Page 27 of Improper Proposal
“So good,” he murmurs and falls over me, peppering my back and neck with hot, open-mouthed kisses. “I could get used to this,” he says, and I go still. He must sense the unease in me. He pulls out and lightly touches my back, his caress so tender and gentle I have to fight back the tears. “Harper,” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Turn around.”
With little success, I blink back the tears, but when I turn and he takes me in, I’m sure he can see through me, see that I’m falling for him, despite our arrangement. His gaze roams over my face, then he exhales slowly.
“We need to talk,” he says quietly. I nod in agreement, ignoring the storm roiling through me, and he adds, “Let me get rid of the condom first.”
My pulse pounds in my throat as those alarm bells jangle once again. I know what he wants to talk about, and he’s right. I need to come clean to his family, now. I can hear them downstairs, their voices a little louder than normal. What’s all the commotion? I guess I’ll soon find out.
With Will still in the bathroom, I get up, torn on what I have to do. I pull on a pair of sweat pants and a shirt. Then I close my suitcase and zip it, worry sitting like a huge rock in my gut. I stand my suitcase up, take a step toward the door, but it swings open. When I see George standing there, along with his immediate family, my heart crashes against my chest.
Oh God. No.
George’s gaze locks on mine, and he holds his phone up. “I got a strange message from Will last week. Something about my surprise. I texted back, but he never answered.”
“I…uh…he’s been busy,” I say for lack of anything else. Busy having sex with me, but I’m certainly not about to say that.
He angles his head. “The ship docked early, so I came straight home, and Mom and Dad also informed me my surprise was here…” His words fall off as his gaze roams over me in a closer examination. “What are they talking about, and who, exactly, are you?”
My stomach nosedives, but I take a deep breath to fuel my courage. “Ah…ugh,” I say. “I’m not who any of you think I am.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I hear a collective gasp from the hall.
George takes a tentative step toward me, his eyes narrow. “What the bloody hell is going on here?”
I look at Claire, the others, and take in their confused expressions. “I’m sorry,” is all I’m able to get out, tears pricking my eyes. Everyone has been so nice to me, and I’ve been doing nothing but deceiving them. I don’t deserve their friendship or love. Then there’s Will. I’ve fallen so hard for him, despite trying not to. A noise crawls out of my throat, fight or flight instinct kicking in.
Just then Will comes back from the bathroom, stark naked, and goes still when he sees everyone at the door. “Shit,” he says, and rakes his hand through his hair, disappearing back into the bathroom to grab a towel.
“Will?” George says, his eyes going impossibly wider.
“What’s going on here?” Ned, George’s father, asks. “You’re sleeping with George’s girl?”
“She’s not my girl, Dad,” George clarifies.
“But we all thought she was.” Ned shakes his head and goes on to say, “Including Will.”
Oh God, this is bad, so freaking bad.
George glares at his cousin. “Jesus Will, you slept with a girl you thought was mine?”
“Look, it’s not like that,” Will says quickly. “I was just protecting you.”
“By sleeping with a girl posing as mine for reasons I haven’t figured out yet?”
“No, you see,” he says, clearly flustered, “I was out to prove she was a gold digger and—”
“Is that what you are?” George asks, cutting Will off as he turns to glare at me. “Were you here to clutch on to any guy in the family?”
“No,” I say around the knot in my throat. But why would they believe that? I’m not the type of girl this kind family would embrace. I’m just a girl from the streets of Brooklyn. I’m not used to castles or horses or any of this. I don’t fit here. I never did and shouldn’t have been kidding myself. I’m not the girl this family could fall for. “This was all a mistake.”
A big huge mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Unable to take in the pained and confused faces, I grab my suitcase and dart past them, and when I get to the main level and find Gramps standing there, an equally perplexed look on his face, I say, “Can you call me a cab please?”
Chapter Nine
Harper
