Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“Honestly, it pained me to do it. I bleed Michigan maize and blue. But I knew Chad Roman went to UT Austin, so I figured if you googled Roman and UT Austin, he’d come up, instead of me.”
I can’t help smiling at that, despite the churning of my stomach. I bite my lip, trying not to smile, but finally, I exhale and admit, “He did.”
“Hmm?”
“Chad Roman. He came up on the internet when I tried to find you.”
Roman bursts out laughing, and I can’t help laughing, too. And all of a sudden, the situation doesn’t seem quite as dire to me as it did a moment ago. True, he lied to me. But he’s my vacation fling, not my fiancé.
“You tried to find me, did you?” Roman says flirtatiously. “You little sneak.”
I snort. “I sure did. Every which way I could.” I rattle off all the ways I unsuccessfully tried to figure out Roman’s identity over the past four days, and he hoots with laughter and tells me he’s duly impressed. I bat his broad shoulder. “And it turns out, that entire time, you had a background check on me in your back pocket!”
“Sorry.”
He’s not sorry. In fact, he’s clearly deeply impressed with himself.
“You did that Longhorn thing with your hand, Roman! You know, when you told me you went to UT Austin! Did you really have to sell the bit that hard?”
Roman winces. “Yeah, in retrospect, that was too much.”
“Way too much.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Why was it so important for me not to know the truth about you?”
“Would we be sitting here now if I’d told you my true profession from day one?”
I consider that. But there’s only one honest answer. “No, I’d have been too freaked out to talk to you the way I did.”
“Bingo.”
I shift in my lounge chair. “But still, you’ve told me a shit ton of lies this week, Roman, and as you can imagine, I’m particularly sensitive to being told lies of any kind at the moment.”
He instantly looks remorseful. “I’m sorry, Iris. The last thing I wanted to do was throw salt on your wounds. All I wanted to do was make you feel good and help you forget your broken heart for a while.” He looks and sounds sincere. So much so, I can’t help patting his arm reassuringly.
“It’s okay. But can you please stop telling me lies from now on, now that I know the truth about you?” We’ve only got three days left together, after all. It shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Roman takes my hand and kisses the top of it. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I exhale. “Thank you.” Now that I’m past the initial shock, it occurs to me it doesn’t matter all that much to me that my vacation fling kept his football stardom a secret while also treating me to the best dates and sex of my life. If all Roman’s gotten in return for all he’s done for me this week was some no-strings sex and the chance to escape the pressures of his fame for a while, that seems like a reasonable exchange. Would I want to date Roman in real life, now that I know he’s this good at lying? Hell no. But I’ll happily continue having a fling in paradise with him for the remainder of my time on the island.
“Now that I’ve promised full honesty, I should confess something else to you,” Roman says. “I’d already seen the video, when you showed it to me.”
I bat his shoulder again, making him chuckle. “No wonder you reacted so calmly to it. You’d already had your freak-out in private.”
“I didn’t freak out the first time, either. The way I reacted in your presence was the same way I reacted when Cameron sent it to me.”
“Which was when?”
“A few minutes before I came back to the bungalow from my run and you showed me the video yourself.”
“Why not tell me you’d already seen it?”
“Because to do that, I would have had to admit I’d sneaked a snapshot of your license for a background check. That was simple due diligence, by the way. I never sincerely doubted you.” He twists his mouth. “I should also confess: The morning you showed me the video, I actually came back from my run earlier than it seemed. While you were talking on the phone talking with your friends, I hid near the door and eavesdropped for a while before making my presence known.”
“Roman!” I cover my face with my hands, remembering all the racy things I said about Roman to my friends. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. I loved everything you said.” He pulls gently on my hands, making me lower them. “Everything you said made me want to invite you to stay with me for the week, even more.” With a soft smile, he leans in and kisses me, and my body reacts like it always does, even though my mind is still racing. If I’d known about Roman’s superstardom when I walked in on him in that shower, I never would have had the courage to stick around and talk to him, let alone flirt with him. So, in that sense, I’m grateful Roman didn’t scare me off by revealing his true profession before today. On the other hand, however, did he really have to lie so freaking much—and so freaking well—to a woman who’s recently been shredded by endless lies?