“Warned him?” Marjorie asked. “Warned him about what?”

“Nothing, sweetheart,” Rob said. “Logan’s just losing his temper over nothing.”

“Over nothing? She’s a nice girl and she deserves better than you. I told you to fucking stay away from her.”

Why would Logan want Rob to stay away from her? Confused, Marjorie looked from one man to the other. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ll go where I want, when I want,” Rob told Logan. He looked utterly furious and resigned at the same time . . . as if he’d been expecting this. “You sure as fuck can’t tell me who to date.”

Logan’s lip curled. “Isn’t that what you wanted, though? A way to get my attention? Well, you have it.”

“Fuck off,” Rob snapped. “This isn’t about that.”

“Isn’t it?” Logan said. “You’ve been blackmailing me by threatening to sic the press on my goddamn wedding for the last week and a half. And now you’re sleeping with one of the bridesmaids as your ticket in? That’s low.”

Wait . . . sleeping with her to get into the wedding? Marjorie’s eyes widened and she looked over at Rob. “That’s not true, is it?”

“Of course it’s not fucking true,” Rob shot back, giving her a briefly wounded look for doubting him.

Marjorie’s voice was quiet. “Then what does he mean about blackmailing him?”

He looked at Logan, and Marjorie could visibly see Logan’s jaw clench. The man looked terrifying. She knew he was protective of Brontë, but she couldn’t quite grasp why he was flying out here to defend her from Rob. Then, Rob moved toward her and took her hand. Dazed, she let him grip it, and he gave her a little squeeze and leaned in. “We need to talk, you and I. Somewhere private. I’ll explain everything.”

“I told you to leave her alone,” Logan said in a warning voice. The two bodyguards behind him started to move forward.

“No,” Marjorie said, interrupting. She put a hand up to stop them, and then looked at Rob. “I’ll go with you. But I want answers.”

He nodded and began to tug her forward by the hand, down the hall. “Come on. We need some privacy. Let’s go to the gardens.”

She let him drag her along after him, her mind swirling with questions and worry. People stared at them as they rushed past, and she felt a bit of humiliation at being turned away at the door to the reception dinner. What on earth was wrong with her date? Why did Logan hate him so much?

And what had he meant by “blackmailing”? She’d spent most of the week with Rob and he’d seemed happy to be in her company. In fact, he hadn’t wanted her to leave his side.

But still . . . why did Logan think Rob was using her to get to the wedding? And why was Rob being so weird about it? An unhappy gnawing settled in her stomach, making her feel ill.

This all had to be a mistake. It had to be. A misunderstanding of some kind.

As they walked out into the gardens of the resort, though, a trio of men came down another path, heading toward them. They had cameras on their shoulders and the one in the front carried a microphone. Oh, no. Marjorie tensed even as the men approached.

“Well, hello there, gorgeous. You interested in playing Tits or GTFO—oh, hey, hi there, Mr. Cannon.” The man with the microphone looked surprised. And confused.

“What are you doing here?” Rob said, his voice a snarl. He pushed Marjorie behind him protectively. “I thought I told you fucks to get off this island.”

“It’s all right,” Marjorie murmured, running a soothing hand down Rob’s sleeve. He was so furious that she was worried there’d be a new scene in the gardens and then they’d be surrounded by people again. “Let’s just go—”

“Sorry, boss,” said the man with the microphone sheepishly. “We’ve been getting some good filming so we figured it wouldn’t hurt to stay another day or two.”

“You figured wrong. I told Smith that you guys were to leave the island. You’re all fucking fired.”

Betrayal made her skin prickle with realization. Stomach churning, Marjorie jerked her hand from Rob’s, the conversation finally sinking in. “‘Boss’? These men are your employees?”

Rob turned to look at her, frustration clear on his face. “Let’s just go to the gazebo and talk, Marjorie, please. I’ll explain everything.”

“Start explaining now,” she said, hands on her hips and a horrible, nightmarish ache in her heart. This was beyond hurt, beyond disappointment. She felt like ice, all frozen inside. Somehow, though, she managed to stay upright even though it felt like her heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces.

“Fine,” Rob said, and raked a hand through his hair nervously. He looked around and then gestured at a nearby carved stone bench. The camera crew stood there awkwardly for a minute, until Rob turned to them. “Get the fuck out of here. You’re all still fired.”

Trembling, Marjorie sat on the bench and clasped her hands on her knees, forcing a calm to her expression that she didn’t quite feel. She watched, sick to her stomach, as Rob sat next to her and then rubbed his face again.

“I’m not the man you think I am, Marjorie,” Rob told her, clearly miserable.

“I think I’m starting to understand that.” Her voice shook a little despite all her attempts to appear strong and in control. “So who are you really?”

He gave a small, ironic chuckle and a shake of his head. “I kept waiting for you to google me, you know? To look up all my dirty misdeeds and then throw them in my face. I just never expected you to actually trust me. No one does, you know.” He rubbed his jaw and glanced over at her. “For the record, all the shit in the tabloids is fake.”

“What . . . things in the tabloids?”

“The coke, the models, the late-night parties. It’s all just PR. That, and once your rep hits a certain point, you can’t blow your nose in public without everyone assuming you just did lines in the bathroom.”

“Rob, I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Marjorie told him. “Start over. I don’t know what any of this means. Is Rob even your real name?”

“It’s my real name,” he agreed. “Robert Cannon, owner of The Man Channel and a few other networks.”

“The Man Channel,” she murmured, trying to think. “It sounds sexist.”

“It is. We specialize in lowbrow humor, tittie shots, and whatever we can get away with on basic cable.”

She recoiled. That sounded . . . revolting. “Why? Gosh, why?” It was exactly the sort of thing she hated. “Why peddle women?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. Because there’s money to be made there, and I’m good at it?” He rubbed his neck, clearly uncomfortable with having to explain himself. “When I was a kid, I grew up in a group home because no foster home wanted an eight-year-old boy with attitude problems. I had nothing to my name but three shirts and two pairs of pants. Nothing. Nada. When I hit eighteen, they tossed me out, patted me on the back, and told me to go earn a living. So I joined the Army. And after two years in the Army, I didn’t re-up. I hated it. I wanted to be my own boss. My own man. All my life, I’d answered to someone. So a buddy and I got drunk one night and we started spitballing ideas. I don’t know who came up with the whole ‘Show Me Your Tits’ idea for a show, but it worked. We started doing videos and they got carried on late-night TV, and then eventually we made our own network. I bought out my buddy and continued expanding on things until I made The Man Channel a household name. I made it from nothing.”

“I think it’s awful,” she told him with a small shake of her head. “You’re preying on women.”

“I’m not ‘preying’ on anyone,” Rob said in an irritated tone that told her he’d had that conversation before.

“You are. I’ve seen clips of the show. The women are drunk or pressured by the men to the point that they feel like they have to give in. That’s not fair.”

“It’s just a stupid show, Marjorie.”

“It wasn’t so stupid when they came after me,” she said quietly.