Sea Legs

Chapter 1 // Olivia

I took off my penis crown when I realized I was the only person wearing one. 

The rest of the bridesmaids entered the bar as a pack, flanking my sister like a Renaissance painting. It was a masterful arrangement of judgmental expressions—cocked hips and slender arms folded across couture sheath dresses—with not a single embarrassing party accessory to be seen. Apparently they’d decided that the same dress code that applied at the country club back home in Castleport applied here in Italy as well.

 “Cute necklace,” Raquel sniffed when the group made their way over to where I stood, greeting me with an air kiss. Her eyes were on the oversized neon pink shot glass—also penis-shaped—that was strung around my neck on plastic beads. I pulled it off, too.

As maid of honor, I’d been charged with arranging this bachelorette party on the first night we all arrived for my sister Chloe’s destination wedding. I’d thought it might be fun to have one night out with Chloe and our friends where we didn’t take ourselves so seriously. But the welcome baskets I’d delivered to everyone’s hotel suites filled with plastic toys and games must have been tossed out with this morning’s room service garnishes.

“Sorry, Liv,” Chloe said when she made her way over to me. She unclipped a glittery hair extension from my head and tossed it in my bag. “Connor’s parents made it clear they want me to be a sophisticated addition to their family, and I know they had Raquel come tonight as a mole to report back on me. You understand, right?”

I met my sister’s eyes briefly, then looked away, training my gaze instead on her perfectly straightened hair and the way it tucked neatly behind her ear. The strands were the same pale blonde as mine, but with her shiny new bob, she looked so different to me now than when people used to mistake us for twins as kids.

I nodded, because I did understand the pressures of dealing with Connor’s parents. I’d spent the past several years believing I would be the daughter-in-law they’d be scrutinizing, not my younger sister. “So you want to be sophisticated like when you were fucking my boyfriend behind my back?” I was tempted to ask her, but I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. 

I hadn’t thrown a tantrum when I found out Connor and Chloe had been sleeping together eight months ago, nor had I exploded when he proposed to her in front of me and everyone we know at the New Year’s Eve gala. Now, as one of the main people helping her plan their wedding, I’d lost the right to the kind of melodramatic outburst my family would have ignored anyway. 

I turned brightly to the rest of the bridesmaids. “Should I order a round of shots?”

That found a consensus. 

This fickle friendship of ours was built on petty gossip and overpriced alcohol, and I wasn’t above buying my way back into their good graces. I pulled out my credit card, stuffing all my light-up bachelorette paraphernalia into the depths of my Birkin bag.

As I placed our order, I pointed the girls toward a table with a hand-written ‘Riservato’ sign on it. I could only hope it looked exclusive enough to them after a June spent ruling the poshest clubs in Southampton.

This oceanside bar was something of a hidden gem—one I’d found after hours of deep diving through Instagram travel accounts. Set into a cliff overlooking the Amalfi Coast, the bar was decorated with hand-painted tiles and light fixtures that looked like they’d been installed in the 1950s.

When I’d come by earlier to book a bottle service table for the bachelorette party, I’d been met with a flurry of questions in Italian, but eventually I communicated that I’d pay whatever the cost was to have someone put a bottle of Prosecco on ice at the best booth in the open-air bar.

I was just sliding the tray filled with our cosmo shots onto my palm when I nearly dropped it—my motor skills short circuiting at the arrival of the sexiest man I’d ever seen in my life. Tall, tan, and cut to perfection, he had an ease with the way his body entered the bar, paired with the kind of dark tousled hair and searing eyes that could launch a thousand cologne ads. He must be a local by the way the bartender greeted him, his full lips stretching into a lopsided grin. 

I regained control of my senses in time to keep the shots from spilling everywhere, and the man found a spot to lean in at the far side of the bar, well away from my near-catastrophe. 

This little nightspot was darkest at the bar, which was built into the natural concave shape of the grotto and lit with only enough blue light to illuminate the liquor bottles. None of the other bridesmaids would have been able to notice the man coming in from where our table was—nearest the ocean view below—but now that I’d seen him, there was no way I could unsee him. 

I brought the tray over to join my group, positioning myself within eyeshot of where the guy at the bar had settled in. In the dim light, I could still make out the way his thin linen shirt skimmed over the muscles of his broad back—the devil on my shoulder that I always ignored urging my gaze lower.

“So, tell me about this boyfriend you’re bringing to the wedding.”

“Huh?” In my pursuit to arrange my seat with a view of the bar, I hadn’t realized I’d placed myself directly across from Connor’s sister, Raquel. I realized now why Chloe’s new haircut looked so familiar—it was the same sharp silhouette that was Raquel’s signature style, likely since she’d been a stoic toddler. 

“Your new boyfriend?” Raquel pressed. “The one you told us about at Connor and Chloe’s engagement party?”

“Oh,” I said, straightening. I passed the tray of shots down the table, taking one for myself first and slamming it immediately. I needed a second to remember all the lies I’d made up about the boyfriend I’d invented. 

I set down the empty glass. “Right. Well, I met him at a regatta last year. But I’m sure I told you about that already.” 

“Tell me again,” Raquel said, clipping each syllable. “Who’s his family? Anyone I know?”

“I doubt it. His father’s Dutch, and they still spend most of their time in Europe. Trip only came to America for college.” With my throat now warm from alcohol, the fictional backstory I’d prepared slipped out with ease.

My mystery man, Jasper Van Veenen, III—Trip for short—was entirely a figment of my imagination. Developed the night before my sister’s engagement party, I’d concocted him with a bottle of gin, a notepad, and an online name generator set to WASP.

Trip wasn’t the first fake boyfriend I’d invented. That honor went to the fictional Thad before my fourth debutante ball and ended in humiliation when I had to ask my cousin Heath to escort me at the last minute instead. 

But this time was different. 

I’d covered all my bases, guaranteeing that Trip would be my crowning achievement. A legend in the fake boyfriend hall of fame. 

Weeks before leaving for Italy, I’d held auditions at the local theater back in Castleport to find an acceptable candidate for the job—bringing a stack of cash and a non-disclosure agreement to sign for the lucky winner. Upon casting the right actor, I’d written a detailed character backstory for the fictitious Trip, along with a script and several rehearsed anecdotes for my hired beau to memorize. 

It had taken me most of June to get everything set up, but it was far preferable to the amount of time I would have wasted going on the actual dates necessary to find someone to be my plus one. Not to mention the fact that I had absolutely no interest in dating right now, anyway. The whole Connor and Chloe affair had rather soured my opinion on the concept of love. Why would I invest my heart in someone who could break it when I could script the entire situation and pay for exactly the type of man I needed for this one purpose? My commissioned actor was due to arrive at the tiny Schiaro airport tomorrow afternoon wearing the hand-selected Dartmouth sweater and Sperry loafers I’d given him before I left, ready to play the role and leave my emotions out of it. 

“Is he hot?” My sister’s college roommate Paige nearly shouted over the music—a bouncy medley of mandolins and tambourines. My conversation with Raquel had clearly piqued her interest, and I noted from her glassy expression that the tray of shots had come to a stop in front of her instead of progressing further down the table. 

My eyes moved of their own accord at Paige’s question, drawn back to the guy at the bar as though caught in his gravitational pull. But when they arrived on his form, he was looking back at me. 

I snapped my gaze away, singed at the contact.

Damn, I thought, my chest heating. What’s in the water over here? There’s no way that man shared even the same planet as the guys I knew back home. He was like a fucking demigod washed up on the shore.

I shifted in my seat.

“Trip’s … attractive,” I told them, trying to remember something discernible about the actor I’d cast to play the role. I came up short. 

My casting call had been for someone in the right age range who had the generically pretentious air of the guys we all dated in this friend group. Those guys—Connor included—had always seemed about the same to me anyway. Same haircuts. Same suits. Same cars. 

None of them were anything like the veritable Adonis I’d been eyeing at the bar. The one who—had I imagined it?—noticed me too. 

“Good for you,” Raquel said, taking a prim sip from her shot glass through pursed lips. “This would have all been rather humiliating for you otherwise. Mother and I were just discussing it at our luncheon last week.” 

I gritted my teeth into something shaped like a smile. “Yes, I suppose it would have been. But as I said, I’m doing just fine. No need to concern yourself.”

“I suppose you are. I’ll have to inform Connor that he was mistaken.”

I shouldn’t have blinked at Raquel’s challenge, but she’d baited her hook just right, prodding at my bruised ego and still tender heart. “And what exactly did your brother have to say about my love life?” 

I couldn’t believe I was going to be stuck with my odious ex-boyfriend for an in-law. 

“He asked if I believed you actually had a real boyfriend. Since none of us have ever met this Trip person, Connor thought maybe you were making it up to save face in front of everyone. You know, because he’s marrying Chloe instead of you.”

As if I needed reminding. 

I put a hand to my face to make sure the smile I’d pasted on was still in place. It was, even though my fingertips had gone ice cold. I couldn’t tell if I was furious or devastated—defiant or crumbling. 

The confirmation that everyone I knew had been gossiping about me behind my back while I tried to lick my wounds was exactly why I’d gone through the effort to cast someone to be my date to this wedding. All I needed was a crutch—someone to help me get through this event with my dignity intact. It wasn’t about Connor or my sister or revenge. If they’d found love, I could learn to be happy for them. But I refused to be humiliated at their expense. 

Not again.

“Please inform your brother that he’s wrong about me,” I said, hiding my shaking hands under the table. 

Raquel raised an eyebrow. “I will. And I look forward to meeting your new beau at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow.”

I nodded, reaching for another shot and tipping it back easily. “Come on,” I said, grabbing Paige by the wrist and hauling her out of the booth before either of them could ask me any more questions. “Let’s dance.”

***

My sister wove her way through the few people who had joined me in dancing at the balcony overlooking the ocean, laying a hand on my bare shoulder. “Raquel looks bored,” she yelled into my ear. “I think we should go.”

“Already? Come on, stay for one more drink. I want to have fun with my sister, and it’s not even midnight.”

Chloe sighed. “Fine.”

“You won’t regret it, I promise. Wait here, I’m just going to run to the restroom.”

My head felt only a little swimmy as I made my way to the ladies’ room, but it was more from the exhilaration of being on the Amalfi Coast than from the alcohol. I’d never been to Italy, even though I’d always meant to before I got so busy with work. 

Most of my travel experience had come from tagging along with my mother to the few resort destinations around the world where she liked to be photographed at the right parties during the right season. We were only here now because Schiaro was the latest up-and-coming locale featured in the back pages of Vogue, and she’d insisted that Chloe’s wedding be the most talked-about event of the summer.

I felt my phone vibrate in my bag while I washed my hands, but I couldn’t get to it in time. After drying off, I fished around for it as I made my way back out to the bar. My sister and the other bridesmaids were nowhere to be found. 

Maybe they left me a message? I thought, perching on the nearest barstool and unlocking the screen.

I would have hoped they’d at least tell me where they went if they were going to abandon me, but the number didn’t belong to any of my friends. Instead, the missed call and accompanying voicemail came from the actor I’d cast to play my fake boyfriend. I’d made sure to plug in his contact information as ‘Trip Van Veenen’ to avoid any slip-ups. 

The bar was filling up with locals now, speaking Italian in escalating tones, and I pressed the phone hard against my ear to hear the message.

“Olivia, hey,” he began. “So I know I’m supposed to be getting on the plane in a couple hours, but my director told me they’re extending our run of My Fair Lady at the playhouse. Isn’t that great? I’m still the understudy, but she might let me do the Thursday matinee! Anyway, I’m so sorry, but I can’t make it out to Italy this week for your sister’s …”

I swiped the voicemail closed before he could finish his cheery excuse. Punching the button to call his number back, I let it dial until my hope ran out. He didn’t pick up. 

I couldn’t believe this. Why can’t anyone just be there for me when they say they will? After all the plans I’d made—everything I’d told Raquel and my sister and family… 

“Fuuuck me,” I groaned, squeezing my eyes closed and tapping the phone against my forehead.

“You rang?”

I nearly slipped off my barstool in shock at the sound of a deep masculine voice, my hand landing splayed on the denim-encased upper thigh of the person sitting next to me. I yanked it back, my eyes scanning slowly up the same body I’d been mentally undressing all night—the man with the cut jawline and the cocky grin. He made use of them both now, capturing me with the full effect of one punctuating dimple set deep in his dark stubble.  

“I didn’t mean that …” I stumbled. “Wait, you speak English?”

“I do,” he said, without a hint of an accent. “But I think that particular request of yours tends to translate pretty well.”

I knew my cheeks must have gone bright red, and I looked away to arrange myself a little more securely in my seat. 

“Where’d your friends go?” he asked, leaning one elbow against the bar. It only served to make his shoulders even broader, his shirt opening a little wider to reveal a hint of dark chest hair. 

“Some friends,” I muttered. “I’m the one hosting this bachelorette party, and they go off and leave me without saying a word.”

“That was supposed to be a bachelorette party? I thought it looked more like a committee meeting or something. Where’s all the sashes and feathers and stuff?”

“I know, right?” I knew I sounded a little too eager, but I opened my bag to show him my flashy neon stash of party accessories, pulling out a handful and spilling them onto the counter. “No one wanted to wear any of it.” 

“That’s more like it,” he laughed, picking up a temporary tattoo from the pile that read ‘Bride Squad’ in rainbow glitter. He rolled up his sleeve to apply it to the underside of his forearm, which was already covered in real ink. 

I bit my lip, my skin tingling at the resonant bass of his laugh. “I guess I should go try to find my sister and the other bridesmaids.” My voice trailed off, lacking conviction. “I told them I only wanted to stay for one more drink anyway.”

“I’ll have that drink with you,” he said, crumpling the paper backing from the tattoo. “If you want to, that is. I’m Jake, by the way.”

“Olivia.”

He offered me an open hand and I took it, my fingers brushing against his calloused palms. He motioned for the bartender, who came over immediately.

“What would you like?” Jake asked me.

“Maybe a gin and tonic? With lemon. Lots of lemon.”

“If it’s lemon you like, you have to try the limoncello,” Jake pointed at the young bartender. “Luca’s family owns this place and they’ve been making the limoncello here for centuries.”

“Sold,” I said, immediately missing the contact when Jake took his hand back. 

The bartender—Luca—pulled a slender frosted bottle from a chiller under the counter, pouring two small glasses of the bright yellow liquor and sliding them across to us. 

Jake clinked glasses with me, and I didn’t notice until I’d taken mine as a shot that he’d merely had a sip. 

“Whoa,” he chuckled. “Most people drink it slow, but I like your style.”

I coughed at the strength of the alcohol, but went back for every last drop. “It’s been a long night. A long couple months, actually.” The limoncello tasted like liquid sunshine—tart and crisp. Like the first morning in February when you started to remember what Spring felt like.

“Let me catch up then,” Jake said, emptying his glass and flipping it over. “Want to talk about it?”

He was way too sexy up close. 

I fumbled mindlessly with the plastic shot glasses and accessories I’d dumped onto the counter, needing somewhere else to look besides into his chocolate brown eyes. “Not really,” I said, placing the phallus-trimmed headband back on my head. But then I blurted out, “This could have been my bachelorette party, you know. I always wanted a summer wedding. Connor knew that.”

Okay, maybe I was a little more tipsy than I thought.

“Who’s Connor?” Jake asked.

“The groom. My ex.”

“Your sister’s marrying your ex? That’s rough. No wonder you needed that drink. How long were you two broken up?”

“We weren’t. Connor was still my boyfriend when I found them together in a coat closet last Thanksgiving. It was at our country club. Anyone could have seen them.” 

I wasn’t sure why I was opening up to this beautiful stranger more than I had to anyone else in months. Maybe it was something in his eyes. They had a fierce protective quality—like he was really listening to me—rather than the haughty superiority of my so-called friends. If I’d told them at the time, they’d only have offered pity clucks and a barely concealed smugness that at least this was happening to me and not to them. 

“The worst part is,” I continued, “I’m the one who felt embarrassed by it, not Connor or my sister. I didn’t even confront them or tell any of our family or friends about it. I assumed Connor was going to come to his senses and come back to me.” It made me ashamed to admit it out loud. “But then he proposed to her. In front of everyone we know.”

“What a dick,” Jake said. “And I don’t know if I’m on the ‘Bride Squad’ anymore, either.” He took another temporary tattoo from the pile I’d left on the counter—this one of a golden unicorn—and started applying it on top of the first. 

“It’s not like what Connor and I had was true love. Nothing close to it. I can see that now. If they found that with each other, then I’m happy for them.”

“Bullshit.”

If I’d still had a drink in my mouth, I would have spit it out. “Fine,” I laughed. “I’m attempting to be happy for them. That’s why I hired a fake boyfriend to get me through all of this.”

“Seriously? A fake boyfriend? I mean, I get it. You want to make your ex jealous.”

“That’s not it.” I reached for his arm when I realized I’d made that last admission out loud. I hadn’t meant to reveal that particular embarrassing detail—I must really sound insane to him now. “Okay, it’s true,” I rushed to explain, “I put together a whole script and background of this imaginary person I’m pretend dating, but I did it so the focus of this wedding would be on my sister, not on me. I don’t want everyone looking at me with their fake pity and whispering behind my back. This whole thing sucks, but all I can do about it is control my reaction, not change what happened. And I choose to pretend like I’m fine until I actually am fine.”

“Got it,” Jake said, cocking an eyebrow. “And you want to make your ex jealous.”

I propped my elbows on the bar, burying my head in my hands. “I guess that wouldn’t be the worst thing,” I conceded. “But even that plan’s ruined now. Like I said, it’s been a long couple months.” I pushed myself back up to face him. “Did I tell you it was New Year’s Eve when Connor proposed to my sister? Right when the fireworks went off. Funny how that one midnight set the tone for this whole shitty year.”

The bartender made his way back over to us. “Another round?”

I met Jake’s eyes, then nodded.

“As long as we use these shot glasses you brought,” Jake said, picking up two of the oversized penis-shaped necklaces and placing them in front of Luca. “Someone needs to enjoy them.”

“Really?” I watched Luca unlatch the swing top from the limoncello again, carefully pouring our double shots to the brim in the anatomically correct drinkware. “These don’t make you feel, I don’t know, emasculated?”

Jake picked up his cup by the balls, studying its size as a wry grin spread across his face. “If you think this threatens my manhood, then I’m pretty sure you’ve been missing out.”

A tingly heat surged through me.

What would it be like to have a man like Jake between my thighs? 

The question formed before I could squash it. I’d never had a one-night stand before. I’d never even had a conversation that made me feel like this—one where my pulse hammered like a nervous rabbit the entire time, but I never wanted to flee. Where all it took was words and glances to make my body feel overheated. 

And wet. 

Jake looked up at the dusty nautical clock above the bar right as it chimed to mark the new hour. “Here’s to better midnights.”

We drank, but I didn’t finish mine. I wanted something else now. Trailing my fingers down the shaft of the glass, I flicked my gaze up to meet his.

“Where are you staying?” he asked, reading my mind.

“The Vincent. That new hotel up the street.”

“I know the place. Do you want me to walk you back? I’d be happy to get you there safe.” He was already sliding several bills across the counter. 

I let him help me off the barstool.

The walk back to the hotel was like a moment out of time—as fleeting as a memory, but somehow also slow enough that I felt every sensation. The silky air of the evening was thick and salty as it came off the ocean. The scent of wet stone laced with herbs and fresh lemon emanated from every terrace we passed. The heat of Jake’s body was close enough that our hands brushed with every step.

I dug out my room key as soon as we reached the hotel lobby, not wanting to slow down for a second longer than it took for the elevator to take us up to my floor. 

Outside the door to my hotel suite, Jake paused, pulling me against him. 

“Is this okay?” he asked, lacing his fingers through my hair. 

When I sighed the word “yes” he leaned down to take my lips in a kiss so deep—so intense—that my knees nearly buckled, heat spearing through my core. 

“I’ve never done this before,” I confessed, breathless. 

An idea was blossoming in my mind. Something beyond just the promise of tonight. 

Ask him, I chided. “So, how long are you in Italy for?”

“Indefinitely, it feels like. I’ve been living here in Schiaro longer than I planned.” He deepened the kiss.

I didn’t want to pull away, but I had to know. “Does that mean you’re not going anywhere in the next week or two?”

“I’ll be here. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t suppose …” I gasped when he nipped at my earlobe with his teeth. “Would you be interested in being my plus one for this wedding?”

Jake pulled back, rubbing his thumb over swollen lips. “I don’t know.” His eyes went distant. “I’m not great at sticking to a script. I don’t think I’m the one you want for something like this.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just … I’d only let you down.” His deep voice had a rasp to it that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“I understand,” I said, trying to fight against the way his body moved away from me.

“I’m glad you’re back at your room safe, Olivia.” He brought my hand to his lips, kissing the back of my fingers. “It was a pleasure meeting you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Italy.”

And before I could find the words to make him stay, he was gone.

♥ Nina