Page 9 of The Wrong Fiancée

Felicity moved closer to me. "I don't want to talk about her," she whined. "Why are you so curious?"

"You were all very rude to her," I told her honestly.

She snapped her head up. "What? No, Dean. You don’t knowthe whole story. We’ve had a lifetime of Hamlet drama from Grant to Noe to Elika. She could’ve made something of herself, but instead, she was too lazy to finish school. And I can’t stand how demanding she gets, like she has any right to our family’s money. Dad’s helped her out plenty over the years, but eventually, the gravy train had to stop."

"Still…she seemed so?—"

"Innocent?" Felicity bit out, and I saw bitterness in her eyes, something I had never seen before. "She isn't. Okay? Sleeps around. Do you know she was fired from a housekeeping job at a hotel in Honolulu because she was sleeping with a guest?"

I swallowed hard. As far as I knew, I was the first guest Elika had ever slept with. I’d made it clear to Dante not to give her any trouble—it was me who had pursued her, not the other way around. He’d seemed okay with it at the time. And if she was still working for him, he probably still was…right?

"But then the accident happened, and Dante kept her on. He's such an easy mark."

I raised an eyebrow. "Dante? Easy? Not a chance. Trust me, I have it on good authority—he’s as tough as they get."

She laughed. "Not when it comes to women. I think Elika was sleeping with him; why else would she have a job here? Her sister is in a clinic nearby…some experimental treatment or something. I think Dante feels sorry for her."

I knew for certain that Dante would not sleep with Elika—knowing that she and I had been together, not unless he was interested in her, which he wasn't,andshe was an employee to boot. Dante was a lot of things, an idiot he wasn't. Maybe I'd call him, I decided, and get the skinny on this whole Elika situation.

He'd know if she made it a habit to sleep with guests and had lied to me so I wouldn't judge her. The idea that Elika slept around made me queasy—I'd thought what we had was special, that she was taking a risk to be with me because she wanted me so much. If she did it all the time….

"Maybe we need to find a new resort for our family vacation," Felicity lay back against me. "But I love this place, and we're thepaying guests; she's just the help. I'll ask the hotel General Manager to keep her away from us. It's just not worth the consternation, you know?"

For the first time since I met Felicity, I disliked her behavior. I loathed her lack of generosity when it came to Elika, her lack of compassion for a young woman who'd lost her father and had a paralyzed sister.

When Felicity turned her face to kiss me, I ended it with a brush against her lips. When she tried to entice me to get naked with her, I couldn't even get hard. I made an excuse that I was jetlagged and tired since I'd arrived just the night before from Hong Kong. She'd bought it and gone to sleep. I lay awake for a good part of the night, wondering who the Thatchers really were. Samwasa good man—no doubt about it—but the rest? I wasn't so sure. And that included the woman I was planning on marrying.

Chapter Four

ELIKA

Isometimes felt like Cinderella, I thought melodramatically as I walked on the beach, kicking the sand after my shift that evening.

Evil relatives, check.

Fucked up life, check.

Cleaning bathrooms and floors, check.

Prince Charming engaged to evil stepsister; check.

Dean Archer is not Prince Charming, Elika. The guy is a douchebag who fucked you for two weeks, showed you what attention looked like, and then dumped your ass because you don't have a degree. He's a shallow asshole.

With the face of an angel and a body made for sin.

Argh!

It was the best sex of my life. When I met Dean, I'd had one boyfriend. It had been exciting to finally be with someone who showed me why women lost their minds over orgasms. My eyes were opened to what an attentive man was like. When I was with Dean, I was all he saw. Granted, our time together was short, but even now, I remembered waking up with him and feeling like I was a princess.

"You're eating breakfast before you go to work, no discussion." He ordered room service.

"Feel like a drink, darling? You look tired." He served me top-of-the-line champagne.

"We don't have to have sex if you're too tired. Let's just go to sleep." He held me, making me feel safe and loved for the first time since my mother died.

He seemed to understand my need to work hard so I could go back to school. He praised me for what I was doing. To then find out that he thought I was intellectually inferior had been a blow. It had shaped me in all the wrong ways because it decimated my self-confidence. How could I have felt loved by a man who was justhaving fun? It made me question my instincts and how I evaluated people.

Maybe I would've recovered from Dean, I thought as I walked into the mellow surf, kicking up the water, if I'd had the strength and space for it. But just a few weeks after Dean left—Daddy died, and since then, I'd been chasing doctors and treatments for and with Noe.

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