He looked even more distraught when they entered the elevator. “We need to go see your parents.”
“My par—” She grabbed his hand. “What happened?” She patted her pockets, but she’d left her phone in the room. “Did Ben call? Did something happen? Are they okay?”
He grabbed her by the shoulders as panic swallowed her. “Wills, look at me.”
She met his gaze, and in it she found solace.
“Your parents are fine, babe, but the papers picked up our story. It’s all over the Internet.”
“What? How?” Her mind reeled.
The elevator doors opened, and they rushed toward their room.
“Some idiot took pictures of us last night. People do this shit all the time. They sell pics for big money and the press makes up stories. You know that. My PR rep said they had pictures of us dancing and of me carrying you toward the resort. The headlines said something about our ‘secret engagement.’”
It was going to be bad enough to try to lie to her family, but for them to find out from an article made it a hundred times worse. She followed him into the room and scrambled for her phone. One glance at the messages from her family told her they’d already seen the news.
“This is bad, Zane. Really bad. What am I going to tell them?” She rushed into the bathroom and began gathering her things. “I don’t know why I thought I could lie to them. This will kill them. They’ll never trust me again.”
ZANE THREW HIS belongings into his suitcase, wishing he could track down the asshole who had taken the pictures and pound the shit out of them. No part of his plan called for Willow or her family to get hurt. In fact, he’d thought he’d taken measures to avoid that. It was hard to believe there had been a time when he’d craved this type of radical attention. He’d been an idiot to believe he’d needed it to validate that he’d made it. After a decade of acting, he was over invasions of his privacy. He’d had a hard enough time with the idea of one photographer at his beck and call, but he’d be damned if he was going to let Willow and her family get caught in the Hollywood bullshit crossfire.
“We’ll fix this, Willow. It’s not like you’ve lied to them.”
She stopped stuffing clothes into her bag. “Isn’t there a ‘yet’ missing?” She shoved the rest of her clothes in the bag and zipped it up. “Wasn’t that the whole idea? We’d go back to Sweetwater and lie to everyone? Give them your made-up story about us and hope they bought it? I don’t know why I agreed to do that. We have to tell them the truth.”
He slung her bag over his shoulder, wondering how he could navigate this without screwing it up. “Wills, we can’t tell them.”
“We can and we will.” She crossed her arms. “You’re asking me to lie to my family.”
“I am,” he admitted, guilt suffocating him. “That makes me a shithead, but I promise you I’ll take all the blame afterward. If one person slips up and says this is fake, the whole thing is blown.”
“It’s ridiculous anyway,” she seethed. “Who will ever believe you would settle down with one woman? You don’t even know what that means.”
He clenched his jaw against the truth, but it broke free anyway. “You’re so fucking wrong, you’re on the wrong planet. You don’t know everything about me, Willow, so don’t stand there and judge me like everyone else in the fucking world does.”
She scoffed. “Oh, please. You’ve never even had a long-term girlfriend.”
He stepped closer, heat thundering in the space between them despite their dispute. “Maybe that’s by choice, and not because of whatever reasons are floating around in that beautiful head of yours.” He raked his hand through his hair, mired down by guilt. “Look. I need you, but I don’t want to hurt you or your family. If you need to tell them, I’ll announce to the press that they’ve got it all wrong. The ring is not an engagement ring, and we’re old friends. I’ll make sure your reputation stays intact.”
Her gaze softened. “But what about the focus group and all that stuff about fans not buying you as a romance hero?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Goddamn it.” She plopped down on the bed.
Zane crouched beside her. “I’m sorry, Wills. I love your family. They’ve been better to me than my own family ever was. I didn’t think this through. I can’t expect you to lie to them, and you can’t tell them and expect them to keep it a secret. I’ll call the photographer and put an end to the ruse right now. I’m sorry I got you involved.” He slid his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts for the photographer’s number.
“Don’t call him,” she relented.
He lifted his eyes, and she rolled hers.
“I made you a promise. You kept yours when I needed you before college. It’s only fair that I keep mine now.”
He was filled with gratitude and admiration, but he didn’t want her to feel pressured by their past. “Willow, this is different from what happened between us back then. If you do this, please don’t do it out of some warped sense of obligation. I will adore you whether you agree or not. I don’t want to hurt you or your family. It was an impetuous plan, regardless of how much I thought I’d planned it out. I missed this giant piece, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
She nodded, her gaze softening. He lifted his phone, and she put her hand over his, lowering it to his side again.
“It’s only two weeks,” she said, shocking the hell out of him. “They’ll be mad when we finally tell them the truth, but if anyone will understand, it’s my family. They go to crazy lengths for their friends, and they love you.”
He cocked a brow. “I’m not sure Piper’s on board with the whole loving Zane thing.” Piper was a year and a half older than Willow and a year younger than him and Ben. She’d always treated Zane as if she didn’t quite trust him, though he couldn’t figure out why.
That earned him a sort-of smile. “Piper will probably be annoyed with both of us for a while, but she’ll get over it.”
He sat beside her. “Are you sure?”
She held out her left hand, the diamond sparkling in the bright lights. “What kind of fiancée dumps her man when things get tough? We’ve got this.”
He wrapped her in his arms, and they both fell backward to the mattress. He kissed her smack on the lips. “I owe you big-time for this.” He pressed his hips to her thigh. “I can make up for it right now if you let me.”
She pushed him off, still smiling. “I’m so going to regret this.”
He pulled her up to her feet and tugged her against him. “I promise you won’t. I’ll be the perfect fake fiancé. You’re going to fall so hard for me, you aren’t going to want this fake engagement to end.”
CHAPTER SIX