Can't Buy Me Love

Chapter Twenty Five

Weddings were an emotional time, she’d almost blubbed through the vows...the speeches...the first kiss....the first dance....and she always thought she wasn’t an emotional wreck. Now as Marina watched her friend charm an elderly relative before disappearing into Josh’s sports car, she sighed.   And then there was one!

Before making her way out of the party Sara had taken time to hug her, beg her to stay until they got back from their honeymoon in the Cook Islands. The apartment was paid up for another month, and Josh was inundating her with offers of work. As she sat at the wedding in her bridesmaid dress, watching the world go by she was still so undecided. For as long as she could remember her father and then the FBI had controlled her life. She wasn’t used to this amount of freedom, the absence of a long term plan, being JUST Marina.

                “You look deep in thought!” She looked up to see Rob Sara’s brother sliding into the seat next to her. She grinned at him, he was eighteen months younger than them, and last time she’d seen him he’d been a spotty teenager. Somewhere in the last two years he’d grown into a six foot hulk of a man.

She nodded, “lot’s to think about!”

                “I’m sure.” He paused, “Sara told me you’d been....I won’t say dumped.” When she half smiled he added, “I was hoping that we could do each other a favour.”

She nodded, “I’m interested!”

                “Well. I’m presuming that you’re not really interested in the single men who’ve started to circle like vultures?” he tried to gesture around them in a subtle manner.

                “Definitely not!”

He chuckled at her vehemence, “and I feel the exact same way about the girls my mother is parading past me all evening. So will you have a token dance with me then I thought we could steal a few bottles of champagne and get out of here?”

She paused for a moment, the thought of taking off the painted-on smile, relaxing, allowing herself to feel as shit as she did instead of the happy pre wedding pre tense, “if I go where I want to go, I won’t be any sort of company...”

He laughed, “I’m sure I can cope!”

Taking her hand he led a very reluctant Marina onto the dance floor.

Marina relaxed into the dance leaning into Rob’s body, she’d hit a physical and emotional wall and she needed to get out as soon as possible.

                “You ok?” he asked against her hair.

She nodded, “can we get out of here?”

Within moments they were in a taxi loaded with alcohol heading back into the City. As the illuminated sky line of the City appeared in front of them she turned to Rob, “so why are you so desperate to avoid the cream of the crop back at the party?”

He groaned, “Do I have to answer that?”

She looked at his embarrassment, his face flushed, the sudden awkwardness, and suddenly she saw what she was to him...a smoke screen!

“Ah!”

He glared at her, “What do you mean ‘Ah’?”

She smiled, “there’s only one reason men use a disinterested woman as a smokescreen...your secret is safe with me!” He was still staring so she added, “you’re gay?”

Rob turned as pale as his white knuckles that gripped the champagne bottle necks as though they were more precarious parts of her anatomy, anger evident in every inch of his body.