Paper Wedding, Best-Friend Bride

She shook her head. “Sorry. No. I’m still packing.”

He entered her condo. “That’s okay. I’ll text my pilot and tell him we’re running late.”

Lizzie nodded. Max’s success provided him the luxury of a private jet. She’d inherited her mother’s old Savannah money, but she was nowhere as wealthy as he was. He wasn’t the only Native American foster kid in LA who’d made good. He remained close to two of his foster brothers, who’d also become billionaires. Max had been instrumental in helping them attain their fortunes, loaning them money to get their businesses off the ground.

He followed her into her room, where her suitcase was on the bed, surrounded by the clothes she’d been sorting.

He lifted a floral-printed dress from the pile. “This is pretty.” He glanced at a lace bra and panty set. “And those.” Clearly, he was teasing her, as if making a joke was easier than anything else he could think of doing or saying.

“Knock it off.” She grabbed the lingerie and shoved them into a pouch on the side of her Louis Vuitton luggage, glad that he hadn’t actually touched her underwear. As for the dress, she tugged it away from him.

“Did you really have a thing for me in high school?” he asked.

Oh, goodness. He was bringing that up now? “Yes, I really did.” She’d developed a quirky little crush on him, formed within the ache of the secrets they’d shared. But he’d totally blown her away when she returned from university and saw his physical transformation. He’d changed in all sorts of ways by then. While she’d been hitting the books, he’d already earned his first million, selling an app he’d designed, and he hadn’t even gone to college. These days, he invested in start-ups and made a killing doing it.

“It never would have worked between us,” he said.

Lizzie considered flinging her makeup bag at him and knocking him upside that computer chip brain of his. “I never proposed that it would.”

“You were too classy for me.” He gazed at her from across the bed. “Sometimes I think you still are.”

A surge of heat shot through her blood. “That’s nonsense. You date tons of socialites. They’re your type.”

“Because you set the standard. How could I be around you and not want that type?”

“Don’t do this, Max.” He’d gone beyond the realm of making jokes. “You shouldn’t even be in my room, let alone be saying that sort of stuff.”

“As if.” He brushed it off. “I’ve been in your room plenty of times before. Remember last New Year’s Eve? I poured you into bed when you got too drunk to stand.”

She looked at him as if he’d gone mad. But maybe he had lost his grip on reality. Or maybe she had. Either way, she challenged him. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t inebriated. I was coming down with the flu.”

“So you kept telling me.” He gave her a pointed look. “I think it was all those cosmopolitans that international playboy lover of yours kept plying you with.”

Seriously? His memory couldn’t be that bad. “You were tending bar at the party that night.” Here at her house, with her guests.

“Was I? Are you sure? I thought it was that Grand Prix driver you met in Monte Carlo. The one all the women swooned over.”

“He and I were over by then.” She wagged a finger at him. “You’re the one who kept adding extra vodka to my drinks.”

“I must have felt sorry for you, getting dumped by that guy.”

“From what I recall, it was around the same time that department store heiress walked out on you.”

“She was boring, anyway.”

“I thought she was nice. She was hunting for a husband, though.”

“Yeah, and that ruled me out. I wouldn’t get married if the survival of the world depended on it.”

“Me, neither. But what’s the likelihood of us ever having to do that, for saving mankind or any other reason?”

“There isn’t. But I still say that you were drunk last New Year’s, and I was the gentleman—thank you very much—who tucked you into this very bed.” He patted her pillow for effect, putting a dent in it.

“Oh, there’s an oxymoron. The guy feeding me liquor is the gentleman in the story?”

“It beats your big-fish tale about having the flu.”

“Okay. Fine. I was wasted. Now stop taking it out on my pillow.”

“Oops, sorry.” He plumped it back up, good as new. “Are you going to finish packing or we going to sit here all day, annoying each other?”

“You started it.” She filled her suitcase, stuffing it to the gills. She only wished they were going on a trip that didn’t include a child she was nervous about meeting.

“Are you still worried about whether or not Tokoni will like you?” he asked, homing in on her troubled expression. “I already told you that I think you’re going to impress him.”

“Because he might regard me as a princess? That feels like pressure in itself.”

“It’ll be all right, Lizzie. And I promise, once you meet him, you’ll see how special he is.”

She didn’t doubt that Tokoni was a nice little boy. But that didn’t ease her nerves or boost her confidence about meeting him. Of course for now all she could do was remain by Max’s side, supporting his cause, like the friend she was meant to be.

Two (#u4c6fc2c7-93c4-5c73-bdf1-339e0ba1a6b6)

Lizzie awakened inside a bungalow, with a tropical breeze stirring through an open window. Alone with her thoughts, she sat up and stretched.

Yesterday afternoon she and Max had arrived at their destination and checked in to the resort he’d booked for their weeklong stay. They had separate accommodations, each with its own colorful garden and oceanfront deck, equipped with everything they needed to relax, including hammocks. The interiors were also decorated to complement the environment, with beamed ceilings, wood floors, cozy couches and canopy beds.

Nulah consisted of a series of islands, and the sparsely populated island they were on was a twenty-minute boat ride to the mainland, the main island within the nation, where the capital city and all the activities in that area were: the airport, the orphanage they would be visiting, shopping and dining, dance clubs and other tourist-generated nightlife, nice hotels, cheap motels, burgeoning crime, basically what you would find in any city except on a smaller scale.

Of course at this off-the-grid resort, things were quiet. Max had stayed here before, during his sabbatical, and now Lizzie understood why it appealed to him.

With another body-rolling stretch, she climbed out of bed. She suspected that Max was already wide awake and jogging along the beach. He preferred early-morning runs. Typically, Lizzie did, too. But she’d skipped that routine today.

She showered and fixed her makeup and hair, keeping it simple. She didn’t want to show up at the orphanage looking like a spoiled heiress. Or a princess. Or anything that drew too much attention to herself.

Returning to her bedroom, she donned the floral-printed dress Max had manhandled when she was packing yesterday, pairing it with T-strap sandals.

Lizzie made a cup of coffee, with extra cream, and headed outside. With a quiet sigh, she settled into a chair on her deck and gazed out at the view—the pearly white sand and aqua-blue water.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, Max appeared along the shore, winding down from his run. For a moment, he almost seemed like an apparition, a tall, tanned warrior in the morning light.

He glanced in her direction, and she waved him over. But before he strode toward her, he stopped to remove his T-shirt, using it like a towel to dry the sweat from his face and chest. Lizzie got a sexy little pulse-palpitating reaction from watching him. He’d already told her that his shower was outside, located in a walled section of his garden. He’d requested a bungalow with that type of amenity. So now she was going to envision him, naked in the elements, with water streaming over his sun-bronzed skin.

“Hey.” He stood beside her chair. “What happened? I was expecting to see you out there. I figured you would’ve joined me at some point.”

“I wasn’t in the mood to run today.” She glanced past him, making sure that she wasn’t ogling his abs or giving him the look. Instead, she checked out a foamy wave breaking onto the shore. This island was a certified marine reserve, allowing guests to snorkel off the beach from the front of their bungalows. Lizzie hadn’t been in the ocean yet, but according to Max there were heaps of fish, clams and coral reefs.

“You look pretty,” he said.