I leaned forward, hands braided on the dinner table. “Georgie, are you okay?”

She looked up at me with wide eyes. Her face was drawn and pale, and she’d been aimlessly moving her food around her plate for the last half hour, barely eating a thing. On top of that, she’d barely spoken all evening. “Not exactly,” she mumbled.

I furrowed my brows. I knew something was up when I went to get her for dinner earlier, but she hadn’t said anything at the time. I’d run into Margaret on the way down to her room, so she was with me when I knocked on Georgie’s door. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t told me what was wrong—she didn’t want her mother to hear.

Or perhaps she was finally freaking out about what I told her yesterday.

Fuck, I hoped it wasn’t that. All day, I’d been sure I was this close to a breakthrough with her. The way she blushed whenever I was close, the way she could barely keep her eyes off me… I was sure. Right up until this dinner.

“Do we need to talk?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes, but not here. No one else can hear this,” she whispered, confirming my suspicions about Margaret’s earlier presence.

I nodded toward the restaurant bar. “Let’s go over there,” I suggested in a low murmur. “We’ll say we want to check out the cocktail menu.”

She nodded again, and after making our excuses to the dinner party, we headed for the bar and feigned great interest in the cocktail lists.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

Georgie sighed and pretended to inspect her menu. “It’s a long story.”

I raised my brows. “Then you better start at the beginning.”

She let out another sigh. “You know Tripp Huntington-Davis?”

“Dickhead Bingo guy?”

She nodded. “Yeah, him.”

I shrugged. “I know him vaguely. He tried to invest with my brokerage a while ago, just after he moved out west.”

“Right. Well, he’s on to us,” she muttered. “I never told you this, but at the photo shoot, he overheard part of our conversation.”

My eyebrows knitted in a frown. “You mean when you asked me to come here with you?”

She nodded glumly. “He asked me out to dinner earlier that day, which I turned down, and after he overheard us talking, he approached me and offered to be my wedding date instead of you. For free. He said his family actually owns a resort on this island. But I said no.”

“Understandably.”

In my past business dealings with Tripp, I’d learned two things about him. One, he was a real piece of shit. Racist, sexist, arrogant, you name it—he personified douchebaggery. Secondly, although his family owned half the Eastern seaboard, he had about as much business savvy as a houseplant. I was pretty sure the only thing he inherited from his parents was their money, not their brains. I wasn’t surprised Georgie turned his offer down.

“Turns out the resort they own is this one. He’s here right now for work,” Georgie continued. “I ran into him in the hall yesterday, and he asked me out to dinner again.”

“He’s persistent; I’ll give him that.”

“Yup. I said no again, and he made some dick-ish comment about how he always gets what he wants. Then he showed up at my door just before dinner tonight.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did he do something to you? If he hurt you in any way, I swear to god I’ll—”

She held her hands up. “No, nothing like that. He didn’t touch me.”

“Good.” I gritted my teeth. “So what happened?”

“He told me if I don’t go out with him, he’ll tell everyone what we’re doing. He can easily find out which room Libby and Bobby are in. Mom, too. So he can just go right up there and tell them whenever he wants,” she said.

“He’s trying to fucking blackmail you into a date?” I said incredulously. “Jesus.”

“Yeah.” Her shoulders slumped. “He said if I don’t go to his room at eight o’clock tomorrow night, he’s telling everyone what I’m up to. So I have twenty-four hours to decide. Oh, and sex was heavily implied as part of the date, so that’s just freaking wonderful….”

My hands curled into fists by my side. “I’m going to find him and knock his fucking teeth out. He can’t threaten you with bullshit like that.”

Georgie’s eyes widened into a pleading expression. “Nate, no!”

In my peripheral vision, I could see Margaret peering over at us from the dinner table on the other side of the restaurant. Shit. She could probably tell from our expressions and body language that something bad was going on, and knowing her, we’d be questioned about it for an eternity if we didn’t start acting normal again. I uncurled my fists, pretended I’d simply been stretching my hands, then forced a cheery smile.

“Your mom is looking,” I said as Georgie noticed my inexplicable smile.

“Shit.” Georgie coughed, then nodded and faked a smile of her own. “Look, you can’t just go and punch Tripp. For one, the last thing we need is an assault charge laid against you. And two, if you do that, he’ll definitely tell my family what’s going on. But they can’t find out I brought you here as my fake boyfriend!”

I kept up my smile for Margaret’s benefit. She was still looking over at us. “That’s true,” I said grudgingly. “I guess it’ll look like you brought me to ruin your sister’s wedding if Tripp tells them you paid me to be here. Your mom already suspected something like that when we got here, right?”

She nodded. “Exactly! I mean, I didn’t bring you here for that reason, but they probably won’t see it like that.” She let out a groan. “What the hell am I going to do?”

“Well, you’re not going on a date with that slimy fucking reptile.”

“But I kinda have to, don’t I?” she said despondently, her eyes filled with doom and gloom. “Or he’ll tell everyone our secret. Unless we can think of another way to get rid of him that doesn’t involve violence. But I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I have no clue.”

“What if we call his bluff and ignore him? He might not tell anyone.”

“But he might. I don’t want to risk it.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. How about this? He can tell everyone whatever he wants. We’ll just say he’s some crazy asshole we’ve never met before.”

Georgie chewed her bottom lip as I spoke. Then she shook her head. “No. Mom saw me talking to him in the hall the other day when I ran into him. I can’t pretend I’ve never met him.”

“Right. Shit.”

“For all I know, he could’ve even recorded our conversation. He’s obviously an insane asshole, so I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said. “And when we talked, he specifically asked if I was here with my ‘fake boyfriend’. I said yes. So he could actually have evidence of me admitting it. Urgh…” She trailed off and sighed.

I looked down at the cocktail menu again, my mind whirring. Then I looked up at Georgie, a slow, confident smile spreading across my face. This time, it was real.

Georgie’s forehead wrinkled. “Why do you look so pleased?”

My smile grew wider. “Don’t worry about Tripp, doll. I know exactly what to do.”