Chapter 2: Awkward Mornings and Unlikely Proposals
1536 Words
Venus’s brain felt like it was in a blender, spinning between the headache pounding in her skull and the horrifying realization of her predicament. Naked. In bed. With him.
Jared.
Jared was lying beside her, his broad chest rising and falling with steady breaths. His tousled dark hair and sculpted jawline made him look annoyingly attractive, even in his sleep, he could still charm unsuspecting females. But that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that she was naked.
“Oh no,” Venus had a delayed reaction and whispered, sitting up so quickly that the sheet slipped off her chest. She snatched it back up to cover herself, her cheeks on fire.
Jared stirred, groaning softly as he stretched. When his eyes finally opened, they locked onto her slightly widened eyes with a lazy grin. “Morning, sunshine.”
“Don’t ‘morning sunshine’ me!” Venus hissed, clutching the sheet to her chest so tight that her knuckles turned white. “What the hell happened last night?”
He sat up, propping himself on one elbow as his smirk widened. “You don’t remember?”
Venus groaned and yanked the covers up to her chin. “If I remembered then I wouldn’t be asking.” She almost wanted to hit his smiling face. “Don’t tell me we….On no! This cannot be happening.”
“Well,” he said, stretching lazily, “it is. But it’s not the end of the world. Happens to people all the time.”
“Not to me!” Venus shot back, her voice rising a notch higher. “This is not normal. I don’t even—did we really?”
Jared’s grin widened. “Do you want the long version or the short version?”
“You’re kidding,” she said, her voice trembling.
Jared raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Venus buried her face in her hands. “This cannot be happening.” She repeated.
“Relax,” Jared said, his tone maddeningly calm. “It wasn’t exactly a one-sided decision. You practically dragged me into bed.”
Her head snapped up, eyes blazing with fire. “I did NOT!” She almost shouted the last word.
Jared chuckled. “Yes you did. But for what it’s worth, I didn’t exactly resist.”
Venus groaned again, her mortification complete. How had she let something so absurd happen? She wasn’t the kind of person who did things like this. She’d been with Joel for two years and had never even thought of crossing that line with him before they were married. Yet here she was. She had actually lost her virginity to a stranger she met in a bar on a Christmas cruise.
The thought of Joel sent a fresh wave of humiliation and pain squeezing her heart. Not that he deserved her loyalty after what he’d done to her, but still…
“This is a total disaster,” Venus muttered, pulling the sheet a little closer as if doing that will change the fact that she was naked on a stranger’s bed.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Jared said, sitting up fully. His calm confidence made her want to throw something at him.
“Oh really? And how do you figure that?”
Jared hesitated, his expression shifting from his signature playful look to something more serious. “Look, I know this isn’t exactly how you planned your vacation. And judging by last night’s rant about your ex, you’ve got a lot going on. But I might have a way to make things…less disastrous.”
Venus frowned. “What are you talking about? Can you perhaps return my virginity that I have protected for 20 years back to me? Cause that’s what you took last night.”
Jared leaned back against the headboard, his face shifting with a guilty look. To be fair, when Venus got drank and pulled him to bed, he had not resisted because she was beautiful and he had a good feeling about her. But, he only realized that she was a virgin when he penetrated her. It was already too late to stop, so he could only be gentler so as not to hurt her.
In his defense, this was the second time he was sleeping with a girl after his ex-girlfriend left him for having unrealistic dreams when he joined a football club in university. Also, he didn’t expect to run into a 20 year old virgin in the world today where girls start having s*x as early as 15 years old.
Jared’s tone turned a little gentler but also calculated. “Here’s the thing. My family is relentless when it comes to my love life. Every time I go home for the holidays, they’ve got a new list of women waiting for me to meet. It’s exhausting, especially when those women don’t care about me as a person, but what I can offer.”
“And this concerns me how?” she asked, a little absent-minded, still reeling from her current predicament.
“It doesn’t, but I need a girlfriend,” Jared said simply. “Temporarily, of course. Just until after Valentine’s Day.”
Venus blinked. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m not,” he said, his expression deadly serious. “You pretend to be my girlfriend, and I’ll make sure this whole…incident stays between us.”
She stared at him, her jaw slack. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“Not blackmail,” Jared said quickly. He really didn’t want her to have the wrong idea of him. He only chose her because, A) He had already slept with her, therefore, it would be a form of taking responsibility, and B) she was a virgin until last night. This means that she is not the kind of a girl who would do anything for money. So, he doesn’t the to worry about her sticking to him when it was time to part ways.
“Think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. I get my family off my back for the time being, and you get an upgrade to the VIP suite, free drinks, and no awkward encounters with your ex for the rest of the cruise.”
Venus stared at him, stunned. “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” Jared said with a grin. “But think about it. You’ve got nothing to lose. It’s not like your current situation is all sunshine and rainbows anyway.”
Venus opened her mouth to argue, but then she thought of something and paused. The truth was, Jared’s offer wasn’t entirely without merit. She couldn’t stand the thought of running into Joel and Sarah again, and upgrading her cramped cabin sounded more appealing. Besides, she had nothing to lose. She had already lost her virginity to him anyway.
Still, the idea of pretending to date a man she barely knew, let alone one she’d just slept with—was insane.
“And what happens after Valentine’s Day?” she asked, crossing her arms, but then she remembered she was still naked under the sheets and stopped.
“We ‘break up,’” Jared said with a shrug. “No strings attached, no hard feelings. Everyone goes back to their lives.”
Venus bit her lower lip, something she does when she’s nervous or thinking, weighing her options. The situation was absurd, but when she thought about the alternative, enduring the rest of the cruise as the jilted ex, it didn’t seem so bad.
“Fine,” she said finally. “But I have a few ground rules.”
Jared’s grin returned, and it was infuriatingly confident. As if he had expected her answer. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
By the time Venus moved into Jared’s VIP suite, she was starting to regret her decision. The room was gorgeous, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and private balcony, but the reality of their arrangement was sinking in. She was sharing a suite with a man. A stranger whom she just happened to have had a one-night-stand with. Not flattering.
Jared, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease, lounging on the sofa with a glass of wine in hand.
“To new beginnings,” he said, raising his glass.
Venus rolled her eyes but picked up the glass Jared had filled and clinked it against his. “You’re lucky I’m desperate.”
“I prefer ‘resourceful,’” Jared replied with a wink.
Venus rolled her eyes but took a sip. “You know, this is the weirdest and bravest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Welcome to my world darling,” Jared said with a smile.
Despite her initial reluctance, Venus couldn’t help but feel a tiny spark of excitement. Maybe, just maybe, this ridiculous arrangement would turn her ruined cruise into something memorable.
Since discovering Joel’s betrayal, she had felt overwhelmed and stressed, but Jared’s easy way of getting along gave her a glimmer of hope that this trip might not be a total disaster.
But as she lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, one thought lingered in her mind.
What had she gotten herself into?
- Writer
