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“What are you doing in here?” I shouted, keeping my back turned and my eyes on Etta, willing her bony fingers to turn the doorknob. I could not get the image of Rowan’s entire naked backside out of my mind. He came out holding a towel in front of him, but when I screamed and he turned, all I saw was a butt. Rowan’s butt. His really toned, squeezable… Why me?
TEN
“This is where they told me to sleep,” he calmly replied. “Hi, Etta. Sorry about the show.”
“I haven’t seen cheeks like that since my honeymoon.” Her wrinkled eyes were like saucers.
“No,” I objected, squeezing my eyes shut. “This is where they told me to sleep. Put some clothes on and get out of here. Please?”
Etta opened the door as Ethan panted into the room. “What’s going on?” His face was full of concern as he looked to his great aunt, then me, and his half-naked friend.
“Maybe they’re fighting?” Etta mused, stepping into Ethan’s hug.
“They always fight, aunt Etta,” Ethan replied, shaking his head. “They hate each other. It’s kind of their thing.”
“Oh? I thought this,” she pointed at me, “was the one he’s dating.”
“No, Etta.” Rowan was quick to squash that horrible assumption.
“She’s not the one from the television show?”
“No, Etta,” Ethan answered.
“The model?”
“No, Etta,” I finally replied. “I’m Ethan’s friend. Aubrey’s best friend.” We’d grown so close on our walk upstairs, I thought she might remember who I was.
Ethan looked between Rowan and I. “There aren’t other rooms. They’ve all started sorting through grandma’s stuff in the other bedrooms, and this was the only bed left. Let me get her out and I’ll kick someone off the couch.” Ethan ushered Etta out, his arm wrapped around her shoulder.
“You could’ve fooled me, kiddo,” Etta told Ethan in the hallway, “because the way those two look at each other, they’re probably going to screw each other like your grandma and the governor in sixty—” Thank God the door closed. Or, as I watched Rowan’s smug face from across the room, maybe I wanted it open again.
“You need to sleep somewhere else,” I pleaded, sitting on the bed.
“There is nowhere else to sleep.” Rowan went back into the bathroom, tossing the fluffy white towel into the bedroom. That meant he was all sorts of naked, just feet away from me. Maggie would’ve died.
Grumbling under my breath about how perfectly awful it was to be expected to share a room with him, that he would even think it was okay to ask me to help him without thinking of my own image, I fell onto my back and kicked the mattress a few times.
“Spit it out, Meredith,” I heard him order from the bathroom.
“You’re repulsive, Rowan. I can’t believe you use someone’s funeral to ask me to be your fake girlfriend just to fix your image when you don’t even care to ask if I want to play along. And for what? What am I supposed to get out of this, but a failed pretend relationship with you before I’m a washed-up has-been just like any other girl you’ve dated? And,” I scoffed, “hello? You were with someone at the bar last week.”
“As you like to remind me with your thoughts on me being a philanderer,” he held the doorway as he peeked out at me, “I’ve been with a few people. But I can assure you, fake girlfriend, I’m not with anyone right now.”
“Ugh! You’re still just thinking of you. What happens when it’s November and the contest is over?”
Rowan came out of the bathroom, shaking water from his hair. The drops rolled over his shoulders and down every ridge of his chest and abs, just like at the rose garden.
“I hadn’t thought that far,” he confessed. “You’re right, Meredith. I’m being selfish and,” he reached for my hand, his touch distracting me, “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. Now,” I leaned onto elbows and tried not to look at his muscles, “what do we do about this?”
“It’s… Fine,” he lied. Rowan pulled down the covers on one side and climbed in, wiggling his feet beneath my head.
“There’s one bed.”
“And two of us.” Rowan’s chuckle was dangerous, a beautiful sound that made me fear for the night. “Go to sleep, Meredith.” He pulled a pillow over his face as I rolled over to face him, watching the covers slowly rise and fall with his breaths.
I couldn’t share a bed with Rowan Ellis. I hate him, not the way he looks. That doesn’t mean I should cozy up to him out of convenience. When he stopped moving, I assumed he was asleep and my restless mind caught up with my body while I tossed and turned at the foot of the bed.
