Page 19 of Hot n Bothered

Darren

Haha! Knew it. How long?

Actually made it to baggage claim

Huh. They’re slipping. Was it everything I imagined?

I had to pretend to have a coughing fit when Ben asked oh so innocently if they were having problems

Love it. Ben doing his job properly?

Better than you. Dad found out about my job because he called them

Why did he do that?

To check I booked the right days off

Wanker! I should be there, I would’ve told him off

Ben called him a liar to his face! That shut him up. Tried to twist it to say I was fired

Good. I told you he’d be perfect. You should have no more problems with them

Yeah right! I’m expecting trouble at the villa. Reckon I’ll be in the smallest room with child size bunkbeds

Why?

Because of Ben upgrading our tickets

He did?

Fuck off with your innocent BS. He totally spragged on you knowing

Can’t trust him with anything! Send me pics, make me feel so jealous while I have to work

“How’s Darren?” Ben asked when Isobelle put her phone away.

He had his arm around her back, hand on her hip with his thumb under her t-shirt gently rubbing up and down almost absentmindedly.

“How do you know it was Darren?” She asked with a cheeky grin.

She laughed at his over dramatic hand on his chest, open mouthed shock. “Are you telling me that my Belle, love of my life. My reason for being is cheating on me? Heartbroken Belle, I’m heartbroken.”

“You’re not going to demand to know who he is so you can fight him off?”

“Oh no. I intend on treating you so good that no other man will ever do.” He grinned at her. “You think you like me now. Just you wait, you’ll be so deeply in love with me you will feel you are about to die if you so much as take a single step from me.”

She laughed. “So corny.”

“Your boyfriend is corny. Get used to it.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“Yeah, yeah. But I’m not going to ever get used to it.”

“So Ben.” T asked from her seat in front of them on the bus. “What’s your girlfriend type?” She turned round with a seductive smile.

Ben just pointed at Isobelle, she couldn’t help but give a smug smile to her. That was a mistake as her eyes narrowed and her smile turned predatory.

“Really? Do you look like all his previous girlfriends Izzy?”

“Um…” Isobelle frowned as she thought.

Come to think of it, she’d never met any of Ben’s girlfriends, he’d never introduced them to the group.

A giggled. “I take it that’s a no.”

“Actually it’s a I don’t know. Never met any.”

“I find that hard to believe. Unless you don’t really know Ben as well as you’re making out.” T said slyly.

“It’s because I’ve never had a serious girlfriend since I met Belle.” Ben said. “I was casually dating someone when we first met. Not serious enough to introduce her to my friends.”

“Casually dating for eight years?” T snorted. “And you never mentioned any of them to her?”

“I told her about Lucy and Michelle. In fact it was talking to Belle about them that made me realise what I really wanted. And it was her.”

Isobelle frowned at him. “But they were, what? Five… six years ago?”

Ben dipped his head flushing. “Yeah.” He rubbed his hand through his hair. “Like I said smitten from the get-go.”

She stared at him open-mouthed. Had he been? Had he really liked her? Was that why he hadn’t mentioned girlfriends in so long?

“Oh.” Her face burned red. Of course, he was making it fit with the lies he had told them. She was so stupid.

“You still haven’t said what they looked like.” A said overly sweetly.

“Why does it matter?” He shrugged. “Yeah, they didn’t look like Belle. That’s why they were only casual.”

“Just wondering what would happen if your type of girl would suddenly show up throwing herself at you that’s all.” A said.

“Yes. Wouldn’t want you running off and breaking her heart.” T said. “Just because you realise you’d like someone better looking.”

Wow. Just wow. Isobelle’s hand actually itched with wanting to either slap them or yank their extensions from their stupid, smarmy heads.

“Well that’s insulting.” She snapped instead.

“Not just to me. But mostly insulting to Ben. Do you really think he’s that pathetically shallow?

He is anything but. He’s sweet, caring, generous, loyal, funny, considerate, and…

and…” She trailed off realising that now everyone was looking at her and she’d almost come so close to blurting out that she loved him.

Ben pressed a kiss to her bright red cheek.

“Coming to my rescue again? You are stealing my opportunity to be your knight in shiny armour.” He grinned at her, before turning to the twins.

“You’ve obviously never been in love before.

If you had you’d understand that as far as I’m concerned there are two types of women in the world.

My Belle, and those that aren’t her.” He looked down at her.

“If they aren’t her, then I don’t really care what they look like or how they act because they will never compare to her. ”

“I think you’ll find it’s knight in shining armour, not shiny armour.” Her father said.

“It is? Oh, my apologies.” Ben shot Isobelle a look that had her biting her lip to stop from laughing.

How on Earth was she going to cope when he said things like that? She was supposed to be ignoring the way she felt about him, not falling deeper in love with him.

“I can’t wait to get to the villa.” T said. “Get into our bikinis and sunbathe by the pool.”

“Shame we can’t go topless though, I hate strap marks.”

“Maybe we can send mum and dad out to explore then we can.”

Urgh, the giggling was too much. Isobelle rubbed her forehead, she was getting a headache. All these lies on top of having to deal with everyone was getting to her.

Her phone buzzed again, what did Darren want now?

It wasn’t Darren, it was Ben.

Are you alright?

Headache coming on, too much talking

I packed painkillers. Do you need some now or wait until we get there?

I can wait. BTW you don’t need to come on so strong, they don’t care

What do you mean?

Being the perfect BF. It’s going to make it worse

1) Of course I’m going to be the perfect BF because that’s what I am

2) You deserve the perfect BF

3) Huh? Make what worse?

When all this is over. They will totally gloat about it

…

…

…

Don’t you dare do a fucking Darren

She chuckled at his snort laugh.

I won’t

Dick

No Ben

Arsehole

Nope. Still Ben

Ridiculous is what you are!

Your BF is ridiculous. Get used to it

So what was your essay you were writing?

Actually no essay. Just deleting the wrong words

Huh?

We’ll talk about it later

About what? And why not now?

Impatient

No. Isobelle

No. Belle

I can practically hear you rolling your eyes. You need to be careful, you might sprain something rolling them as much as you do

She gave a burst of laughter and nudged his shoulder with hers.

OW! Abuse! That’s abuse right there.

At least I don’t pinch you

I only pinch you when you deserve it

So you say

Yes I do. BTW I think we make a great couple

He sent the picture that T had taken. He was looking down at her as she was looking up at him. She grimaced.

That right there was the reason it could never work between them. All she could see was a sexy, confident, gorgeous hunk of a man and a disgusting fat blob. Her mother was right, that red colour did make her look washed out. Why did she ever think she could pull it off?

She put her phone away with a sigh.

“Belle?”

She shook her head, not looking at him. She didn’t want his platitudes, his lies to try and make her feel better. She just wanted to go to her tiny room and be alone for a while.

Just one problem.

They had the second largest room in the villa.

Yep. THEY .

Her strict ‘you’ll never sleep in the same bed as a boy when we’re around’ parents had put them in the same bloody room, with one bloody bed.

If it wasn’t the last thing she wanted, it would be so fucking funny.

Because this was straight out of a romance novel.

She could almost imagine the excited squeals of readers who loved the one bed trope.

Except she wasn’t the stunningly beautiful, skinny girls you found in those kinds of books.

So she definitely wasn’t going to be getting a happily ever after ending.