Knight in Shining Suit (26 page)

“
What about me?” he
asked.

I smiled up at him. “I was
just telling Janis how much you helped me get over my breakup.
Well, you helped me get even with my ex-fiancé and my cousin first.
I don’t think I would have done it if it weren’t for
you.”

“
When did you find out
that your engagement ring was a fake?” Janis asked.

“
After I received their
invitation and found that everything was how I planned it for
myself. I thought I should cash in on my bad luck. I was broke then
anyway. I didn’t have a job and was living with my cousin’s half
brother. At the jewelry shop, the guy told me that he wouldn’t even
pay a hundred dollars for my ring.”

“
That’s cheap!” Jake said
shaking his head.

“
Yeah. He’s cheap.” I
smiled. “But I’m over it now. That whole chapter of my life is
over.” I looked up at Ryder. “I’m so much better now,” I
said.

I wanted him to know that
had he not been
the
Ryder Van Woodsen, I would have kept my promise to him… that
I would have come to him when I finally got better. So he could get
to know the real me. I knew that although I looked happy in front
of Janis and Jake, I couldn’t hide the trace of regret in my
expression… and I’m afraid Ryder could see through me.

He stared back at me
evenly, raising a brow. As if he knew… that I’d kept two of my
promises already. But I didn’t have any intention of keeping the
third.

I looked away, not able to
bear the weight of his stare. I knew I was blushing when I looked
back at Janis, who mistook the meaning of my blush for something
else.

Janis beamed at me. “I’m
happy for both of you,” she said. “I think you are what each other
needs.”

Jake nodded beside her in
agreement. He raised his bottle to us for a toast.

I was still thinking about
the look on Ryder’s face when I went to the ladies’ room with
Janis. She was still beaming at me.

“
I am so happy Ryder found
you,” she said.

“
Why?”

“
He’s happy,” she replied.
“You make him happy. You two are like… soul mates. You have this
connection that looks cosmic in some way. You… complete each
other’s sentences; you fit together like pieces of a puzzle. I
couldn’t believe that Ryder finally found his match!”

“
Come on! His
match?”

“
You are. You’re the one
for him, I can tell,” she said. “Jake, Ryder and I… we grew up
together. And in high school, Jake and I started hooking up. We
felt guilty that we left Ryder behind. We started getting serious
when we were in college. And somehow we felt that Ryder felt out of
place with us, especially if we planned our future or if we became
affectionate with each other. We… wanted Ryder to find his girl. So
we’re sure that he’ll be as happy as we are.”

“
And you believe he’s
happy with me?”

Janis nodded. “Yes. Ryder
didn’t seem interested in women, or dating. He didn’t care much
about romance. We thought he was not interested in having a
relationship at all. We tried hooking him up with women before.
He’s just not interested. He was always busy with work. We didn’t
think he was ready to commit to any woman. We didn’t even think he
was capable of being romantic. He didn’t show previous signs. That
is why I was dumbfounded when he introduced you to us this morning.
I was not expecting you.”

“
I hope… I didn’t
disappoint you,” I said shyly.

“
Are you kidding me?
You’re absolutely perfect!” She laughed. “You’re absolutely
gorgeous. I can see why he’s taken with you, and I can tell you are
not interested in his…” She trailed off, and then she turned red. I
can tell she was embarrassed about what she was about to say next
that she stopped herself.

“
It’s okay. I know what
you mean. I’m not interested in his money.” I giggled. “When I
first… eh… started dating him, I didn’t know he was rich! I mistook
him to be something else.”

“
Oh my God!” she said.
“You were the girl who thought he was a bartender?”

I stared back at her. How
did she know
that
? “You know?”

She giggled. “I received a
weird call from him one day. And he asked me,
do I look like a damned bartender?
I
told him that technically, he is. He just owns his own bar. He said
he met a girl, and she had mistaken him to be a bartender and she…
liked him nevertheless.”

I blushed. That was true.
I liked him better when I thought he was… normal like the rest of
us.

“
So when he finally came
clean about owning the bar, what did you do?”

“
I slapped
him.”

Janis laughed. “Oh my God!
No wonder he’s so enchanted with you! Jake thought that Ryder had
always been afraid women would only want him because he’s rich. We
thought maybe that was the reason why he was so aloof with women,
and why he wasn’t interested. He was too cautious. He’s allergic to
girls who want his money more than him.”

I smiled at Janis. As we
approached our table and I looked into Ryder’s eyes, I realized
glumly that I liked everything about him…
except
for his money.

“
Something wrong?” he
asked me.

I shook my head as I sat
beside him. Janis took out her camera and placed it on a tripod.
Then she and Jake went closer to us and told us to smile. Ryder
laughed and squeezed me tightly. I leaned my head on his shoulder
and I smiled happily.

I only had forty-eight
hours. During that time, Ryder seemed to want me as much as I
wanted him. We belonged together and the issue of his A-list status
seemed far away. I felt like I was ready to be in a relationship
again, and Ryder was not a complicated man.

We sat by the bonfire as
we watched Janis and Jake dance.

“
She’s buying it,” I told
Ryder.

“
Buying what?”

“
Us,” I replied. “She
didn’t think we were pretending.”

Ryder raised a brow. He
pulled me to him so I could sit on his lap. Then he gave me a tight
hug.

“
Is that what we’re doing,
love?” he whispered.

I stared back at him, my
heart pounding hard in my chest.

“
None of this is real,
Ryder,” I reminded him.

He smiled before leaning
forward to kiss me on the lips. “But it looks real. It
feels
real.”

I blushed. How could I be
that transparent?

I looked at him seriously.
“It’s all for the show. This doesn't change anything, Ryder,” I
told him. “I’m only doing this because I owe you.”

He narrowed his eyes. He
looked like he wanted to say something, but choose not to. Instead
he leaned forward and gave me a gentle kiss on the lips and said,
“But here, we belong together.”

I nodded. “Only this
weekend.”

He took a deep breath.
“Then let’s make the most of it, shall we?” And he kissed me
thoroughly.

I felt wanted. The kiss
that Ryder gave me made me feel a myriad of sensations all rolled
into one. Heat emanated from his skin to mine. I didn’t want him to
stop. But we had to stop. Because we were sitting by the fire on
the beach with people dancing and partying all around
us.

He stared back at me. His
eyes filled with desire. My heart kept pounding in my chest as I
struggled to catch my breath. I wanted him. I knew from the look on
his face that he wanted me too. I tried to think of reasons to stop
falling into the edge of passion, but I could feel reason drifting
away.

Finally, he stopped
kissing me. He stared at me deeply. His eyes were drunk with
passion. We both knew where this was leading to, and it was not
part of the deal. We only needed to put on a show in front of Janis
and Jake. But inside our hotel suite, we’d be two strangers who
happened to share the same room and some acquaintance.

“
Let’s dance, shall we?”
he asked.

I nodded. We both know
that dancing would distract us.

When we got to the dance
floor, Janis was beaming at me. A slow love song played. Ryder took
me in his arms. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He wound his arms
around me and enclosed me in a hug.

“
Janis said you were
afraid of relationships, because you were afraid women will only
want you for what you’re worth,” I said.

He sighed. “It’s only
partly that. The bigger part of it is that I have been focused with
my goals all my life. I didn’t really have time to stop and commit
to get to know one girl.”

“
You didn’t believe in
‘
ever after
’
either.”

He didn’t say anything for
a while. I felt a kiss on my temple. “Do you believe in
‘
ever after
’
now?”

I sighed. “I have to. It’s
what I do, but I believe that ‘
ever
after
’ may be subjective. It can happen to
a whole bunch of my clients. It doesn’t have to happen to me. Maybe
it doesn’t happen to everybody.”

“
It should happen to you,”
he said. “You deserve it, Astrid.”

“
You don’t believe in it,”
I said looking up at him. “Why do you wish it for me?”

“
Because I know
that
you
believed
in it, and you make it happen for everybody else. You deserve it
more than anyone.”

I giggled. “Yeah! I wonder
how I’ll top Bryan and Geena’s wedding.”

He gave me a crooked
smile. “You can. As long as you open up your heart again and find a
man who can share with you what Bryan has with Geena.”

I laughed. “Then I can
marry you in the simplest Vegas ceremony and I would still top
that! Because honestly, I have more affection for you than Bryan
has for Geena!”

“
Seriously?” he asked
chuckling.

“
And I don’t think I like
you all that much, Ryder Van Woodsen,” I teased.

He laughed. “Let me change
your mind about that, Astrid Jacobson.” And he leaned forward and
gave me a thorough kiss on the lips.

I don’t remember how long
that kiss lasted, but I knew that somehow it started a whole
rollercoaster ride. We couldn’t get our hands off each other. I
think we were still kissing even when we went up to our suite. We
couldn’t wait to get inside. We were at it even in the
corridors.

When he closed the door
behind us and we were finally alone in our room, we both knew it
was time for us to stop pretending. No need to convince anyone
within the confines of this room.

He stared back at me and
smiled sheepishly. I smiled back at him shyly. He reached forward
and pushed a lock of stray hair away from my face.

“
Jake told me that I was a
lucky bastard!”

“
Why?”

“
Because you’re very
beautiful, and you’re smart, funny, and you’re grounded. You seem
aware of the people around you, and you… care about what they say,
how they feel. You’re sensitive to others, keen on making others
feel good. He said you’re an angel and the devil that I am, I’m
lucky to have you.”

I laughed. “How could he
say all that?”

“
Because Jake is a
shrink,” he replied. “He makes thousands of dollars reading
people’s personalities, deciphering the messages they do not say
verbally.”

My eyes widened. “And you
had the nerve to ask me to pretend I was your girlfriend? Didn’t
you think he would be able to guess that?”

He laughed. “That’s why I
didn’t tell you what he was. So you wouldn’t feel self-conscious or
scared. But you’re a natural.”

“
We’re both naturals,” I
said. “I guess we both have a knack for acting.”

“
We both have talents for
acting in love with each other,” He whispered. Then he stared at me
deeply, which made my knees go weak. “I wasn’t acting all the time,
Astrid.” He leaned his face slowly towards mine. “A lot of the
things I did today were actually… real.” And he brushed his lips to
mine gently.

Instantly, my blood
stirred. Desire flooded through my veins. I couldn’t help myself. I
couldn’t help showing him that I wasn’t acting all the time, too. I
kissed him back. Fiercely. I kissed him more passionately than he
was kissing me. He lifted me off my feet. I wrapped my arms around
his neck and wound both my legs around his waist.

He kissed me back,
hungrily, passionately. He started walking towards the bed. I
landed on my back and he landed on top of me. I was matching his
kisses. I was as hungry as he was. It was like I’d been set on
fire. Had I been like this the night of Geena’s wedding? No wonder
I lost my virginity by the end of the night!

I didn’t know I was
capable of feeling all these emotions… all this passion. Heat
radiated from my skin. I couldn’t stop kissing Ryder. I wanted to
give him everything that I could.

However, suddenly I could
feel him slowly putting his guard up. He was controlling his
kisses. He was trying to put out the fire within him. But I didn’t
want him to. I wanted him to devour me. I wanted him to give in to
the passion. I needed him to take what I was offering
him.