Page 18 of Beauty and the Beach

“Stop trying to be nice!” she says. “It’s creepy!”

“Fine,” I snap; the word bounces angrily around Nana Lu’s living room. “Would you prefer me to be rude or arrogant or overbearing?”

By now her eyes are spitting fire. “We can’t get married,”she says. The yellow overhead light catches the gold in her hair and taunts me with it as she shakes her head. She’s had friends who assumed she used dye, but that hair is all natural, long and silky and easily one of her best features.

“Don’t you see that?” she goes on, and I pull my gaze back to her face. “We don’t like each other. You tried toblackmailme?—”

“We tried to blackmail each other,” I reply hotly, “and that was a long time ago, and it was barely even a threat. It doesn’t count.” I can hear the faint note of desperation in my voice, and it sends a flush of anger over my skin. I stare at her for a second, seething, until finally I can’t take it anymore.

“Gah!” I throw my hands up in the air. “Every time I look at you I just get so—I get so?—”

“Angry,” she says with a nod. “I know. Me too.” She tilts her head and waves one vague hand at me. “It’s something…hmm.” She breaks off, looking thoughtful as she smirks. “It’s something about your face.”

I clench my jaw so hard my entire skull might crack. And this—this is the real reason I didn’t want to ask Holland. Because I knew this was how we would end up: with mebeggingher to marry me, and her still refusing.

My pride trampled into dust.

But I grit my teeth and force out the words I know I need to say. “You can come work for me, then. At the office. Think about it.”

“No,” she says with one final shake of her head. “Get out. Leave.” She points down the hallway to the front door. “Now. Go.”

Deep breath in; deep breath out. “If you’re reluctant because of what happened…” I begin. It’s a step onto a minefield.

“I’m not!” she says quickly.

But I hear it then: fear, real fear. Her eyes have widened, and the flush in her cheeks burns brighter. For a second, the tiniest second, I think I might catch a glimpse of her truest self—soft, hurt, and desperately trying to pretend she doesn’t care—but I must be imagining things, because before I can look closer, she’s just normal Holland again.

“Fine,” I say, because she pretends, and I play along. “Just asking?—”

“Leave.” And, when I don’t move—“Now!”she shouts.

I storm out of the room without another word, down the hallway, and out the front, wishing I didn’t care about Nana Lu so much, because I would really love to slam a door right about now.

When I get outside, I glare up at the star-strewn sky. “Your sister is a brat,” I tell Trev, breathing deeply. “Forget about marrying me—she’ll be lucky to find anyone at all.”

“Hey!” she shouts from behind me, and I startle—I didn’t even hear her open the door. I don’t turn around, though; I’m too angry. I’ll say something I regret. I just walk faster, out through the gate, holding my tongue the whole time.

All of my pent-up retorts play through my mind on my way home, and when I fall asleep, it’s to the sound of her shouts ringing through my memory.

Holland

The girlsat the salon can tell something’s wrong.

When I saygirls, I actually meanladies.Felicia and I are the youngest ones there, both of us in our late twenties, and everyone else is in their fifties, sixties, and even seventies. Betsy Barnes, the owner of Cuts and Curls, is fifty-something, and she has more energy than I do; she waltzes around with her pixie cut, her skin tan from spending so much time in the sun.

That energy is infectious, though, and it fills the inside of Cuts and Curls, turning the little salon into a cheerful, lively place to be. She painted the walls a pale lavender last year, and the year before that she changed out the black product shelves on the wall for pink ones. I don’t know how she has time to do everything she does; her husband is Mayor Barnes, but she’s still here five days a week.

Maybe I could ask her what it’s like being married to someone in the spotlight.

No,I tell myself firmly, shaking my head as I wipe down my station and my tools at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter what it would be like being married to a mayor or a CEO or anyone else, for that matter. Because I’m not getting married—not now, anyway, and definitely not to Phoenix Park.

I wasn’t the kind of girl who dreamed about her future husband as a child or even a teenager. I focused more on the day-in, day-out present, even when I had boyfriends. I knew they weren’t marriage material; we were in high school. I never expected otherwise.

But things have changed very drastically in the last twenty-four hours, because right now, marriage is all I can think about. I tossed and turned all night, and today hasn’t been any better.

How desperate must Phoenix be to come to me? Because askingme, of all people, to marry him—it’s insane.

I would cover Maggie’s tuition for the remainder of her degree. Grad school too, if she wants.

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