The Beginning of Us (125 page)

“Same as always.” How was I supposed to be?

He played with my ponytail. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?”

“Don’t you have to go away for work?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore. I think I want to spend the day with the woman I love. Is that okay with you, or did you make plans?”

This man was so sweet. My sister was an idiot. “Yes.”

His lips kissed my chin. I closed my eyes and tried to settle those butterflies again. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t the kind of person to take advantage of people. She never even knew how I felt about him. Had she known, I wouldn’t have been here alone with him.

“I’m getting tired. Maybe I should just get some sleep.”

He stood up and grabbed my hand. “We can go to bed.”

I looked down at the couch. “Do you need me to get your blankets?”

Immediately, he looked defeated. “I was thinking we could sleep together tonight. I haven’t been drinking, so I shouldn’t snore. Besides, I wasn’t planning on sleeping for a while.”

If it were up to me, and a perfect world, I’d have already been naked and in his arms. Except my world was far from perfect. He wasn’t mine and I just wasn’t willing to lose my sister completely. Sure, he’d already caused a strain in our relationship, but that would end it all. I was supposed to be here helping, not getting them divorced.

“I just started my period.” It just blurted out of my mouth. I could feel my face turning a shade of red.

He laughed and brought my hand up to his lips. I watched him watching me. “If you don’t feel good, we can just lay together. I just want to spend time with you.”

As long as he knew that we weren’t having sex, I could handle sleeping next to him. In fact, I was looking forward to it. He was secretly fulfilling a fantasy. As lame as it was, sleeping next to him was like a dream. It had to be enough, because it was all I was going to get.

I knew where my sister kept her pajamas, but unlike mine that covered my whole body, hers left little to the imagination. I felt embarrassed holding up the little bit of fabric. Stoshua pulled off his jeans right in front of me. His shirt was the next item to go. I couldn’t help but gaze at his sculpted physique. His body was even more defined than I remembered. Before I even knew what I was doing, I found myself licking my lips.

When he caught me looking, he smiled and started to approach me. I grabbed a couple articles of clothing, without looking, and ran into the bathroom. With my back against the door, I looked down at what I had grabbed. It was just my luck that what I was holding couldn’t even begin to be considered clothing. Everything was see-through. Panic struck and I didn’t know what to do. Stoshua was expecting me to join him in bed. He wanted to wrap his arms around his wife and fall asleep.

I couldn’t go out there wearing my clothes and I wasn’t sure if I could put on any of the things that I was holding in my hand.

Knowing that I didn’t have a choice, unless I wanted to come clean about who I was, I slipped on a tiny white number and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I was surprised that I actually looked decent. In fact, I let my hair fall down my back and admired myself.

Stoshua knew my sister intimately. He knew every inch of her body. There was no outfit that was going to make him believe that I was his wife.

I was scared.

My sister would never forgive me if I messed things up for her. I had to do my best to convince him that everything was fine. After taking a few more deep breaths, I opened the bathroom door and found him already tucked into bed. He sat up when he saw me walking toward him. “You look so hot!”

I smiled and climbed into bed next to him. This was all so wrong. I knew better than to agree to something so scandalous. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I was drawn to him. “Thanks.”

I got comfortable on my back, staring at the ceiling, with my hands folded across my chest. Being in bed with Stoshua was harder than I thought it would be. He was right there next to me. I could have reached out and touched his chiseled chest. I could have ran my hands through his dark wavy hair. I could be pressing my lips against his.

But I didn’t.

I remained still, just waiting for him to fall asleep.

“Do you love me?”

His words caught me off guard. “Yes.” It was the truth. After all this time, after he’d married my sister, I was still in love with him.

I felt his hand running down my arm until it reached my fingertips. He intertwined his with mine and just held it. “Goodnight, beautiful.”

Stosh started to snore shortly after that comment. I lay there wide awake, hearing him call me beautiful. I was practically naked in bed with him. We were holding hands and I wasn’t about to let go. I had just a few days to be with him. It was important to my sister that I did whatever it took. I just wasn’t sure how far I’d have to take things and if it came to being intimate, I didn’t know if I’d be able to say no.

I woke up in the middle of the night. His arm was draped around me and his head was nestled into my shoulder. I couldn’t help but take my fingers and run them through his dark hair. He didn’t flinch, so slowly, I reached over and kissed him right on the lips. I left mine lingering over his. He was warm and I wanted nothing more than to kiss him like he’d kissed me years ago in the hallway at school. I’d spent many nights thinking about that kiss.

It was a good thing he didn’t wake up.

I finally let myself fall back to sleep knowing that his body was against mine. It was good that it was dark in the room, because my smile was more than obvious.

I didn’t know what my sister had going on. I had no idea where she was, or who she was with. All I knew was that she’d left me to take over her life in her absence. In order to become my sister, I’d have to become Stosh’s wife. For some reason, it made what I was doing worth it.

When I woke up the next morning, Stosh was next to me with a smile on his face. He ran his fingertips over my arm, giving me goose bumps. “Good morning.”

I smiled. “Hi.”

“Are you hungry?”

I shrugged. “A little.”

“Let’s get dressed and go to breakfast.”

It was my favorite meal of the day. “Okay.”

“I want some French toast.” He sat up in bed and grabbed his pants, before walking into the bathroom. Just when I thought he was getting in the shower, he peeked his head out of the door. “You going to join me, or what?”

Chapter 4

I’m bringing sexy back.

As much as I wanted to stand up and slowly remove my clothes, so that I could join his hot, naked body in the shower, I knew I couldn’t. I already felt like I was stabbing my sister right in the back. Granted, she talked about him like he was a piece of crap and only really cared about herself, but he was still her husband. He’d made his choice and it wasn’t my place to come between them; not that he would ever want me anyway.

I was just the old friend that he probably felt sorry for.

When he got out of the shower, I was already dressed and ready to leave. I couldn’t stay in that bedroom for another minute, hoping to catch a glimpse of the water trickling down his sexy body.

Stosh drove us to a little place that was only around the corner. They served pancakes and pastries. I remembered my sister eating the Bavarian crèmes, so I ordered one of those. Stosh smiled when he sat down with our food and coffee. He kept smiling as he watched me eating it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the fresh apple critters that I knew they made. I watched Stosh eating one and I almost licked my lips twice.

“So, I was wondering if you’d want to go out on the boat?”

He had a boat? I’d never known that. “Alone?”

He reached over and grabbed my hands. “I just want to spend the whole day alone with you. Is that so bad?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s really sweet. I guess I just didn’t think you wanted to be around me lately. I, uh, I got the impression that we weren’t on the same page.” What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell him that my sister had told me a whole different story.

He squeezed my hands and looked right at me. “The past four years haven’t been easy for either of us, but I can assure you, we are definitely on the same page, babe.”

Every time he said something nice, I had to remind myself that he was speaking it to my sister and not me. Still, hearing it made me smile. Knowing that I was going to get to spend more time together made me even more happy. “I’d love to go on the boat with you, Stosh.”

He seemed so happy as we drove back to his place. For me, well, I was living a fantasy. When they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, I think they meant it. I was every bit in awe of this man, as I was when we were in high school. I wanted to be around him, spending every second watching him smile and enjoy himself. It made me happy to see him happy, even if that happiness wasn’t really because of me.

Since I’d not known about the boat, I had no idea what to expect. When he started to tell me about how his dad had repaired some things, I remembered that they’d had a nice size boat. They use to take it out and spend the night on it.

I was going to be alone on the water with Stoshua Wheeler. It was horrifying.

I hadn’t signed up for this.

As panicked as I was, I couldn’t just jump out of a moving vehicle to avoid the elephant in the room. I had to stay focused and remember that I was Ivy, not Willow. “So, I’m sorry if I’ve been kind of distant lately.”

“Lately? Try the whole time since the wedding.” I wondered what he meant.

“Surely, I haven’t been that awful to be around. Have I?”

He didn’t answer as we pulled into the marina, but I wanted to know what he would have said. 

His parents boat was nice. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. When you went down underneath, it had a galley kitchen, with a table. A compact bathroom followed and then there was one bedroom. After looking around, I leaned back on the bed and saw him looking at me. “Did you bring me here to seduce me, Mr. Wheeler?”

He took one step forward, but stopped. “What if I did?”

I was at a loss for words.

What would Ivy say? “Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

Yeah, I changed the subject. After I’d sampled his kissing, I knew talking about sex was going to cause me to crumble at his feet. I had to keep my composure.

Stosh made us a picnic top-side and we sat on the boat floor facing each other. He leaned over and fed me a grape. “You look so beautiful, sitting there across from me.”

I could feel myself blushing. “Maybe it’s the new haircut.”

“No, you could be bald and still be as beautiful. It’s not the hair, I can assure you.” I think I saw him blush before he bit down into a sandwich.

“So, should I be worried you’re going to throw me overboard in the middle of the night and leave me to the sharks?”

“Babe, there’s no sharks in this river. You know I’d never hurt you like that anyway. I love you.”

As much as I liked the way it sounded coming from his mouth, I felt repulsed.

He should have loved me. This should be my life and not hers. My next sentence escaped without me being able to rationalize it away. “What ever happened between you and Willow?”

He shook his head and started laughing. “I’m not going to discuss that with you, babe. Not here. Not now.” He leaned over and tried to kiss me, but I instinctively pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just feel like I want you to answer.”

“After all this time? What does it matter? Why do you even care?” He seemed like he was getting annoyed.

“Never mind. You’re right. It isn’t important.” Yes it was!

We finished eating in silence and he got up to start the boat’s engines. I felt relieved that the conversation was over, but scared that we were going out into the open water alone.

Don’t get me wrong, if I died at any second, I’d die a happy girl. He was here with me and not Ivy. Temporary or not, he was mine.

Here was the biggest problem with pretending to be my sister. I envied her life so much, that I was starting to consider what it would be like to take it for myself. I wanted to know what it would feel like to touch his naked skin, to lay naked in bed next to him and to make love with him.

Maybe my time away had changed me from a caring person to the devil himself. At any rate, the more I thought about walking away, the more I wanted to stay.

We spent the day heading out to sea. It wasn’t hard considering we lived right outside of Middletown, Delaware. We were practically surrounded by bodies of water. It took us about two hours to get to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Large cruise ships and shipping freighters shared the water with us.

We spent the day fishing and bathing in the warm sun. It was the perfect day, and as the sun started to set, he wrapped us up in a blanket and watched it go down with me in his arms.

How could I not be in love with this man? He was damn near perfect.

Did I feel bad for pretending to be my sister?

I was starting not to.

“This is amazing. Thank you for bringing me out here.”

“I used to like it when we hung around and watched movies all day. Things were easier back then. There was no work and no drama. Now, I go to work and come home. My days are busy and I spend my nights trying to forget about my days. After a while the monotony drives you insane. I tell you, I just need a damn break from it all. I want to do something different than what I’m doing. I don’t want to rent a pool house for the rest of my life. I want a house full of kids and to be able to coach them in sports and take them to Disney World.”

I heard everything he said, but only one sentence stuck in my head. I remembered watching movies with him. It hurt to think that my sister took that spot next to him on the couch. She’d taken everything we ever did and made their memories better. I was always pushed to the side, with everything I tried to do. Maybe that was why I took the academic route. It was the only thing she had no interest in. I couldn’t blame her for falling for Stoshua. He was an all around amazing guy. He was into sports, but equally into academics. He was brilliant and gorgeous. I couldn’t have been the only one to notice.