I’m playing the game again. I’m not being real. In fact, I’m being the most unreal I could possibly be, standing here with this man, his hand on my lower back. He looks like he always does, handsome in a rugged way. Dark hair perfectly coiffed, clean-shaven jaw, in a dark-gray suit and blue shirt that makes his eyes pop, but unbuttoned too low in my opinion.
“Wave and smile,” Declan says in my ear, his breath causing creepy little tingles to move down my spine. Mostly because I don’t like his breath on my ear, but also what the hell did he eat in there? An entire clove of garlic?
But I do as he says, pulling my lips up into a fake smile, leaning my head away so I don’t have to smell his breath. The sun is setting, and the lighting is perfect, we’re here to give everyone a show, and a show is what they’ll get. But really, what I’d like to do is run away from my mother’s boyfriend.
Presley James, get yourself together.
“Lower that hand any farther and I’ll cut you,” I say through my teeth, keeping the grin bright on my face, posing for the cameras in a little black strapless dress and matching shiny patent leather heels that I had delivered today because I hated everything in my closet. It was after I tried this dress on that I realized I just hated the thought of getting done up for tonight, and it had nothing to do with my clothes.
“You wish,” Declan says, his smile bright and intact.
We’ve gotten so good at communicating through our smiles that it’s like second nature and no one is the wiser.
“Your breath smells like a butt,” I tell him, my cheeks starting to ache from the strain, while turning to my side and wrapping an arm around him from the front.
We are just adorable right now. The picture of love and affection.
“Your face looks like a butt,” he says through his teeth, waving at no one in particular.
“I hate you,” I say through my teeth. I don’t actually hate Declan, I just don’t like him.
We pose and preen, and everyone eats it up. The flashes are going off, and the paps are yelling questions for us to answer, which neither of us do. We just let them speculate like they always do. It’s kind of dumb how easy it is. Show up together for dinner, look cozy as you leave, and voilà, you’re front page on the gossip sites and someone has made a countdown clock for your future wedding and added more pictures to their Presclan fan page.
“Give him a kiss,” one of the paps yells, and at the request I almost upchuck the spicy tuna roll I ate earlier. I’d hate to do that; it was a really good roll.
Declan leans in and gives me his cheek, tapping it with his finger, which makes the photogs all awwww together in unison. My gosh. How have I been putting up with this nonsense for so long?
At least Declan has offered his cheek and not puckered up for our little audience. I’m grateful for the gesture because I absolutely am not kissing him on the lips, especially not after I had to peel him off my mom not even an hour before we came here.
What is my life?
I smile for the cameras and then lean in, giving him a little peck on the cheek. Then I turn my head toward his ear so no one can see my lips and from an angle it looks like I’m telling him something secret and private. But what I really say is, “Seriously, what did you eat?”
Declan, apparently as done with this torture as I am, waves one last time and then takes me by the hand, and we start walking toward the car, another celebrity couple exiting after us and thankfully taking on the attention.
My smile falls as soon as we’re out of the limelight, and I tear my hand away from Declan’s and follow him to the waiting black SUV at the end of the walkway.
But just as I pass the last of the paparazzi, I see someone who looks familiar and I blink a couple of times, not fully comprehending.
Standing at the edge of the group, a camera in her hand is . . . Betty. Rude Betty? That can’t be right. I walk toward her because I have to know. My mind could be playing tricks on me, or I’m about to have a nervous breakdown and this is the initial warning, but I need to make sure it’s her.
“Betty?” I ask as I approach her. There’s no massive visor on her head, but it’s absolutely her.
“Betty?” she questions, tucking her chin in, one brow lifting high on her forehead. “My name is Deborah.”
“Um . . . What are you doing here?”
She gives me a wicked-looking smile. “My job,” she says.
“Your . . . job?”
“Presley,” Declan yells, and I hold out a finger toward him, the universal signal for hold on.
I’m so confused right now, and my brain is attempting to put everything together.
I ask the most obvious thing as I try to parse through all the questions filtering through my mind at once. “You’re paparazzi?”
She wobbles her head side to side. “I prefer media photographer.”
“But you were on the island . . . on Sunset Harbor. Did you follow me?”
“Oh no,” she says, waving the idea away with her hand. “It was just luck, really. I was trying to get the scoop on Noah Belacourt. See if I could get anything juicy. But imagine my surprise when I saw you there. Presley James, fallen-from-grace actress, sitting on that bench in the town square.”
“You didn’t even have a camera,” I say, remembering how she lectured me to sit up straight. I thought she was just a crotchety older woman who lived on the island.
“Ah,” she says. “But that’s how I get all the good pictures, you see. I hide my camera in bushes and use a remote.” She gives me a wink and pats her pants pocket, where I see a rectangular shape popping through. “And no one thinks a sweet older lady would be taking secret pictures of them. It’s a magic trick. I get you to look one way while I’m doing something else over here.” With her finger she points upward and then to the side.
I’m a little taken aback by the sweet older lady thing. Has she met herself?
“Wait, so it was you,” I say, pointing a finger at her, my brain finally putting the whole thing together. “You took all those pictures of me with Briggs on the island.”
She stands up a little taller then. “And I got paid a pretty penny for it. I’ve almost got enough to retire to Boca Raton.”
“But how did you get the ones in his mom’s backyard?”
“Easy,” she says. “Especially on an island where everybody talks. It works the same way in small towns. I just got people talking and made some friends, told them I like to go bird-watching, and suddenly I’ve got easy access.”
I hate everything about this, and it was a complete violation, but I’m also slightly impressed.
