“Nothing’s enough for him. It’s not like that’s exactly news.” Kian clears his throat. “Now, about Va Voom Vintage.”
“What kind of name is that anyway? And who makes a living selling old clothes?”
“She does more than make a living, Garrett. Lola Barnes is CEO of what has turned into a multimillion-dollar company,” Kian corrects me. “And it’s vintage, not old. Like antique furniture, but with designer clothes instead.”
I think of the piles of clothes in Lola’s living room that suddenly makes a lot more sense. “For a CEO of a company that big, she’s awfully hands-on.”
Kian chuckles. “Pretty sure the same can be said of you, at least if these pics of the two of you together are accurate.”
“Nothing happened between us.”
“So you were just giving her a tonsillectomy then? With your tongue, no less?”
I grit my teeth and fight the urge to bury my face in my hands as my headache kicks up another notch or seven. “I took her to dinner, broke into a park with her, and then kissed her. But that’s all that happened. Otherwise, I would have been kissing her inside the house instead of on her porch.”
“That makes a sad kind of sense, and I’ve got to say, I’m a little disappointed in you, Gorgeous Garrett. I thought you were more of a closer than that.”
/> “And I thought you had a little more class. Guess we were both wrong.”
Kian pauses and I can practically hear the wheels turning in his brain. Too bad my head hurts too much for me to even try to keep up.
“You like her,” he says after a minute.
“What? I barely know her.”
“You know her well enough to like her,” he all but cackles. “This is good. This is perfect, actually.”
“What do you mean it’s perfect?” I’m scrolling through another site now, one that’s offering money for candids of Lola—with or without me in them. “The vultures are all over this story.”
“Exactly. And not only are they all over it, they are loving it. Gorgeous Garrett and a self-made American businesswoman? It’s a tale as old as time.”
“This isn’t Beauty and the Beast, man.”
“Sure it is. She’s beautiful and you’re absolutely a beast—especially lately. Even though Dad wants the story buried, Liese and Jacob think you should run with it. Wine and dine her and show the world just how much of a Prince Charming you still are. Once everyone falls in love with your romance, they’ll stop thinking of you as the poor, abducted prince and start thinking of you as a prince again. More, a king. And a hot commodity, at that.”
“That is a terrible idea.”
“It’s a brilliant idea. You’re just too miserable to recognize it.”
“What happens when we break up? Which will happen, since we’re not actually together?”
“Jacob and Liese will spin it. They always do. And who’s to say you’re going to break up, anyway? You like this girl. It’s pretty obvious she likes you. Go into it with an open mind and see what happens.”
“Aren’t you the matchmaker lately.”
“Can I help it if I want my brother to be as blissfully happy as I am? Besides, it’s perfect.”
“It’s about as far from perfect as it can get!” I growl, sounding way more like the beast he accused me of being than I like to admit. “It was just a date. I don’t have any plans to see her again. And even if I wanted to—which I don’t—it’s not like she’ll be interested in seeing me again.”
“Are we looking at the same pictures?” Kian demands. “Because from where I’m sitting, the two of you look like you’re about to set that porch on fire. Why the hell wouldn’t she want to see you again?”
“A bunch of reasons, including the fact that—according to the text I just got from Samuel—she’s trapped in her cottage by press and photographers. Plus I’m pretty sure I’m too much of a stick-in-the-mud for her.” I scroll through some pics of Lola when she was younger. “She looks like she was a pretty big party girl.”
“So? I know my way around a party or two. That didn’t stop Savvy from falling for me, even though that’s not her scene. Opposites do attract, you know.”
“What is it with you and this whole matchmaking thing? Seriously. It’s weird.” Especially considering he was the biggest playboy on the planet less than a year ago.
“Will you just trust me for once? I know you’re used to coming up with the plans and giving the orders, but I’ve got this. It’s foolproof.”