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I wait for him to laugh, or smirk, or something, but he looks completely serious, and I have no idea how to process that. “I’m on the birth control shot,” I say, and I swear he looks almost disappointed. “Should I go back to the hotel? It’ll be weird if I stay here once your dad gets back.”
“Don’t be stupid. Of course you’re staying here. Why would you go anywhere else? We’re engaged, for fuck’s sake,” Gulliver snarls, grabbing me by the waist and hauling me into his lap.
Slapping at his hands, I try to wiggle free, but he holds me firm, refusing to let me go.
“Give up and just sit on his lap.” Davis laughs. “He’s only going to pull you right back onto him if you manage to get away.”
“Or you could help me,” I cry, reaching my arms out toward him.
“Hell, no, I’m not dumb enough to try and get between you and him,” he says, leaning back and propping his feet up on the coffee table.
“I’ll save you,” Thorn shouts, letting out a war cry as he scoops me out of Gulliver’s lap, unceremoniously throws me over his shoulder, and runs around the room.
“Put me down,” I cry, smacking his butt and giggling as I hang upside down.
“Give her here,” Kip says, lifting me from Thorn’s hold and cradling me in his arms bridal-style.
“Thank you, Kip. I knew you were the nice one,” I say, pressing a kiss against his cheek.
“Not that nice.” He smirks, winks at me, then drops me back into Gulliver’s lap.
“God, I hate you guys,” I shriek as a laughing Gulliver wraps his arms tightly around me. Pinching my chin between his finger and thumb, he turns me so I’m looking at him, leans forward, and presses a kiss against my lips.
Allowing myself to live in the moment, I enjoy the way I can feel his smile as he kisses me, and a playful giggle bursts from my throat. I’d almost forgotten how it feels to be this free, this unburdened. But despite the reason I’m here, I’ve enjoyed the last week with them.
Being around this group of friends makes me feel conflicted. In some ways, it feels like they’ve easily accepted me as one of them. They’ve never done anything to make me feel like an outsider, even though they barely know me, and I’ve never felt any expectation to be anything other than me. They don’t care that I prefer baggy sweats over designer dresses, they don’t care that I’m snarky or that I’m not permanently Suzie Sunshine.
They seem to like me, the real me, and that makes me question if any of this is real or if they’re all playing a larger game that I don’t understand.
Gulliver must sense the change in my mind from playful to serious because he pulls his lips from mine, his expression sobering. “Stay here with me. I don’t want you at a hotel. My dad doesn’t care. In fact, I think he’s excited for the chance to get to know his future daughter-in-law better.”
“I don’t like the idea of lying to him when he’s welcoming me into his home. Maybe we should just tell him the real reason that I’m here,” I ponder aloud.
“The real reason?” Gulliver questions.
“Yes, we should tell him the truth—that none of this is real, that it all started out as a joke, and that now it’s changed into revenge,” I say, glancing from the guys, then back to Gulliver.
“Izzy,” Gulliver says slowly.
“I’m so sick of all the lies, Gulliver. I know why we’re doing it. I asked you guys to help me. But I don’t think I can lie to his face and pretend all of this is real,” I say, looking at them each in turn, searching but failing to see their agreement.
“Izzy,” Gulliver says again.
“It’s one thing doing the interview and telling the kids at school that we’re really getting married, but this is your dad. It’s wrong to deceive him like this.”
“Izzy,” he sighs. “We can’t tell my dad anything.”
I shake my head, but he cups my cheek, silencing me. “What we’re doing now, it’s more than just a prank. If we tell him the truth, we have to tell him the whole truth. We’ll have to explain how all of this started, then we’ll have to tell him about the attack and what you plan to do with your sister. Once he knows everything, he might want to cheer us on, or he might try to force us to stop, and honestly, I’m not prepared to take that risk. I refuse to let you go back to hiding and pretending to be your sister, so we have to stick with the plan,” Gulliver says, his voice strong and filled with determination.
“He’s right,” Thorn agrees, surprising me. “Your parents are psychos, they’ve already shown you how unhinged they are. Can you imagine what they’d do if they found out you’re plotting to see your sister fail?”
My eyes dart up to the other guys, and I find them all nodding. “You’re not their ghost anymore, Izabella. If you don’t do this, then what makes you think your parents will let you stop pretending to be your sister after high school? They’ll force you to do this all through college too. Hell, they’ll never let you get away,” Gulliver says.
Shaking my head, I try to deny his words, but inside I know what he’s saying is true. I’ve clung to the idea that after high school they’d let me leave, but I was kidding myself. Gulliver’s right, they’ll never let me go, and I can’t let them steal the rest of my life from me.
“Penelope said she overheard them talking about forcing me to…” I falter, struggling to say the words out loud. “She said she heard them talking about making me have sex with the guys on the husband list while pretending to be her.”
Gulliver goes rigid beneath me. “She what?” he growls.
