The Consequence of Seduction (Consequence 3)

“OTIS!” I corrected. “He looks nothing like E.T.”

“Damn, you look smaller in real life, wanna go on a bike ride?” Otis’s tail started wagging. “You do? You do want to go on a bike ride? Quick, phone home!” Bark, bark, bark.

“What is he? The dog whisperer?” I elbowed a silent Reid.

“The one and only day he went to Boy Scouts was when they went to a petting zoo . . . he got a badge for taking care of the animals. That damn badge has been a thorn in my side for years. Years, I tell you.”

“Reid’s jealous.” Max patted Otis’s head. “The only badge he got was for selling cookies—then again we all know what really happened. Don’t you know drug dealers aren’t supposed to take their own product?”

“Huh?” I blinked at Reid. “Drug dealers?”

“Girl Scout cookies,” Reid explained. “Legal crack.”

“Ah.” I nodded. “Got it.”

“So.” Reid stood. “This is what’s going to happen. Jordan and I are going to try to fix what you guys ruined—thanks for that, by the way—and Max, I don’t want to hear or see you until all this is through.”

Max looked guiltily down at the ground.

“Max?” Reid repeated. “Max, what did you do?”

Max yawned. “It’s getting late. We should probably—”

“—Max.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Oh, fine. Under the slight possibility that calling in didn’t work, I may have sort of . . .” More coughing. “Booked us all flights to Vegas this next weekend. The plan was to get you drunk.”

“Good plan.” I nodded in approval while Max winked in my direction. “But we aren’t going.”

Max pouted.

Reid touched my arm. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I mean . . . we have to go through with this, or at least pretend to, right?”

Crap. Crap. Crap. He was right, but . . . the last thing I needed was to be on a plane with Max, of all people.

Or sit next to Reid.

Or pretend to marry him in what’s actually one of my favorite places in the world. It just seemed unfair.

“Jordan.” Reid turned me toward him. “Come on, you had a shit day; it’s been a hell of a week. Let Max pay for a weekend getaway. We’ll go to a few choice clubs. You can call ahead of time, right? And let them know we’re making appearances?”

I nodded and bit on my lower lip, almost drawing blood. “But you still have a few scenes to shoot.”

“I’ll finish up this week, and if they need me for anything else, I’ll stay, but we’ve gotten a lot done. We’re ahead of schedule.”

Why couldn’t they be behind?

Max stood and crossed his arms. “What say you, Shrew?”

I say Max should have to fly on the outside of the plane, strapped to the wing with a cape, so it gets caught.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Let’s do it.”

“VEGAS!” Max yelled.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

REID

The week went by painfully slowly. Probably because I was looking forward to getting away from the media. It had gotten worse since Jordan’s and my announcement. And when I say worse, I mean we’d gone from trending for a day on Twitter to being followed by cameras everywhere we went. It was impossible to get a damn cup of coffee without someone snapping a picture or asking why we weren’t together.

The attention I could get used to—I was an actor, it was part of the game. But the negativity toward Jordan seriously pissed me off. I was painted as some sort of hero for dating a girl who didn’t meet the entertainment industry’s standards for pretty.

Apparently people thought it was romantic that I’d fallen in love with the ugly girl. The Wonderwall on MSN was filled with unflattering pictures of Jordan with spilled coffee on her shirt and lipstick askew, among other things, while all of my pictures looked flawless. If they only knew her, they’d realize she was just accident-prone, not ugly—not by a long shot.

One entertainment blog went as far to call me a saint for dating an average girl with big, childbearing hips.

I almost cussed them out on live TV when the interviewer brought it up, but Jordan, bless her heart, managed to kick me with one of her sharp heels before I made an ass out of myself. Fat? Who the hell would call her fat? She had curves, gorgeous, luscious, spellbinding curves that had me losing sleep every damn night because my stupid hands refused to forget what it felt like to cup her perfect ass.

Thankfully almost all of my on-camera interviews included Jordan, meaning she was always right there, pinching me before I said something stupid, and ever since news of our engagement broke loose, I was more than likely to say something that would be offensive, probably because of all the stress and lies.

“Dude.” Colton cleared his throat. “Am I interrupting a moment between you and your Starbucks? Because I’m not gonna lie, I feel really uncomfortable with the way your gaze is lingering on that mermaid.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, just thinking.”

“Good.” He exhaled. “Because for a minute there I thought were going to have to have a serious talk about your Starbucks addiction.”

I sighed and took a seat. “When’s the flight leave again?”

“Five o’clock on the dot from JFK.” He toyed with his coffee straw and then started fidgeting with a napkin.