“Mmm…heavenly,” she said, “almost as good as that wedding cake you got me.”
“I’m not a fan of chocolate in general. I spent so much of my life avoiding sweets that I find I don’t have that craving.”
“I’ll bypass the fact that not liking chocolate makes you unpatriotic or something. Let’s focus on the fact that you have other cravings. Ones I can satisfy.”
“Without being two inches from a public toilet?”
“Yes, I can promise a better location tonight,” she said.
He fed her a few more bites of the mocha mousse and then untied her bikini top and smeared some on her breasts.
“I thought you didn’t like chocolate?” she challenged.
“I heard you say it was heavenly and I thought to give it a fair shot. I can’t think of a better way to serve it,” he said, licking his lips.
Chapter 4
The next morning they woke to the sound of Marj’s cell phone. She glared at it and looked at the number, puzzled and half asleep. She passed the phone to Brandon.
“It’s nobody I know,” she said, “is it anybody you know?”
“Shit. It’s the lawyers,” he said, “they must not have been able to reach me because I turned off my phone.”
“Just answer it,” she said, staggering toward the bathroom for a shower. When he came in a few minutes later, it wasn’t to join her for some wet and wild fun.
“There’s a feature on us in the media, all over the internet apparently. Seems our marriage is on the rocks already. And/or it was a sham from the start. This means trouble.”
She leaned out of the shower to look at his phone screen as he showed her the headlines and the photos of them on the plane, arguing, making angry facial expressions and gestures. Then there were pics of her gesturing to him at the airport, but it looked like she was fighting with him.
She frowned. “Now we know why she arranged for that blonde-secretary-look-alike on the flight. She wanted us to fight so she could capture it and flaunt it to everyone. I’m wondering why she didn’t get pics of us in the afterglow of sex. If we were being watched, surely somebody saw us go to the airplane bathroom together.”
“Because that wouldn’t help her case. She’s only going to focus on the dirty, ugly, and negative. And the pics were manipulated to suit her purpose.”
“Look, everyone has off days in their relationship. We weren’t even fighting for that long. It’s funny how they didn’t put the nice pictures of us up when we were holding hands or kissing. It can’t be that big of a deal. We’re on vacation, the flight was crowded, whatever. Let the lawyers put out the PR fire and let’s enjoy Mexico.”
“Speaking of Mexico, there’s more. Pictures of you in a bikini, by yourself, drinking and checking the time on your watch, and repeatedly looking back at the resort to see if I was coming. The headline suggests that I kept you waiting over an hour.”
“You did. Does it mention that I went to find you, and we had lots of mind-blowing sex?”
“No, they don’t have cameras in here yet, thankfully. This has to be Lena. Some kind of detective tracking us or there’s a spy on my staff. Our destination wasn’t disclosed to anyone. Pictures on the plane, in the airport, by the pool. It’s too much. They had to be looking for a story to find that.”
“Do you think she hired someone to stay glued to our every move?”
“I can practically guarantee it, Marj. This isn’t a coincidence. We’re recognizable on the Manhattan society pages, not internationally. So anyone here taking photos wouldn’t likely have any reason to take a picture of us arguing or you waiting on me because we were so famous. This had to be linked up to a news outlet or a gossip site and my money’s on Lena. It’s a case of stalking us and looking for trouble. Which is exactly what they’re going to find.”
“Wait, what if we just counterprogram it with adorable, affectionate public appearances? We can canoodle in the bar and kiss by the pool and take walks on the beach. That would show we’ve made up.”
“Anyone being paid to show us in a bad light wouldn’t bother taking a picture of us doing any of those things. He—or she—gets paid to take incriminating photos. Not flattering ones.”
“Wouldn’t a gossip outlet be just as happy with any candid photo of us, especially one that looked really romantic? Like, what if we were kissing? Passionately?” she suggested.
“If it were strictly for website clicks, sure. If it were a site manipulated or answerable to my stepmother, then, no. Negative press only for the marriage she wants to discredit,” he sighed, running his hands through his hair in frustration.