Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Thirty-Four

Dixon

Not for the first time in his life, Dixon realized that his cousins were assholes.

The yacht’s living room cabin looked like a scene from some Romance For Dummies book, complete with candles on every surface, crackling logs in the gas fireplace, rose petals on the carpet, a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries on the coffee table, and champagne chilling in an ice bucket by the couch.

“Wow.” Fiona did a slow turn on the sheepskin rug that probably hadn’t been there last week, pressing her lips together as if trying to hold back a smile. “I’m gonna assume this wasn’t you?”

“Why, because it feels like Griff walked through here with pie charts about what flowers were considered most romantic, a folder of focus-group feedback about the perfect temperature for the fire, and a checklist titled ‘Necessary for Seduction’?”

She turned to him, one eyebrow lifted, and started to unbutton her jacket. “They don’t realize it’s too late? Or have you changed your mind about added benefits of our fake dates—which is totally fine, by the way. No harm. No foul.”

It took a minute for his brain to process that she thought he was taking a step back. Oh hell no.

Then Fiona took off her coat and laid it across a chair, and lust shot through him like a flamethrower. Whatever temperature Griff put the fireplace on, it was way too high. She was wearing a filmy blue dress that covered her from neck to a few inches above her knees, the fabric swinging around her as she moved, hiding all the curves he knew were there but showing off the long length of her legs. Five minutes ago, if anyone had asked him if he was an ass man or a tits man, he would have had to think about it. Now he knew he was a thigh man. Thick and strong, Fiona’s thighs were mesmerizing and, in half a heartbeat, he was back in the tent feeling the strength of her legs squeezing his hips as she fucked him senseless while he begged for more.

As she crossed over to the coffee table, he realized he’d been wrong about that dress. It didn’t hide a damn thing. The dress hinted and teased about the woman underneath with every step she took in those high heels.

Did she know it? Was she teasing him?

Maybe.

Really, it didn’t matter, because all he could think about was how hot she was and how he was already lost. “You’re the one who kissed me.”

“But that could be just a one-time thing.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Is a week really long enough to figure out if we’re game for a no-strings affair—no matter the number of oysters or honeyed treats or…” She picked up a chocolate-covered strawberry and took a bite, her eyes fluttering closed for a second, and she let out a soft groan that went straight to his dick. “Absolutely toe-curling-good berries.” She picked up another strawberry and held it out for him to take. “Wanna taste?”

Forget the why of her challenge. That part never really mattered to him anyway. It was always about the win.

He strode over to her, more than ready to play. Stopping in front of her, he opened his mouth and took a bite from the strawberry she held out, letting his lips graze her fingertips. Her sharp inhalation of breath was as immediate and sweet as the taste of the strawberry on his tongue.

Shit. Maybe Griff had known what in the fuck he was doing.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” Fiona asked, her voice husky as she flexed her fingers.

“Exactly what I promised: we enjoy dinner and the view of the Harbor City skyline at night.”

“Sounds perfect.”

And it was. A little too perfect, considering she had given up pretending that food was only for function and not for pleasure.

The woman was still hiding something, but damn if he could figure it out. He would have focused on it, too, if it hadn’t been for the fact that only an hour later, he was watching her eat a pulled pork sandwich drenched in Griff’s latest barbecue sauce, and it was one of the most distracting things he’d ever seen. Aliens could have docked on one of the buildings dotting the Harbor City skyline showing through the window behind her and his attention would have stayed on Fiona. Thank God she was the one keeping up the conversation, telling him about her huge family of giants—except for the youngest who was, appropriately for her smaller stature, an ant scientist—and their exploits.

“So that’s how Frankie ended up going on this road trip with Lucy, and they fell in love all because of a jackass and a cheeseburger.” She leaned forward across the table free from the dishes that the crew had removed moments ago. “I’m totally boring you, aren’t I?”

Little green men climbing out of a spaceship was more likely than that. “I’m not sure that’s ever a phrase I’d use with you.”

One dark eyebrow went up as she twisted the end of her ponytail around her finger and gave him a hard-ass look—or at least as much of one as she could. “Oh, do I amuse you?”

“Really?” he asked. “You’re throwing lines from old mob movies at me?”

She shrugged and toyed with the long line of her half-empty lager glass. “You think you can keep up?”

She was challenging him? Him? The guy who refused to lose, ever? Admittedly, he hadn’t been upfront with everything—hello, this was all for a bet—but when it came to his commitment to winning, she couldn’t be in doubt.

Before he could answer, she let out a wry chuckle and rolled her eyes.

“I withdraw the offer,” she said with a shake of her head. “Tonight’s been too fun to ruin it by you pouting because I kicked your ass.”

He laughed—he couldn’t help himself—as he got up from his chair and rounded the small table in the yacht’s dining area. “That wouldn’t happen.”

She looked up at him as he pulled her chair back, a teasing dare in her gaze. “You pouting?”

“Me losing.”

Kill the fun mood?

Him?

Yeah. Guilty as charged.

They crossed over to the line of windows that faced the Harbor City skyline. Night had fallen a while ago, and the skyscrapers were lit up. Standing next to each other, they took in the sight that never failed to awe him. Millions of people were out there right now, going about their business, hustling, putting it all on the line, determined to grab success and make it their own. They were playing to win, and he had to respect it even as he knew that most of them would fail. It would leave a bitter taste in their mouth that they’d never really be able to get rid of—he sure as hell hadn’t. It was there right on the tip of his tongue every morning when he woke up, rolled over, and spotted the photo of him and Nicole right after the wedding. He’d put away all the other reminders, but that one he kept just in case that bitter taste ever started to fade.

Cocking her head to one side, Fiona gave him a long, searching look in the window’s reflection. “You have a problem with even the idea of losing.”

“Maybe, but at least I’m honest about it,” he said. “You’re the one keeping secrets, Miss Hates Dogs.”

She nibbled on her bottom lip, the nervous gesture starting to feel as familiar as the city they were sailing past. “I may have fibbed a little, but I am what you see. I am the new Fiona.”

So which one was which? Who wore the golden heart necklace? Who let dogs in from the cold? Who freaked out in small spaces? Who had him in his kitchen accepting a rare and much hated L in the baking department because she liked sugar cookies? That’s the question that he kept coming back to, but that question led to another.

“What happened to the old Fiona?” he asked, taking a side step closer so they were practically hip to hip in front of the window, his palm on the small of her back.

If he hadn’t been touching her, he would have missed her slight flinch at the question. No doubt this was where she’d tell him to mind his own damn business. This wasn’t a relationship. What in the hell did he care, anyway? He didn’t. Shouldn’t. Refused to. Right up until she let out a resigned sigh and started talking.

“Old Fiona trusted the wrong people, and I got burned. Repeatedly,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself as if she’d gotten a blast of the cold air coming off the harbor even though they were inside. “I guess I got sick of having to apply aloe vera because I was naive as hell.”

There it was, the bitter taste he knew all too well. She knew it, too. Sure, she called it something else, but it was the same thing—they’d both lost and had sworn never to lose again. No wonder he couldn’t stop thinking about Fiona. Kindred spirits or some such shit.

That made all of this easier. Sure, she didn’t know what the bet was for, but when she did find out—if she found out—she’d understand. A W was a W, after all, and they both knew the value of them.

Across the room, his phone vibrated against the dining table.

“It’s probably my mom.” Besides Griff and Nash, she was the only one who called regularly. He’d walked away from most of his friends after Nicole, playing defense against a loss and all that. “I’ll call her back later.”

“Have you two always been close?” Fiona asked, watching him in the reflection.

The mental image of his mom, so exhausted from the chemo, flashed in his mind and he dropped his hand from Fiona’s back. Even all these years later, the memory made him freeze up and spin out at the same time, as if he’d just stepped on an ice patch covered in olive oil. Taking a deep breath, he steadied his nerves, pushed back the anxious thoughts of what could have been, and thought like a winner who’d never stumbled.

“Yeah. She got breast cancer when I was in prep school.” He’d been taking Latin by then and that was when he’d translated his revised version of the family motto. Vincere aut mori. Win or die had been literal. “She beat it, but I started going with her during chemo and hanging out with her after, watching old movies together. We’d been close before, but this was, well, it was more.”

She slipped her hand across the table and took his, squeezing it reassuringly. “That must have been really scary.”

“Not really, not with my mom,” he said, almost sounding like he wasn’t lying through his teeth. “Primum est rem. The Becketts always win. It’s who we are.”

“But no one wins all the time,” Fiona said, obviously seeing the cracks between his words. “Tell me about a time when you lost.”

That wasn’t going to happen. No one knew about Nicole. Oh, they knew about the accident, but they didn’t know where she’d just come from and why. Not Griff. Not Nash. Not his mom. And they wouldn’t.

“You go first,” he said.

“I don’t know that I could pick just one,” she said with a self-deprecating grin. “Just my dating life is one loser moment after another.”

And then, as if being caught short wasn’t the worst, most humiliating thing possible, she told him about the guys she’d dated who obviously didn’t have two brain cells to rub together if they’d walked or ran or, in one case, swam away decked out in a chicken suit from Fiona Hartigan. By the time she was telling him about the last loser she’d gone out with, he had figured out the mystery of the woman he saw and the one she pretended to be for the rest of the world.

“And what does all of this have in common? Me and my crappy judge of people, seeing the signs but giving folks too big of a benefit of a doubt and getting screwed over in the end—but not anymore.” She picked up her beer glass from the table and raised it in a toast, her smile as deflated as the foam on the beer that had been poured a half hour ago. “To the new Fiona, no more Miss Nice Gal.”

“Too bad. Old Fiona’s pretty amazing.” And she was still there; he saw her every time Fiona forgot to be the person she wasn’t—which was often. The woman was the world’s worst liar. “Fiona, I saw through your act the first time we met at the museum. Plus, I know about Peacock staying with you at Gable House.”

Fiona’s cheeks turned pink and her gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m working on it,” she said. “I’ll get better.”

“God, I hope not,” he said, the words coming out before he could stop them. “You’re pretty great already.”