Page 100 of Love on Deck
Lauren leaned back, her breath coming raggedly. “I don’t really have to guess how you feel.”
“I can still keep proving it to you, if you want,” I said, pressing my lips to the tender skin beneath her ear and eliciting a shiver.
She pulled me back for another kiss. When I straightened, I dropped one on the top of her head and hugged her tightly.
She hugged me back. “I’m going to delete that voicemail right away.”
“Thank you.” I shut my eyes. “I can’t believe you agreed to the fake relationship, even after that.”
“What fake relationship?” someone else said. I looked up to see Amelia and Kevin in the doorway, staring at us.
Amelia narrowed her eyes, looking from her sister to me.
Lauren pushed gently on my chest until she could stand straight, facing her sister. I stood close behind her, waiting for her to take the lead.
Amelia lifted her eyebrows. “What fake relationship, Lo?”
Lauren sucked in a breath. “I can explain.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
LAUREN
It took all of twenty minutes to explain that we had begun the cruise as a fake relationship and watch the newly restored joy drain from Amelia’s face. We all stood around my tiny kitchen island, no one relaxed enough to sit—me and Jack on one side, Amelia and Kevin on the other.
“So you lied to us?” Amelia asked, her lips turning downward in a perfect, depressed rainbow.
My instinct was to promise I hadn’t, but that wouldn’t be the truth. She was right. I’d lied to her. Of course I knew that, but I’d thought it was helping her out, that I wasn’t the only one who benefitted from this arrangement.
I wouldn’t lie to her anymore. “Yeah, we did, Ames.”
“She was trying to help me out,” Jack said. “Sydney was overwhelming when we broke up, and she got a little handsy when we first ran into each other in the lobby. I was worried about the rest of the cruise.”
Um, okay. He hadn’t told me that part. He also made me sound far more selfless than I was. “I got something out of it too.” I caught his eye and held it for a second. “Well, I was supposed to. It didn’t pan out the way we thought it would.”
Kevin had been silent through the entire conversation, watching us go back and forth. “What were you getting out of it?”
“Jack promised to try and move his MediCorp conference to Hunnam Hotels so I could manage it, but they wouldn’t move it.”
Amelia shook her head, looking from me to the ceiling. “What I guess I don’t understand is why you couldn’t tell me the truth. If you wanted to be in a fake relationship to keep Sydney away like you’re in some cheesy movie, that’s your choice. Why keep me out of the loop?”
Jack didn’t take this one. He couldn’t step in now and explain something he didn’t understand, either.
A million moments flickered through my head of Amelia letting me leave, telling me I wasn’t required to stick around, of her friends not vibing with me or our interests not aligning. When I was with Kevin and Amelia, we were fine. We got along great. But add in her friends and I became the old lady, and it was clear she didn’t want me there.
Amelia crossed her arms over her chest impatiently. There was fatigue behind her wan eyes. The girl deserved to go home.
The more honest I was, the faster this conversation would end. “I didn’t want to add stress during your wedding.”
“Knowing you were trying to be a buffer between Jack and Sydney isn’t very stress-inducing.”
“No... but you knew how I felt about Jack, and you just seemed so relieved when he said we were dating. Which I totally understand. If I dated the guy, then we wouldn’t be fighting the whole time.” I rested my hands on the counter. “Ergo, we wouldn’t be adding any stress to your wedding.”
She wasn’t speaking, her eyes tracking me like they wanted to follow every word I said. Silence permeated my tiny kitchen.
“So all those times you two were off on your own, it was to put space between you and Sydney?” Amelia asked. “I thought you just didn’t want to be around us.”
Wait. That wasn’t fair. She was the one who was constantly giving me an out. “Partially. I was also trying to give you and your friends space.”