Over and over, I typed in so many words, only to backspace through them until there was nothing. Finally, I let my fingers spell out what was in my heart, no matter how much it hurt.
I hate what I have to do. I don’t want to pretend I care about someone else. I could never just move on like that.
As usual, there was no reply. At least I knew he received it, though.
Where was he? I imagined him sitting on a beach somewhere, his feet in the sand as he sipped some frothy umbrella drink in the sunshine. No, that wasn’t right. He was likely somewhere in a hotel fully dressed in a suit and tie with a glass of scotch on the table in front of him. Was he in Venice enjoying the beautiful sunset each night—the same sunset that had been the perfect backdrop to our time together there?
Two light knocks on my door shook me from my daydreaming, and I opened it to see Varo standing there looking distinctly uncomfortable. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look like that. Instead of looking me directly in the eyes, as he always did, his gaze was fixed on the floor and his hands were hidden behind his back.
“Hi, Varo. What’s up?” I wanted to be cool, but my words came out stupid sounding, like I didn’t know what was happening.
His gaze met mine, and I saw just how uncomfortable he was. Those dark blue eyes that had reminded me of a snake’s more than once seemed bigger, like they were filled with uncertainty and searching for an answer in mine.
“I thought we should talk before we begin doing whatever we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Okay. Give me a minute and I’ll meet you in the living room.”
As soon as I walked into that room I knew I couldn’t sit there with another man like I had with Tristan. There were just too many memories. It would be wrong. Daryl was one thing, but Varo? No. I couldn’t sit there and talk about us being a couple, even if it was all an act. Stopping dead two feet in, I shook my head. “Let’s go somewhere else. I could use a drink or something to eat. How about the kitchen?”
Varo had no idea what the problem was and merely nodded as he rose from the couch. I wasn’t lying about needing a drink. Even though it wasn’t yet dinnertime, I had the strongest urge for anything that would dull my senses and make all this easier to deal with.
He followed me into the kitchen and stood silently near the doorway, as if he was preparing for a quick getaway. I knew how he felt. This whole facade we had to put on made me want to run away too.
As I considered what to say, I truly looked at Gage Varo, possibly for the first time. I’d seen him before, of course, but I had never really looked at him. He was the bodyguard or the guy Jordan liked, but now that he was standing there in my kitchen waiting to talk about how we were going to pretend to be a couple, I felt like I was seeing him in a brand new way.
His dark blue eyes still scared me a little, but I had no fear that he wanted to hurt me. They were just so unlike Tristan’s with their warm chocolate color. Varo’s were cold in comparison, and they gave me no real sense of what he was feeling.
“So I guess we should talk,” I said awkwardly as I stood with my back pressed against the counter, unable to put any more space between us. “Maybe if we got to know each other this might not seem so bizarre.”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.”
His statement was like an unexploded bomb dropped into the middle of the room. It just sort of sat there for a moment while my brain processed what he’d said. Did he mean he’d been a bodyguard before or that he’d had to pretend to be someone’s boyfriend before?
“What?”
“I’ve done this before. You know, the whole fake boyfriend thing. It’s not as hard as you’d think. It’s just a matter of acting like you’re happy. Once you get that down, it’s a breeze.”
“Oh, okay,” I muttered, still surprised that Varo had committed this same fraud before. “Do you mind me asking who you did this with the last time?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Angela Macaran. She’s an actress.”
I’d never heard of her, but the fact that he’d been her fake boyfriend made me want to know more about her. “Why did she need you to pretend to be her boyfriend?”
“I have no idea. They never told me, like all I know is what Daryl told me about this. You need me to act like we’re together, so that’s what I’ll do.”
This wasn’t making it any less weird.
“Did you sleep with her because you won’t be doing that with me. We don’t have to do that. In fact, I don’t think Jordan would ever forgive me if we did, not to mention the fact that I’m in love with Tristan and when he comes back we plan to get married. So there will definitely be no sleeping together.” I stopped talking as I realized I was rambling and took a deep breath before I began again. “I’m sorry. I must sound crazy. It’s just that this isn’t something I have any experience with.”
Varo gave me the first smile I may have ever seen from him. It was genuine and lit up his face, making him look so much friendlier than he’d ever been toward me. “It’s okay. I know my part. I assume Tristan knew my background when he hired me.”
“Oh. Is there anything I should be doing that I’m not?” I asked, feeling supremely stupid at that moment. “I mean, how did that Angela person act?”
Varo’s smile grew wider. “She acted like we were sleeping together because we were. I guess that doesn’t help, does it?”
“No, not at all. But thanks.”
He took a step into the room and then another until he stood next to the huge island in the center of the kitchen. “I think all we have to do is look like we like each other. Hopefully, by the time Daryl parades us out in front of the world, we can pull that off.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you, Varo,” I said apologetically.
“Gage. It might be more convincing if you called me by my first name instead of what my Chief Petty Officer used to call me.”
“Okay. It’s not that I don’t like you, Gage. It’s just that you’ve never really been very friendly toward me.”
Nodding, he seemed to consider what I’d said. “I’ll give you that. It wasn’t part of my job, as far as I was concerned. Now that it is, I promise to be friendlier.”
I liked this Varo a lot more than the one I was used to. For the first time, I could see what Jordan saw in him. Since I had the chance, I decided I could do some girlfriend recon for her.