Page 2 of Resisting You
Weird circumstances called for extreme measures. It wasn’t every day that your best friend proposed to your other best friend… and then they decided on a whim to get hitched that night in Atlantic City.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearing midnight. I had to be in Maple Grove for my sister’s wedding in the morning, too. It was a damn weekend of weddings.
I had to admit it was weird as hell that my sister, Ronnie was pregnant and getting married.
Hell, she and I had always been the cynical ones in the family. I would have bet my Datsun that I would have gotten married before her… and I wasnevergetting married.
Not because I didn’t believe in love or anything like that. I did—Ido.
My lifestyle as an actor just isn’t conducive to wedded bliss. I've seen it a million and one times—my friends on the TV show will fall in love and a year later, they’re married. Their wedding photos splashed all over the covers of magazines. And once the media has no more wedding fanfare to talk about, their speculations start—is a baby on the way? Is someone cheating on the other?
Most of it’s bullshit… some of it’s not. Butnoneof it is anyone’s business but their own.
Sooner or later, the pressure takes its toll on the marriage. The cheating rumors become true. Or they’re not true but because we, as actors, have to take our clothes off and make outin front of the camera, your partner starts believing it's true. I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.
Then the next thing you know, the tabloids are reporting on your very real divorce.
No, thank you.
And that’s the life I had signed up for. I knew what I was getting myself into. Before I was a famous actor, I dreamed of being on a hit TV Show and being a recognized face and name. But young Noah Blue Tripp had no idea what he was in for.
As much as I loved the idea of a wife and a family someday, it couldn’t be now. Not while my acting career was in full swing.
It wasn’t fair to this future non-existent wife. And it wasn’t fair to any of our children.
I’d already seen how the media wolves had gone after my brother when his wife died… reporting about me and her funeral and splashing his late wife’s image within every tabloid magazine available. I wouldn’t do that to someone I loved… not again.
Nope, I wouldn’t be getting married until I was through with acting. And Ilovedacting. I guess I just needed to find a woman I loved more than my career.
Which begged the question: if I knew I didn’t want to give up my career yet, why was I so damn intent on getting Rosa to go out with me?
Rosa wasn’t the kind of woman you tossed aside after a few dinners and a wild weekend. She was the kind of woman you kept forever and did your damnedest to keep her happy.
My gaze connected with hers, concern filling her wide, brown eyes. Ignoring my knotted throat, I shoved my hands in my pockets, my fingertips skimming against my vibrating cell phone. No doubt, it was my publicist calling me back.
Rosa’s brows lifted and she smiled. The kind of smile that could make you forget your own damn name, it was sospectacularly beautiful. “Are you ready for this wild night?” she asked.
I snorted a laugh and raked my hand through my shower-damp hair. “You think this is going to be wild?”
“You don’t? Our besties decided on a whim to get married in Atlantic City! It’salreadywild.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
She didn’t know Reid like I did. He was anythingbutwild.
In fact, this was the craziest thing I’d ever seen him do. I wouldn’t be surprised if after this short ceremony, he and Hazel went up to their penthouse suite with some late night room service and called it a night.
It was a bummer West couldn’t be here. Reid, West, and I had become nearly inseparable over the last year or so.
Rosa tilted her chin higher. “Well,I’mready for anything.” She tucked her black sparkly clutch beneath her arm.
“Oh yeah? How so?” I teased her. “You got bail money in that tiny ass purse?”
“Bail money. Safety pins. Band-Aids. Mints…”
“And let me guess,” I interrupted. “An orange?”
She smirked. “Nope. I finished that orange twenty minutes ago.”
