Page 24 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

RHYS

V anny put one hand on her hip and popped it out like the sassy little vixen she was. “I am not giving you my ring size.”

“Aww, come on fiancée. Don’t do me like that.”

“I’m not doing you like anything.”

“Not yet.” I winked.

Vanny rolled her eyes. “We should drop this stupid idea. There isn’t a single person at my reunion who will believe for a second that I’m engaged to someone like you.”

“Stop saying that.” I didn’t like how she kept putting me on this pedestal.

I wasn’t sure why she continued circling back to things like this, like she needed to make sure I knew how separate we were.

I wasn’t buying it. The only person she was trying to convince was herself and the whole charade was getting a little old.

Maybe I should rein it in and take it easy on her.

Vanny polished off the rest of her drink. Then she shook her head to clear away the fuzziness of the moonshine. “I should go. This was a bad idea. Can we just drop everything?”

“No.”

“Rhys, I mean it. This was a silly idea in the first place. Nobody will believe us. And I don’t want to waste all this time indulging you in your banter, all for everything to go back to normal after the reunion.”

I arched an eyebrow.

She expected everything to go back to normal after this? Did that mean she was figuring when all was said and done, she and I would have nothing to do with each other?

I hardly saw things playing out that way.

“I like you, Vanny,” I said.

Her eyes widened a little.

I stepped forward, and she stepped back, so I stayed where I was.

“Vanny, listen. This isn’t some game I’m playing.

I don’t know where you got it in your head that I have other intentions.

I just… I don’t know. I think you’re an impressive person and I think it will do you some good to walk into your reunion with your chin up.

It’s much easier to do that when you have an ally at your side. A friend. Let me be that person.”

She looked at her feet.

I smiled. “I’m also an absolute delight in any crowd. You won’t have to micromanage me while we’re there.”

She licked her lips.

I knew I was getting through to her. “So let’s stop this bickering. Please? Either put a pin in it or let’s just go for it. I, for one, am all in.” I paused. She looked up at me. “What do you say, Vanny?”

She chewed the inside of her cheek and then lifted her glass. “Okay. Fine. You win.”

“It isn’t about winning.”

“Everything seems like it’s about winning when you’re involved.”

I sighed.

She giggled. “I’m sorry. I’m just giving you a hard time. You make it so easy.” She tapped her fingernail against her glass. “Shall we have another and continue our game of twenty-one questions?”

“Absolutely.”

Vanny sat cross-legged in the middle of my sofa. I’d asked her my final question of the night, which was if she had any birthmarks, and she’d taken both her socks off to show me a small one on the bottom of her left foot and another on the back of her right ankle. She had red toes.

“And what about you?” she asked. Her cheeks were rosy, her hair a bit disheveled from constantly running her fingers through it, and her lips puffy from the drink. We’d switched to water at my insistence, even though she claimed to still be enjoying the moonshine.

She wouldn’t be enjoying it when it came up in the morning if she kept going.

I lifted the hem of my shirt to show her my birthmark, a peanut-shaped beige blemish on the lowest rib on my right side. “Just this one,” I said, pressing my index finger to my skin.

Vanny swallowed. I wasn’t stupid. She was staring at my stomach. I left my shirt up a moment longer. I didn’t work hard for my abs for nothing. If someone wanted to appreciate them, especially her, she could stare all she wanted.

She tore her gaze away and I let my shirt fall. “You have one more question, Vanny.”

“Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on each knee. The smile that stretched her cheeks instantly made me worried. “Do you actually want to get married one day? Like for real?”

I hesitated intentionally. The answer was an easy one. “Yes.”

“Really?”

“Does that surprise you?”

She shrugged. “A little. When you have all this.” She gestured around my loft. The motion was a little unsteady from the drinks. “It might be hard to wrap your mind around sharing it with someone else. I don’t know.”

“I was prepared to share it all with my ex.”

“Trish?”

I frowned. Had I told her about Trish at some point? I couldn’t recall the conversation. Maybe Chris had told her about her and how things fell apart.

Vanny hiccupped and picked up her glass of water. “Sorry. That was intrusive. You don’t have to talk about her.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I loved her.

Or I thought I did. And I thought she was the one.

But then I found her fucking her ex on my kitchen floor.

That was three weeks ago. Seems longer. I was pissed at first. I couldn’t believe she’d do that to me.

But then I began to realize she’d done me a favor. ”

“Oh?”

“She showed me her true colors before she became Mrs. Daniels. It could have been a hell of a lot worse.”

“That’s true.”

“Do you want to get married one day?”

Vanny smiled thoughtfully. God, she was beautiful. And soft. And so feminine. She looked good cuddled up in the middle of my couch, flanked by cushions, hair messy, feet bare. Better than good. She looked like she belonged there.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “But I think that day is probably very far away.”

“Not necessarily. Life has a funny way of surprising us.”

Vanny went quiet. Her brows drew together.

When she spoke, there was a hardness to her voice I hadn’t heard before.

A bitterness. Pain. “I’ve spent so much of my life feeling like I’m too much.

Too many opinions. Too loud.” She clenched her jaw, and for a moment, I thought she might cry when she stared right into my eyes. “That I take up too much space.”

“You don’t—”

“I know.” The words were sharp. She swallowed and took a breath.

“I’m sorry. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, Rhys.

But I’m not used to this. I’m used to people treating me like I’m less than because I don’t fit into their idea of what a pretty girl looks like.

Like that’s the most important thing to be.

I’m so… I’m so fucked up about this stuff and I know it. I just don’t know how to fix it.”

I was out of my depth here. It would be so easy to say the wrong thing and I didn’t want to hurt her more than other people already had.

But I wanted to help, and I needed to say something, so I chose my words carefully and inched closer to her on the sofa to rest a hand on her knee.

“Vanny, I don’t think people treat you less than because they don’t think you’re pretty.

I think you treat yourself like you’re less than because you believe them.

And they’re wrong. Plain and simple. But I understand.

When you hear the same thing over and over for years upon years, it becomes what you are. ”

Vanny searched my eyes. Her glare softened. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because I like you. And I see you.”

“You see me?”

I nodded.

Vanny turned bright red. Then suddenly, she was unfolding her legs and getting to her feet. She swayed, but only slightly, and let out a delighted little giggle that lit a spark inside me. “I’m feeling pretty good. This moonshine of yours is top-notch stuff.”

“I’m glad you like it.” I stood too.

She gazed out onto my balcony off the kitchen. Her face lit up and she spun toward me. “Is that a hot tub out there?”

“Erm. Yes.”

“We should go in.”

I laughed. “Do you have a swimsuit?”

“Oh. Right. No, I don’t.” Her shoulders slumped. “Shoot.”

I pulled my shirt off over my head. She watched it hit the floor. “Underwear, it is.” I undid my belt and dropped my jeans.

Vanny gasped. “Rhys!”

“What? They’re just boxers. Same as swim trunks. Right? Don’t be such a prude.”

“I’m not a prude.”

“Oh no?”

“No.”

“Prove it.”

I thought she might stomp her foot, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned and marched to the sliding doors, stormed out onto the patio, and began stripping outside by the hot tub.

“Jesus,” I breathed. Then I hurried to catch up with her and get the cover off the hot tub so she wouldn’t freeze her ass off out there.

It was hard to get the job done when her clothes were hitting the patio stones.

The girl had a lot of layers on. First her sweater came off.

Then her jeans. She stood in her tank top and panties, a bikini-cut black pair with little pink flowers on them, with her arms wrapped so tightly around herself that her boobs threatened to spill right up over them.

I managed to get the cover off. Then I turned on the multicolored lights that lit up the ten-person hot tub. Go big or go home, right?

Vanny peered into the tub.

“Second thoughts?” I asked before pulling myself up onto the edge, swinging my legs over, and slipping them into the hot water.

“Is this crazy?”

“Crazy?” I laughed and sank into the water up to my shoulders. “Vanny, it’s a hot tub. It’s about as far from crazy as you can get when it comes to water.”

She giggled nervously. Then with her lip between her teeth and her gaze downcast, she hooked her fingers in the bottom of her undershirt and worked it off over her head, exposing a bra that matched her panties, cleavage I wanted to suffocate in, and a body made for worshipping.

She didn’t give me much time to admire her.

She plunged into the hot tub. The water lapped at the edges as she pulled her knees up to her chest, hiding herself from me under the water.

Wordlessly, I turned on the jets so she’d be more comfortable.

She tilted her head back and gazed up at the stars decorating Nashville’s sky. “You have a beautiful view.”

I was still looking at her. “Sure do.”

“I used to lay on the grass with my dad when I was a girl and look at the stars. He told me they were fairies.”

“Fairies?”

Vanny smiled wistfully. When she looked at me, all the lines of tension in her face were gone. She was no longer caught up in thinking about how she looked. “Yeah. Space used to freak me out as a kid. All those stars. All that empty black space. There was nothing scarier.”

“Other than your Nannie.”

She laughed. Hard. So hard she snorted a little. And that only made her laugh harder until we were both in stitches and she was sucking in gulps of air through her teeth. “Yes. Except for my Nannie.”

I pushed away from my side of the hot tub to take the spot beside her. She watched me come to her.

“Why is your Nannie the way she is?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I think she came out of the womb insulting the doctors and nurses.”

I chuckled. “Do you think it’s a defense mechanism?”

“Are you trying to therapize my family?”

“Good God no.”

“I don’t think anyone could, to be fair. Nannie is just… Nannie.”

I spotted a mark on the back of her shoulder and leaned back to peer at it. Then I pressed my index finger to her skin. Her shoulder was cold to the touch. She let out a little gasp.

I smiled. “You have another birthmark. Cheater. You never told me about this one.”

She pulled away. “I didn’t know it was there.”

“What? How could you not—”

Vanny was suddenly neon pink. She scooted across the hot tub, stood up, and got out. “I think I should go home.”

“Wait. Hold on. Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I just… I had too much to drink and I want to go home. Can you call me a cab?”

“I… yeah. Sure.”

Somewhere along the way, I’d said or done the wrong thing. Was it the birthmark? If so, why? It didn’t add up.

Vanny didn’t give me time to get my thoughts together. She gathered her clothes from the patio stones and hurried inside, leaving wet footprints across my floor from the kitchen down the hall to the bathroom, where she locked herself away to dry off and change.

Damn it.