Rio and Polly

Chapter 6: I'm Not Doing This Anymore

You need to start answering my texts. I've been patient long enough.

Reading that text from Danielle, I felt like throwing my phone, but I'd already broken enough phones during the three weeks Polly was away. 

For the last few months, ever since I'd gone overnight to Texas and Danielle pulled her shit, I've been trying to figure out how in the hell I prove nothing happened when it looked like something did. How do you prove your innocence when it's your word against hers...and she has pictures to back up her false claim? How do you prove you didn't do something?

I'd known I'd been losing ground with Polly, who was already understandably unhappy with me for being in a fake relationship. She didn't have the same blind faith in me that she once did and she might believe the pictures over my word since I'd broken my promises to her so often.

But the one thing I'd never done was fuck Danielle, never even came close, never even thought about it. Bitch made my skin crawl and there was nothing about her to tempt me. Very simply, she wasn't my Polly. My beautiful Polly with her deliciously soft body and curves for days. Polly called herself chunky, but she paid for that with a red ass every time she said it, and I made it clear to her that I loved her body. Loved every part of her, loved her softness, the way her body fit to mine, hard to soft, perfect together, feeling as if I held everything important in my arms when I held Polly.

Answer me! NOW. Or else.

Sneering at her text, I thought about the morning I'd woken up in my Texas hotel room, my gut feeling like I'd consumed fish left out in the heat for six days and my head feeling like it was going to shatter if I even breathed wrong. I'd known I was drinking too much the night before, trying to drown the stupid mess I was in with the fucking fake relationship. 

But more than anything, I'd been trying to drown the pain from missing Polly, missing our relationship, the way we'd lie in bed and talk and talk about our plans. She wasn't happy, with me, with our relationship, and no fucking wonder. I'd talked her into allowing this to happen after Milliken had laid out the benefits of the short-term plan to me, emphasis on short-term. Three or four months didn't see like a lot of time. That stupidity of mine just taught me to never believe what a snake-oil salesman is selling you, especially if his promises include the fame and fortune you want to achieve so you can put your plans in place. With the number one plan being to marry Polly and give her those babies she wanted.

You won't like what happens if you don't answer me.

Pretty sure everyone has at least one mistake in their life they'd like to take back, and this fake relationship with Danielle was mine. Didn't know it was about to get much, much worse that day in Texas when I woke up feeling like such shit I couldn't possibly be alive. 

That morning, all I wanted was Polly to be cuddled up against me in the bed. Her presence always made me feel as if everything was right in the world, and I was pissed at myself for agreeing to this fake relationship and then talking Polly into it. 

Way too early, Milliken knocked on my door and I threw on a pair of boxer briefs that I didn't remember taking off last night and staggered to the door. Polly wouldn't like seeing me like this, and I didn't like seeing me like this. I needed to curb my drinking before it became a dangerous addiction.

"You look like hell," Milliken greeted me, his face not pleased. "Figured after you dropped into bed last night and blacked out, I'd better get you up early so you could get presentable for today's events."

I grunted at him, and stepped back from the door to let him in. "We've got 40 minutes before we meet with Danielle for a conference call with her agent. Go take a hot shower, sweat that whiskey out and get your ass in gear," he snapped orders at me and I resisted the urge to punch him.