Instant Attraction
‘MRS. CARTER, CONGRATULATIONS,’ BEAMED the hotel porter as he piled our cases onto a shiny brass trolley.
‘Again, it’s Miss Carter,’ Abbie stated with an air of exasperation, as we stepped away from the open-air reception desk and followed him across the black granite lobby. He just shot a smile at us over his shoulder as he continued walking past the central fountain, then took one of the paths that led out from under the bamboo canopy, weaving its way between some lush vegetation to head to our villa. ‘Seriously, what’s with all the congratulations and the “Mrs. Carter” business since we arrived?’ she asked me as we tried to keep up with him. What he lacked for in height, he made up for in the speed his short legs moved. It was quite comical to watch.
‘I’ve no idea, but they seem to be treating us like royalty or something,’ I confirmed, reaching up to touch the beautiful white flowers tucked into our hair. We’d been given them the moment a limousine had arrived to pick us up from the airport. Abbie swore she hadn’t booked a limo, but the driver had insisted it was all part of “the package,” along with the champagne and chocolates that were waiting for us inside. Add to that the receptionist’s perplexed face when he’d offered us the keys to our private villa and Abbie had told him she was sure we’d only booked a standard suite, and we were all confused. But he’d insisted we were in a villa, and we’d decided it was pointless arguing with him. ‘Exactly what package did you book again?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t book a specific one, I don’t think,’ she replied, both of us panting slightly to be moving so quickly in the heat, which we weren’t accustomed to. ‘It was a last-minute booking. I just said I wanted to be anywhere but England, preferably somewhere tropical with free alcohol, and this is what the travel agent came up with.’
‘Well, we need to send her a thank-you bouquet when we get back, as most last-minute packages aren’t usually anywhere near as glamorous as this.’
‘Tell me … about it,’ she huffed. ‘Jesus, he’s nippier than Usain Bolt. I feel like I’m trying out for the hundred-metre sprint.’
‘Hmmm,’ I confirmed, too breathless to reply and too in awe of my surroundings to focus on forming words. It was night now, and the sky was a deep indigo blue, bordering on black, and peppered with even more stars than we saw back in the sky above Dilbury. We were weaving our way through a lush green leafy garden, with walkways lit by flaming sconces stuck into the ground and the sound of some kind of crickets or grasshoppers chirping away in the background only adding to the tropical atmosphere. I hadn’t considered myself to be stressed when we’d come away, but Abbie’s recent pain had obviously rubbed off on me, as each minute that I breathed in the salty scent of the sea air and felt the heat enveloping me, the more my muscles started to release and relax.
‘We are here, Mrs. Carter,’ our porter confirmed, as he stopped in front of a beautiful white-washed bungalow with a pitched bamboo-style roof. Abbie just nodded, giving up on correcting his mistake, and let him open the door and deposit our cases inside. I quickly fished out some pesos for him and thanked him, calling on my rusty high school Spanish skills to try and be polite in a somewhat native tongue. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Carter,’ he beamed as he pocketed the notes I’d pressed into his hand and shook my hand vigorously before scurrying back in the direction we’d come from.
‘Oh my God, you’re Mrs. Carter now as well?’ exclaimed Abbie. ‘Do you think they just call everyone Mrs. Carter in case they forget our names?’
‘No idea,’ I laughed as I stepped inside our villa for the next two weeks, to find myself in a huge lounge with a dining area in the corner to my left. Soft lamps had been left on for us and showed a calming white interior, offset with metallic accents of shimmering gold, silver, and bronze. White granite flooring was cool under our feet, and the white painted walls and wooden furniture and shutters, which were folded back from the floor-to-ceiling windows, just made me feel immediately at peace. I threw open the double doors to our right as I looked for the smallest of the bedrooms, since Abbie had insisted on paying for the whole trip as she felt bad for dragging me along. ‘Wow,’ I murmured.
‘What?’ Abbie called behind me.
‘Very romantic,’ I observed as I stood facing the colossal white four-poster bed, muslin panels secured to each post, rose petals scattered in a heart in the centre of the bed, and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket standing next to it. ‘What a sweet touch. This must be your room, I’ll go and look for mine.’
‘Well, don’t look back here, there’s no other doors,’ Abbie confirmed as she walked in to join me. ‘Crikey, not exaggerating with the romance, were you?’
‘No,’ I laughed as I walked across to the only other door, on the far wall next to the bed. ‘Well, this must be my room, but it’s odd I have to walk through yours to get to mine.’
‘Very odd,’ she confirmed as she scooped up a card that was propped up on the bedside table. I stuck my head in the other room, put on the light, and blinked in surprise. I was in a bathroom. A very luxurious and very white spa-like bathroom, but a bathroom nonetheless. Other than more shuttered full-length windows that must lead to the outside, there were no other doors, unless there was some hot Narnia-esque place to explore through the antique painted wardrobe that I assumed housed the towels.
‘Ermmm, Abbie, I think this is a one-bedroomed villa,’ I advised as I spun around to face her.
‘Yeah, I kind of just got that,’ she giggled, waving the card at me as I turned to face her. ‘Well, I know why they’re calling us both Mrs. Carter now. They think we’re a newly married couple who booked the honeymoon-package.’
‘No!’ I gasped, snatching the card off her to read. I shook my head to see “Mrs. and Mrs. Carter, congratulations on your wedding. We hope you’ll enjoy your honeymoon here with us. If there is anything we can do, please don’t hesitate to ask.” ‘They think we’re married? That we’re … you know? Seriously? And they expect us to share a bed for two weeks?’
‘Wow, tone down the insulted vibe. I happen to think I’d be a very good catch if I was that way inclined,’ Abbie threw back, as she raised an eyebrow and shot me an amused smile.
‘Sorry,’ I laughed, ‘didn’t mean it that way. I’m sure if I was that way inclined, you’d be the perfect wife for me, but why do I have to be Mrs. Carter? Why couldn’t you have been Mrs. Basset?’
‘Because I booked and paid,’ she reminded me, snatching the card out of my fingers to read it again. ‘They obviously think I’m the “man” in this relationship, which I’m not sure I’m too flattered by. I’ll ring them now and tell them it’s a mistake,’ she advised as she perched herself on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. I nodded and wandered back into the lounge to look for a light switch for outside.
I flicked a few as I peered out into the darkness. One switch illuminated a load of tiny lights embedded into the tiled veranda, then another suddenly brought to life a large shimmering blue pool of water. Holy cow, we had our own swimming pool? I was on the verge of yelling to Abbie to forget telling them we were Miss Carter and Miss Basset, non-married and non-lesbian couple, and to just continue with the charade to keep the sweet accommodation.
‘So?’ I asked, as she appeared before I had a chance to convince her to keep quiet.
‘They won’t have it. They’re insisting the honeymoon villa was booked and charged correctly. And when I asked if we could be moved to a twin room, they said they’re fully booked. I kept telling them that we weren’t married or a couple in that sense, let alone on our honeymoon, but they don’t believe me. Apparently, this hotel is a well-known lovers’ resort, catering for engagements, weddings, and honeymooners. The travel agent never mentioned that.’
‘Oh my God, this could only happen to us,’ I chuckled. ‘Well, as long as you’ve not been charged extra, I guess it doesn’t matter. We’ve shared a bed before and this is a huge one, we can do it again.’
‘Well, I know, but that’s not the point,’ she huffed. ‘Honestly, it’s one thing after another.’
‘Hey, as you keep telling me, “chillax.” We’re on holiday, in a gorgeous honeymoon villa with our own private pool, life could be worse. Come on, let’s take that champagne outside and have a late-night swim before we wake up and go exploring tomorrow.’
‘Swimming? Now?’ she replied, frowning as she looked at her watch. I walked past her and slapped her backside.
‘We’re on holiday in Mexico, not sleepy Dilbury where any of our antics spread around the village like wildfire. Let’s live dangerously for once. Come on, wife of mine, I want to see that hot little body in a sexy bikini before I spend the night ravishing you,’ I teased. She shook her head with a smile.
‘Us ravishing each other will be the only action we’re likely to see if everyone here keeps calling us Mrs. and Mrs. Carter,’ she reminded me. ‘No men will dare come near us.’
‘Like either of us are ready to look for love again right now,’ I said wistfully as I grabbed my large case.
‘Well, I might not be, it’s still too raw for me and I only have myself to blame, but you’re ready to be swept off your feet again, Georgie. It’s been two years. Greg was never the right man for you, and I think you know that deep in your heart.’
I didn’t reply as I opened my case and rummaged for one of my bikinis. She was right, of course, I knew it deep down. While I had loved Greg, and I really had loved him dearly, part of me had always known he wasn’t one hundred percent right for me. I think I’d allowed myself to just fall into the relationship with him at the start because he fit my parents’ idea of a well-mannered and well-off suitor, perfect on paper for their only daughter. They were so thrilled when I introduced him, and the more time I spent with him, the more he grew on me. There was never that instant chemistry with him though, I’d never had that feeling of being unable to live without him.
When I’d heard our neighbour Daphne talk of how she felt when she fell in love with David, how he wasn’t just her best friend, but that they had that all-consuming need and passion for each other too, I’d realised I’d never had that with Greg. It had just been comfortable, like a pair of old worn-in slippers that you can’t bear to throw out, as you really don’t want to have to go to all the effort of trying to break in a new pair. But the more I heard of passionate love, the kind that stayed with you for a lifetime, the more I’d come to realise that while old slippers were great, you also needed to be able to stand happily in them while you watched fireworks exploding around you.
I’d never had fireworks with Greg. And it wasn’t the way that he’d betrayed me that made me nervous of putting myself out there again either. It was the fact that despite knowing he’d never lit up my world, I’d stayed with him. It was my judgement I questioned, as I’d settled for something that was less than perfect. As I stood there holding my blue bikini, Abbie rambling on about not being able to find anything except her all-in-one swimsuit that looked anything but sexy, I decided I was never going to let myself settle again unless I was one hundred percent sure I had it all with a man. Chemistry, passion, need, friendship, and love. Every girl deserved to have it all, and not to just settle for old slippers.
The Next Day – Monday
‘I can’t believe you missed him jogging past, he was absolutely gorgeous,’ Abbie exclaimed with a yawn as she sank back down to stretch out on her sun lounger. She arched her back, hands over her head like a cat basking in the sun.
‘I’ve got gorgeous right here in my book, Charlie sure knows how to write a hot and sexy alpha-male,’ I observed, desperate to dive back in after being rudely interrupted during a key scene by Abbie’s insistence that I shouldn’t miss the supposed hot male that I had actually missed. I was still in shock that our neighbour and good friend, Charlie, wrote steamy material like this. I hadn’t been able to look her in the eye for a while after I’d read my first book of hers last month, despite her insisting that she hadn’t done all the kinky things her heroines had. I’d been so addicted though, I’d soon got over my initial discomfort and had saved this spin-off novel, along with a trilogy of hers, to enjoy on this vacation. It was the closest to hot and steamy action I was likely to see for some time.
‘Yes, the men in her books are smoking,’ she confirmed, ‘but book boyfriends aren’t tangible and don’t rock your world multiple times a night.’
‘A night? Crikey, it’s been that long, I’d be happy with multiple times a decade right now.’
‘Hmmm,’ she groaned, fighting her eyelids closing.
‘Don’t fall asleep in the sun, you’ll burn,’ I warned her as I stuck my nose back into the engrossing story.
‘Don’t turn into one of those wives who nag,’ she yawned.
I shook my head with a giggle a while later when I pulled myself out of my book and looked over the top of my sunglasses to see that Abbie was open mouthed and gently snoring, totally out for the count. We’d stayed up last night far longer than we’d planned to, and she’d been working so hard and had been so stressed recently, it would do her good to catch up on a few more hours’ of sleep. I decided to leave her be, but got up to angle her parasol to keep her in the shade. The sun out here was relentless, and she’d scoffed at my offer to use my factor fifty sun lotion that I religiously applied every couple of hours. With my fair complexion, blue eyes, and red hair, I only had to look at the sun for my skin to fry, so I was taking no chances. I slathered another layer on, then sat back against my propped-up recliner, bending my knees up slightly to rest my Kindle against my thighs. I reached for my mojito cocktail, knocked back the dregs, and let out a soft sigh of contentment as I surveyed the stunning turquoise and white view in front of me from our position on the stretch of beach in front of our villa. This was the life, that was for sure.
We’d tried to tell the hotel again that they’d made a mistake after they delivered us breakfast in our villa when we’d overslept, and reminded us about our inclusive daily honeymoon-package “couples massage,” but to no avail. We were doomed to be Mrs. and Mrs. Carter for the rest of the holiday. We’d explored for a while, checking out the various restaurants and bars, indoors and out, as well as the main hotel swimming pool and spa area, which included private cabanas over the ocean for treatments, where we’d already had our first massage. We’d gorged on fresh fruit in the air-conditioned restaurant when the sun had been at its peak, as I wanted to avoid the worst of it, then we’d come to lie and admire the view as we sipped on cocktails, again all complimentary. By the time I put my empty glass down, Alejandro, the waiter who looked after a couple of the private villas along our stretch of the beach, was at my side.
‘Another mojito, Mrs. Carter?’ he enquired.
‘Thank you so much,’ I nodded, a little too vigorously. Free cocktails in paradise? I could stay out here forever.
‘And another for Mrs. Carter?’ he asked, tipping his head in Abbie’s direction
‘Ah no, she’s resting, she didn’t get much sleep last night,’ I replied, then gasped and shook my head as a knowing smile spread across his face. ‘Not because we were … you know, because we were talking, nothing else, just talking.’
‘Just talking, yes, Mrs. Carter,’ he chuckled. ‘I be back with your cocktail soon.’
‘Honestly, just talking,’ I called after him, before plopping back against my sun lounger with a sigh. Abbie would have laughed and played up to his assumptions.
I wondered when was I going to lose this inherent concern at what people thought of me? “It’s all about appearances and impressions, darling” came my mother’s well-to-do voice in my head. “One must be seen as a lady, beyond reproach, at all times.” It wasn’t like I was going to see anyone from here ever again, so what if they thought I’d been up romping with “my wife” all night?
‘Hello! Talk about romping, now that’s one specimen I’d be proud to admit to spending a sleepless night with,’ I murmured breathlessly to myself, as I looked over my sunglasses at the man jogging along the beach towards me. I wondered if it was the same guy Abbie had been talking about, because she definitely wasn’t wrong in her positive appraisal of him.
Holy hell, all of a sudden the Mexican heat had nothing on the way my body was responding to the sight of a nearly naked, gorgeous male specimen. I gulped as I studied him, his toned muscles flexing as he powered his way along the sand. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He was cut and ripped without carrying bulk, and his bronzed skin glowed with a sheen of sexy perspiration, almost making him shimmer in the sunlight as if he’d had a pot of gold glitter tossed over him, Edward Cullen’s daytime vampire style.
This man should have been cast in the starring role of the Baywatch revival. All he wore was a small pair of tight Lycra black shorts that hugged his hips, a little less tightly than I’d have liked to be hugging them right now, but tightly all the same. I took a few deep breaths, the scorching hot air doing nothing to help my suddenly dry throat. Greg had been a metro-sexual man, and while I’d had no problem with that at all, this guy was the epitome of a man’s man and that was doing things to me I’d never experienced from looks alone. Lean, powerful, exuding confidence and total awareness of his body and surroundings, he commanded attention with every strike of his bare feet on damp sand, every pump of his powerful biceps as his arms and legs moved to a steady, rhythmical beat.
I was sure I wasn’t the only female admiring him as he ran, but he was completely focussed on his workout, only glancing down to look at a black watch on his right hand every few strides. I was unable to pull my eyes away from him, and as he drew closer, I saw that he had a number of tattoos on his biceps, ribs, and chest. None of the public school boy types I’d been out with had ever had tattoos, I’d never have imagined I’d find them attractive, but all of a sudden I was panting like a dog on heat, with visions of me running my fingers and tongue over them as I explored. Long-forgotten desire unfurled deep in my belly, flooding my senses, as I watched a trickle of sweat working its way down between those firm pecs, preparing to do battle with the undulating ridges of his abdomen.
Don’t be a body whore, Georgie, I warned myself. There’s more to a man than a perfect body, even if it’s just made your ovaries go into overdrive. Hell, who was I kidding? I had no ovaries left, he’d just incinerated them. I dragged my gaze up to his face and heard a soft moan escape my lips. Hello, chiselled perfection! My God, that strong jaw with a hint of unshaven scruff, alluring tousled dark hair, and angular cheekbones I’d have killed for. Damn him for wearing sexy mirrored shades. Now I was going to fantasise all night about him having perfect blue eyes as well. Blue eyes were my weakness. Then again, I had a feeling anything on this guy could be my weakness. And that was when I noticed what he was packing as he drew almost level with me. Wow, I’d need an expert-level mountaineering qualification and grappling irons before trying to scale that peak. And quite possibly an oxygen mask for altitude sickness.
‘Holy shit,’ I squeaked, obviously a little louder than I’d anticipated, as he whipped his head to the left to look in my direction. Just as fast, I dropped mine back down to where my Kindle was resting against my bent-up knees, my chest heaving as I tried to regulate my out-of-control breathing, and prayed he hadn’t seen me checking him out.
I heard a “Damn it” in a gravelly tone, right as there was the sound of a heavy thwack. I gingerly lifted my eyes up to peek over the top of my sunglasses, then quickly looked back down again when I saw he’d tripped and landed face first in the sand opposite me. I held my breath as I forced myself to focus on my book, even though I wasn’t reading any of the words right now. My mystery runner had just displaced my book boyfriend as my primary focus. He didn’t look to me like a man who tripped. He looked so invincible and controlled up until that moment, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by letting it be known he’d been seen eating sand. Now if Abbie was awake and she’d witnessed that, she’d have roared with laughter.
Had I distracted him with my vocal objectifying of his … everything? I was mortified to think he knew I’d been openly ogling him if that was the case. I heard a noise and sneaked another quick surreptitious glance to see him jogging away, wiping sand off his firm thighs as he went, so I let out the breath I’d been holding and lifted my head right up, cocking it slightly to check out the peachy tight globes of his sexy backside. Wow. Talk about instant and explosive attraction. Fireworks were detonating in my stomach as I watched him go. Those fireworks were suddenly overtaken by embarrassment, my cheeks heating up, as he cast a look over his shoulder at me and flashed me a smile, making me quickly look away again. Damn it, he had heard me, and what was with that gorgeous smile that made my heart race and the fireworks crescendo to a grand and violent finale inside me?
I put my hand over my rapidly beating heart and swiftly knocked back the cocktail that Alejandro brought for me, then just as quickly ordered another and a jug of water. I needed something to douse this fire raging inside of me. I’d never had a physical reaction to any man like that, which told me only one thing. A man like that spelled trouble with a capital T for me. If my judgement in men, relationships, and love was already impaired, I stood no chance of retaining any sense of reason around a man who made me dizzy with desire. Not when the overwhelming desire to drag him back to my bed and spend the night getting acquainted with his body, and not his mind, was surging through my veins. And it was totally against everything I’d been taught or believed in. Right now, though, I so wanted to ditch the ladylike image I’d carefully perfected and become the naughty girl that broke all of the rules. I had a feeling that he’d be totally worth it.
When I spotted him heading back my way about half an hour later, I deliberately stuck my head down, pretending to read as I tried to regulate my out-of-control breathing. Shit, what if he stopped to talk to me? I’d always been articulate in conversations with the opposite sex, except for Dai Owens, the farmer’s son who’d worked the fields near my parents’ holiday cottage in Dolphin Bay. I’d had such a crush on the rough and ready, slightly older guy who’d spent all of the summer topless as he’d hauled bales of hay in just a pair of old combat trousers, that my mouth had spewed incoherent word salad at him the first time I’d tried to talk to him. I’d made such a fool of myself that whenever he’d spoken to me after that, I’d become tongue-tied and was hardly able to say anything, so he’d started avoiding me. I should have known that Greg and I weren’t meant to be by the fact that we’d been able to converse eloquently the first night we’d met. It showed my lack of instant attraction to him, he’d grown on me over time.
I pushed my glasses up my nose, hiding my eyes as I angled them to see where Hasselhoff Junior was, and took in a sharp breath to see he’d slowed down and was looking my way. He flashed me another insanely sexy grin, which made me avert my eyes again. What if he came over and I made a fool of myself? Why was Abbie sleeping when I needed her to protect me? By the time I cast a discreet look back up, he was powering away from me at speed.
‘Get a grip, Georgie,’ I muttered as I watched him disappear. ‘No point crushing on some random guy you’re never likely to see again, and couldn’t talk to even if you did.’
‘What? Huh? What?’ mumbled Abbie, sleepiness filling her voice as she stirred on her bed.
‘Hello, sleeping beauty,’ I laughed as I set my book on the table and twisted onto my side to face her as she sat up, rubbing her eyes. ‘Chin, you have drool.’
‘How long have I been asleep?’ she moaned as she rubbed around her mouth furiously. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’
‘A few hours, and because you obviously needed it.’
‘Georgie!’ she scolded.
‘Oh sorry, and I thought I was being nice letting you rest and making sure you were in the shade so you wouldn’t burn. Next time I’ll just let you sizzle like a pound of bacon.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be snappy. You know I’m not good in the morning.’
‘It’s the afternoon, or rather early evening. It’s time we packed up and went to get ready for dinner.’
‘You should have woken me. I didn’t drag you here just to leave you on your own while I snoozed the holiday away.’
‘You didn’t drag me, and I’m here to be whatever you need me to be, sweetie. This holiday is for your benefit, so if you need to sleep, you sleep. Don’t mind me, I’m more than happy to relax and read. You know when you’re ready to talk, I’ll be all ears.’
‘Did I miss any excitement?’ she asked, avoiding my subtle reminder that she needed to talk. Burying her head in the sand wasn’t going to resolve her relationship problems.
‘No, none,’ I replied a little too quickly, as I felt my cheeks heat up again at the thought of my mystery jogger. ‘Come on, let’s go and get prettied up to eat in public tonight, before everyone thinks we’re never going to leave the villa, we’re that into each other.’
‘Ha, still calling you Mrs. Carter, then?’ she giggled as she scooped up her belongings.
‘Yes, and I’m worried I’m starting to like the sound of that and won’t want to be Miss Basset again when we get home.’
‘Not as worried as I am,’ she laughed.
Three Days Later – Thursday
I spotted him jogging towards us again, not that I lay here every day with my eyes peeled waiting for him, of course. Though my lack of actual reading since I first spotted him would totally disprove my protestations. I waited until the last possible moment, when I was at risk of being seen objectifying him, then put my head down.
‘Hello again,’ Abbie purred, making me shoot her a jealous look. I didn’t like the idea of other women looking at him the way I did. She raised her eyebrows as I put my head back down, staring at the words blankly as memories of his buff body made my skin prickle. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ she enquired.
‘What?’ I replied, deliberately ignoring her, knowing my cheeks were at risk of betraying my thoughts.
‘Hot totty alert. He just jogged right in front of us, looking like some kind of bronzed Olympian, smiled at you, again, and you didn’t bat an eyelid. Again. He’s gorgeous, so your type. Didn’t you see him just now? Or all the other times he’s jogged past in the last few days?’
‘Hmmm,’ I nodded, trying to act disinterested as I pretended to read. ‘He’s ok, I guess.’
‘You guess?’ she exclaimed. ‘Ok, what’s the deal?’
‘No deal,’ I shrugged. Damn it, she’d shifted to face me. She was going to break me if she caught my eye. I grabbed my cocktail and chased the straw around the glass before catching it and slowly sucking a load of the cold drink down. Hopefully she’d get bored waiting for an answer and move on to another topic.
‘You little liar, Georgie Basset! I know you too well, what gives?’ she demanded forcefully, making me groan. She was like a dog with a bone when she wanted an answer to something.
‘Ok, I saw him. Every. Single. Damn. Time. He’s gorgeous. So hot I had to check my bikini hadn’t burst into flames from where my body heated up. Happy now?’ I retorted with a huff.
‘No. Why were you trying to hide the fact that you fancy him?’ she asked, confusion written all over her face.
‘Because … oh, you wouldn’t understand.’ I flicked my hand at her, then set my cocktail back down and picked up my Kindle again, but she leaned over and snatched it out of my hand. Damn it. No hiding my lustful feelings from her now.
‘Uh-uh, sweetie. This is one discussion you’re not wheedling your way out of. Come on, talk.’
‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘You know me really well, Abbie.’
‘Well, I should hope so, best friend and all.’
‘And you are, you so are, but you’ve only known me with Greg, or the Georgie who’s single and totally uninterested in men.’ I hesitated, not sure if she’d understand my logic.
‘Your point being?’ She finished her cocktail and waved Alejandro over.
‘You don’t know Georgina, the girl who’s super shy when she sees a guy she likes. Who gets so flustered that she can’t speak, let alone look him in the eye,’ I stated, memories of that awful incident with Dai Owens coming back to haunt me. ‘That’s why I haven’t smiled back, because I think he’s gorgeous. I got butterflies in my tummy the first time I saw him,’ I added, downplaying the explosion of fireworks I’d actually felt.
‘Ok, colour me confused here. When you like a guy, you make out that you don’t, thereby ensuring he won’t approach you and saving you the embarrassment of admitting you fancy him? Hold that response,’ she suggested when I went to reply. She ordered two more cocktails and some slices of watermelon, then gestured for me to continue.
‘Seriously, Abbie. I’m totally bashful when a guy I like comes to talk to me. I say stupid things and make myself look a fool, and they can’t back away fast enough. Best to just save myself the humiliation and not let them know I like them.’
‘How the hell did you get engaged to Greg then, or lose your virginity?’ she uttered, sounding completely perplexed.
‘Because I liked them, I didn’t like them, like them,’ I stated emphatically.
‘There’s a double-like system in place? When did that come into play?’
‘Oh, you know what I mean. Look at you and Heath, you like him, I think in time you could even go on to date him, but you don’t like him enough for him to be “the one,”’ I suggested, as I reminded her of her friendship with the hot handyman who did her garden. ‘You’d be settling for Mr. “Ok for now”, instead of waiting for Mr. Perfect. And that’s what I did, though I didn’t realise it at the time. Subconsciously I think I did know, as I didn’t feel any stress or tension around Greg or the other guys I dated. Like it didn’t matter if they got to know the real me and decided they didn’t like me, it wouldn’t be any great loss. But with Mr. Perfect …’ I paused as I thought of my toned jogger, who I couldn’t stop dreaming about. Abbie snapped her fingers at me, bringing me out of my daydream. ‘With a guy that I feel an attraction that strong to, there’s a risk. It matters. You know?’
‘So you’re saying a few looks at a hot face and body jogging past for the last few days and you think you’ve found Mr. Perfect?’
‘You make me sound really shallow,’ I protested, stalling to gather my thoughts by finishing my drink with a noisy, and very unladylike, slurp. ‘But I just took one look at him and felt like I’d been winded. Then he caught my eye and smiled, and it was like someone had sucked all of the air out of my lungs. It was like I felt this connection to him, a total stranger. It scared me, so every time I see him coming up the beach now, I make myself not look.’ I bit my lower lip, waiting for her to tell me I was being ridiculous.
‘Ok, I sort of get that. I felt the same way the first time I saw Miller at Rachel’s wedding. But what I don’t get is you closing yourself off to the possibility of meeting someone who might be your happy ever after. By letting him think you’re not interested, you probably lose any chance of finding out if there’s something there. By letting him know, by maybe having a few drinks with him, the worst that can happen is you don’t get on and he walks away. No harm, no foul. You’re no worse off,’ she suggested. Logically.
‘But–’
‘No buts,’ she interrupted, ‘because there’s a chance that he could really like you too, Georgie. A chance that you could have a relationship, a chance that I might have to put on bridesmaid dress number thirteen for you. Isn’t that worth the risk?’
‘Of you being a spinster for the rest of your life? Hell no!’ Abbie was already at bridesmaid dress twelve and was convinced if she wore number thirteen, she’d never get married herself.
‘Take me out of the equation. There’s no way Pippa’s going to last a week in a convent, she’ll change her mind and be getting married before we know it, and she’ll put the curse on me. You said on the plane ride over here that you’d do anything to see a smile on my face again, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, with a feeling I was going to regret that promise.
‘Well, I’m calling in that promise,’ she said firmly, confirming my fears. ‘I want you to smile back at him next time he jogs past, and to keep smiling every time he looks at you, and to say yes when he asks you to drinks or dinner, which I guarantee he’s going to do. No,’ she warned as I attempted to protest. ‘You promised, Georgie. This is what I want.’
‘You’re so mean to me, Abbie Carter,’ I pouted. I was equally terrified at the thought of actually making proper eye contact with him, let alone speaking, but it also made my heart flutter with delicious anticipation at the same time. I was about to argue with her, but then I realised this was the perfect chance to force Abbie to confront her fears at the same time. ‘I’ll only promise if you promise to open up to me before we get on that plane home. Deal?’
I saw her face fall. I’d never force her to talk until she was ready, but that didn’t mean I was above a little gentle coaxing, or blackmail in this case, to help get her to that point.
‘Deal,’ she finally confirmed.
Both of us blew out a deep breath as we realised we were going to be confronting our demons head on by the end of the week. Doing it with my best friend at my side would be so much less scary than doing it alone, though. I could do it, I could look at him and smile. It wasn’t like I was throwing myself at him and proposing marriage. I was just letting him know I was interested, in case he wanted to do anything about it. No big deal.
So why was my heart racing so fast?