13. April 10, 2023 #2
They rode in silence for several miles, but while inside the car may have been quiet, Cherry’s mind was a cacophony of emotions and thoughts.
All the events from earlier in the day—the pseudo breakup with Demon in the conference room, the assignment God gave them, her conversations with Flame, Steel, and Waters—had caused a war within her.
Somewhere in the space of all that, she’d come up with a solution for the two of them that was so stupid and crazy, she couldn’t believe she was about to put it out there to him.
She wanted him. She had powerful emotions surrounding him, but she wasn’t in love with him.
Because you couldn’t fall in love with someone whose endgame was so drastically different from your own, right?
At forty-four, her chances of finding someone to settle down with—deadman status notwithstanding—were microscopic.
She had set the guidelines for a relationship between them, and he wasn’t willing to abide by them.
Fine. But why deny herself this opportunity to have him, even on a surface level?
There would be pain later because she’d know what she was missing, but it couldn’t possibly be soul-destroying long-term. She’d get over him, he’d get over her, and life would go on. It couldn’t possibly hurt worse than it already did. Could it?
She took a quiet, steadying breath, then unleashed her bomb. “I don’t want us to fake our way through this newlywed thing.”
He turned his head to look at her.
Gazing into the center of his reflective lenses, she said, “I’m as good as any of you when I’m working on a project, but this situation is a little more than I’m used to.
We’re going to have to maintain this cover for Zion almost every minute of the day.
It’s not enough to just spout details of a created history, say we’re in love, and think that’s going to be enough.
We’re going to have to appear like believable lovers, and I’ve never had to hop in and out of character.
My roles have never been long-term immersive.
A couple hours, tops, at a party or a dinner. ”
By no twitch or sound did he reveal he was tracking what she was proposing. Hell, she didn’t even know if he’d believe her words or if he’d see right through them as the bullshit they were.
Finally, he asked, “Where are you headed with this, Cherry?”
This was so awkward. Just hours ago, they had decided to stay away from each other, and now they were being forced into each other’s intimate circle. Not only that, but she was about to propose they ignore that conversation and jump into bed together. Literally.
“I’m asking you to help me out by not making me schizophrenic for the next week. We know we both have chemistry, even if we know that we’re not willing to commit to one another. But if we don’t act like a couple in practice, I’m liable to screw things up.”
Turning his back to the corner of the car, he tilted his glasses up on top of his head, the arms sweeping back the longer top strands to reveal the fade cut underneath. His face was still blank. She would have given anything to know what he was thinking.
“Are you saying you want to feck around while on the project as part of our cover?”
“Maybe?” she offered. Suddenly, she was pretty sure this was the stupidest thing she’d ever done.
To cover up her sudden fear, she continued, “I mean, this is only going to be a week, maybe less. Who knows? Maybe we even discover that what we imagine is between us isn’t really even there, but we just think it is because we have done nothing about it.
” Crap, that was even weaker than the first set of bullshit she handed him.
“At the risk of sounding like an idiot by repeating myself, you’re suggesting that we be an actual couple for the duration of the project, not just pretend to be one? So you want me to hold your hand, kiss you, all that shite?”
“Sure. I mean, I think it’s pretty foolish to think we wouldn’t have to engage in some form of PDA to sell it, right? And it’s not like we can request separate bedrooms because, well, that would be totally unbelievable if we’re trying to pass as newlyweds.”
“So, you want me to continue that idea behind closed doors? Not just literally sleep in the same bed with you to fool the house staff but actually have sex with you?”
“I guess? Well, yes. If we just… throw ourselves into it completely… it makes it easier for us so that we don’t have to head-hop between ourselves and the mythical McCarthys.”
“When out and about in public, sure. But behind closed doors, we can turn it off. There’s no one to sell the relationship to there. And it’s not as if we have to immerse ourselves so far in this that we’re at legend status. Waters doesn’t expect that. The job’s not that deep.”
“I know, I just… Look at it this way. It takes care of two problems. The first, we keep our cover as solid as it can be, with no danger of making a mistake. For the second, right now, the timing of this assignment is awkward because of the conversation we had in the conference room today. If we ignore that—just temporarily—we get to act on all the chemistry we have and get it out of our systems with no worries of awkwardness when we go home. It’s perfect, really.
A clear timeline, clear parameters, and since we’re both adults, neither of us gets hurt when it’s over, when the objective of the project is achieved. ”
He hid it well, but his jaw clenched. If she hadn’t been watching for the tiniest of signs, she might have missed it. He was mulling it over, looking at the suggestion from all angles, and deciding how badly it could go.
“This is crazy. It sounds like one of Flame’s plotlines, only ten times crazier,” he finally ground out. He flashed her a weird look. “Those never work out, you know. Someone always ends up screwing it up by falling in love and making a helluva mess out of everything.”
She waved him off, injecting as much confidence as she could into her voice. “That’s fiction. This is reality.”
She watched his jaw clench harder. Baby Jesus on a skateboard!
What was he so mad about? He was a guy. She was offering him no-strings sex.
Sex he’d clearly wanted if his antics on the conference room table were to be believed.
Why was he suddenly now being so sensitive about it? She would be the ruined one, not him.
His voice cut into her mental tirade. “You think you can do that? Be with me for a few days, then when we come home, just shut it off? Pretend it never happened and put our earlier agreement back in place to keep things strictly professional?”
Her confidence was taking an enormous hit.
How dare he think she couldn’t be an adult about this?
Women had needs, too, and she needed him, whether or not he wanted her to.
With the determination that she was right in her thought process, she made one final push.
“Demon, just treat it like any other project. I know you’ve all gotten involved with someone as a means to an end on a project.
You were all adults and walked away with no hard feelings when the projects were done. ”
“We also never had to be around for the fallout either,” he reminded her.
Well, that sucked, having it confirmed that he’d fucked around on the job.
There had been reports that crossed her desk where, reading between the lines, she knew they’d seduced women, and on one occasion even a man, into getting information or access to things.
Didn’t mean she wanted actual confirmation of the fact that Demon had done that .
He continued, “This is different. We’ll see each other for hours on end, day after day. What happens when the project ends and we stop ‘being together,’ one of us gets hurt?”
One of us, meaning her. “Again. Adults here. We know what we’re agreeing to, so no one can say they thought something else was going to happen. No guilt for either party.”
All of that was true. What she didn’t say was that she knew her proposal was ludicrous.
When the assignment was done, and he walked away as planned, she was going to get hurt.
She’d just have to deal with it and keep it from him when it was over.
But she decided she’d rather have the pain of losing him than the agony of never knowing what it was like to be with him at all.
Muttering something under his breath in Gaelic while shaking his head, he leaned his outside elbow on the window’s edge, his pointer finger running across his lips. Was he going to go for it?
A pained expression flashed across his face as he rubbed his fingers across the wrinkles he’d created on his forehead.
With a last burst of air, he agreed. “I’m going to regret this.
Fine. Under one condition,” he finally replied.
“We start now. There’s been an awful lot of back and forth with us for a while, and we can’t afford to make any awkward screwups once we get to your uncle’s, so we work on playing the happy couple before we even get there.
” He hesitated. “Let’s start with something small. ”
She followed his gaze as it went to her lap. Slowly, he reached for her hand, making sure there was plenty of time for her to pull away if she wanted. When she stayed still, he grasped it loosely in his, threading their fingers together.
As soon as he touched her hand, her mind whirled.
All the normal feelings she got when he touched her rose to the surface, but now they seemed magnified a hundredfold.
What she wouldn’t give for him to touch her like this with no subterfuge involved.
His warm skin connected to hers, and she felt that warmth travel from where he placed the back of her hand on his thigh to throughout her body.