important it is to be honest. Me living a lie with you—no matter how good the reason or the fact that you’re fine with it—won’t convince him I’m growing and becoming true to myself.”
“Simon would never want you to sabotage your career.”
“I know. But this is a step toward the kind of life I want, and the kind of man I want to be. One who isn’t afraid, who doesn’t go to crazy lengths to hide who he is.”
She rarely heard Tommy talk this way. His blue eyes didn’t sparkle with mischief. He didn’t appear to be acting. He was just being the sweet boy next door she’d always known, telling her what he really wanted, all the pretense stripped away, all the trappings of his lifestyle shoved into the background. Just Tommy. Just her friend. Her friend who needed her.
She’d always been there when he needed her, and vice versa.
“Besides, you’re not being true to yourself, either,” he added. “You aren’t like Candace. I knew it wouldn’t be a hardship for her to go without sex for a while. You, though... I know you’re horny enough to climb out of your own skin.”
She couldn’t deny that; Tommy knew her well. She’d been the first one of the three of them to lose her virginity—at sixteen—and had probably had more lovers than the other two combined. The six months of their engagement had been the longest she’d gone without sex in years, and her biggest, naughtiest toys just weren’t filling the gap anymore. So to speak.
“You’ve been a great fiancée. Now you can be off the hook and go out there and get some.”
“Sure, I’ll just find a hot guy and say, ‘Do me, baby.’”
“Yep.”
“Not so easy.”
“Not so hard, either. So, will you dump me? Free us both?”
Hell, she’d gotten engaged to him out of love, hadn’t she? Of course she could dump the man for the same reason.
But, she suddenly realized, dumping him might not be in his best interest. Because here was the thing about movie star breakup scandals. It was always the cheater who got slammed, not the cheatee. Frankly, Madison didn’t need public approval. They wouldn’t pay one moment’s attention to a wannabe screenwriter who’d had a fling.
But Tommy Shane? Every woman’s fantasy man, every kid’s comic book hero, every man’s wanna-be-him guy? Well, hell. Tommy Shane couldn’t be a cheater. It would be like...like John Wayne turning out to be a secret communist or something.
“We can do this,” she told him, slowly thinking it out. “But I have a condition of my own.”
“I’ll still pay you half of everything I made this year.”
“Forget the money.” She’d never take another dime from him. Tommy had supported her while she’d finished her screenplay. He’d helped her pay her student loans. And she’d let him, figuring if she was going to give up her life, her job, her home and any other man for the duration of their engagement, she would earn it. She was not coming out of this relationship grasping the short end of the stick.
But she was almost free now. That was worth more than money. She’d gone into this with her eyes open, and didn’t regret it, but she couldn’t deny a big part of her was ready to be just Madison Reid, writer, not Tommy Shane’s fiancée.
And, though she wouldn’t admit it, getting to have sex again was a pretty darned big perk, too.
“So what’s your condition?” he asked.
“The condition is...I take the heat.”
“Huh?”
“I’m the cheater. I’m the bitch. And you break up with me.”
He sputtered. “No, you can’t do that.”
She put a hand up, cutting off his arguments. “Tommy Shane can’t be a cheating dog. I can. Nobody’ll give a damn.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “The press can be nasty.”
“Why would they? They’ll say I’m an idiot for letting you get away and that’ll be the end of it.”
“What if it’s not?”
“Well, then, I’ll...take a vacation. You send me somewhere tropical and I’ll hide out until they forget all about me.”
“You should do that anyway. Find a nice, hunky beach bum to shack up with for a little while,” he said with an eyebrow wag.
“I’ll think about it. So we’re agreed?”
He frowned, clearly not liking the idea, but she wasn’t going to change her mind. Tommy would never get through a scandal unscathed, but she would. Who cared about Madison Reid? She could take whatever heat anybody wanted to dish out because it wouldn’t last for long.
And if it did? Well...there was always the somewhere-tropical-with-a-hunky-beach-bum idea.
2
“IT’S GOING TO BE one hell of a honeymoon.”
Although the driver of the cab looked confused, considering Leo Santori was sitting alone in the backseat, he didn’t reply. And it wasn’t just because this was Costa Rica and Leo didn’t speak Spanish. The driver spoke English, or something very much like it. No, he just seemed to be abiding by the code that said Americans on vacation in tropical paradises could be as strange as they wanted to be. It was all good. No problem.
“All good. No problem,” Leo muttered.
All good that he was honeymooning alone.
No problem that he’d been betrayed.
It’s really all good that my fiancée cheated on me six months ago so we canceled the wedding, which was supposed to have taken place yesterday. No problem that she kept the ring, the apartment, her yappy bichon frise—which really was no problem—and the new KitchenAid mixer, and I kept the nonrefundable honeymoon.
She’d also kept the best man. The one she’d cheated with.
No problem.
Still, it certainly was not a conversation he wanted to have with anyone. Especially not now that he was here in Central America, ready to embark on some to-hell-with-it adventures. Those would definitely include surfing and zip lining. Good drinks, beautiful beaches, exotic foods.
They also might include getting laid. If he happened to meet a woman who was interested in a rebound-sex-fest with a Chicago firefighter who had a slight chip on his shoulder and a honeymoon package created for two but starring only one.
“Here we are, señor,” said the driver.
The ride from the international airport