Marius smiles and shakes his head. “Nah. You look great, like always. I think you just need to learn to duck.”
His eyes light up, and he says, “That’s going to be your nickname from now on. Duck.”
Terrific. Other women get called kitten or baby or honey. I get duck.
I don’t try to hide my frown at his nickname for me. I’ve always hated my name and wished for a cool nickname. Duck is definitely not that.
“That pout tells me you’re unhappy. Don’t like the nickname? What if I make it Little Duck? That’s definitely cuter.”
Twisting my expression into a grimace, I shake my head. “I bet you’ve always loved your name, but I hate mine. Always have. And I always wanted a great nickname. I just don’t think Duck or Little Duck is great.”
He tilts his head left and right like he’s unsure what to say to that. “I like my name. It’s unique. I’ve never met another Marius. For that matter, I’ve never met another Eden. I like your name.”
I can’t help but smile. I remember Maia saying a lot of terrible things about Marius, but one thing she mentioned over and over was how charming he could be when she was feeling down. As I sit here feeling like I’ve been beaten down by life, literally, I understand what she meant.
“Thanks. You wouldn’t like it if every teenage boy you ever met insisted on saying something about your garden of Eden.”
Marius lets out a belly laugh at what was supposed to be a serious point. He realizes I wasn’t kidding a second later and forces himself to stop laughing.
“Sorry. I want to say those guys were just assholes, but I’m pretty sure I would have said that to you as a teenage boy.”
A knock on the door interrupts our conversation, and he jumps up from the couch to answer it. “Time to eat! I hope you’re hungry.”
I’m just thankful for a break in the discussion of my name and my new nickname. I watch him walk through the suite andcan’t help but notice how good he looks in his gray dress pants and black dress shirt. Like all the King boys, he’s good looking with an incredible body, but for my money, Marius King is the best looking of all five brothers.
I chastise myself for thinking that since I look like some kind of beat up pathetic thing. It’s doubtful he’s seeing me as anything other than a damsel in distress, which is never a good look. I prefer to be a woman with confidence, and usually I am, but after what happened with Justin today, I’m struggling to remember who Eden really is.
He leads two men dressed in black waiters’ uniforms past me to a big round table on the other side of the room near the giant floor to ceiling windows that offer a gorgeous view of Las Vegas. I watch as they make two trips and then a third and then a final trip in with dishes filled with food.
Marius hands them both hundred dollar bills and walks them to the door. “Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great night!”
“If you need anything else, Mr. King, please call. We’ll be happy to help,” one of the men says on his way out.
When Marius returns, he points to the table so jammed with plates and food that there’s no room for us to sit at it and eat. “I may have gone overboard, but I wanted to make sure you had whatever you wanted to eat. Dig in. There’s soda, champagne, and whiskey. Oh, and water, but who the hell wants that?”
I stare at the table, stunned he went to so much trouble for me. “That’s a lot of food.”
He nods and shrugs like it’s nothing to have ordered over a thousand dollars’ worth of room service. “You know what they say. Go big or go home. Come on, eat. What do you want to drink? For me, it’s definitely a whiskey day.”
Standing, I walk over to the table and study all the food I can choose from. French toast, eggs, salmon and steak dinners, four burritos, a hamburger with fries, two ice cream sundaes,pancakes, what looks like some kind of club sandwich, and a charcuterie board, and that’s not including covered dishes hiding more food I can’t see.
“Um, I guess champagne.”
I might as well be drunk if I have to look like I went twelve rounds.
He smiles and pours me a glass. “A woman after my own heart. I might have been disappointed if you said water or soda.”
As I reach for the plate with the club sandwich, I say, “Normally, I would, but I’m not feeling myself today. It could be that I had some jackass punch me in the eye. Maybe my brains were scrambled. I don’t know. All I know is I feel like champagne.”
“Then champagne it is,” he says, handing me my drink.
I settle in on the sofa and start eating, famished from all that’s happened today. Marius sits down next to me and drags the coffee table toward us so I have somewhere to set my champagne flute. We don’t speak as we eat, and when I finish my sandwich, I sit back and let out a heavy sigh.
“Getting beat up gives you an appetite, I guess.”
He doesn’t respond to my attempt at being self-effacing, so I wait a few minutes before I say, “Marius, I owe you big. Thank you for jumping in with Justin and giving me a soft place to land. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you for all you’ve done.”
All he does is shake his head while he continues to eat his steak. When he finishes, he sets the plate on the coffee table and downs the rest of the whiskey in his glass.
