Chapter 16 - Erin
Erin
Safely inside the bathroom, I lean against the sink, stare at my reflection and wait for my pulse to return to normal.
Get it together, I whisper to myself.
This is business. Not whatever that look was. And not whatever he meant by saying he wouldn’t share me.
So, why did it make my legs feel like the floor had dropped an inch without warning?
August King is an attractive man. A very attractive man. So attractive in fact, I might sometimes hold a breath in my lungs when he enters the room.
But he’s paying me to be here. As he coldly and accurately put it at dinner, I’m his employee. I’m here to serve a purpose: to help him clinch a deal that matters to him.
If it was so difficult getting an invitation to this gig, I doubt he would want to jeopardize that by getting involved with his fake wife.
A shiver ripples down my spine at the thought of being intimate with him. To feel his rough, large hands on my trembling skin, his dark mouth smashed against my lips, his fingers teasing between my thighs…
I grip onto the vanity as a wave of lust cracks through me.
And that there was just a figment of my imagination. I’d be lucky to get out alive if August King made any kind of physical move on me.
It’s better this way. Employer and employee. No blurred boundaries or line-crossing.
Besides, what on earth would he see in a forty-something divorcée with a teenager in tow and a shitty bar job?
I have wrinkles he could camp in and grey hairs that grow in nonsensical directions like I’ve stuck my fingers in an electrical outlet.
I glance down at the long, trusty t-shirt I’ve slept in for around twelve years. It has ‘Italians do it better’ emblazoned across the chest and is identical to one Madonna wore in one of her music videos. Back in the day.
Urgh, I can’t believe I’m one of those people who says that now.
I hadn’t been expecting to share a room, let alone a bed, with August King, so my shopping activities didn’t extend to sleepwear. And now I’m kicking myself.
Not that he’s going to care what I sleep in anyway. When he said he wouldn’t share me, it’s not because he wants me for himself, it’s because he doesn’t want anyone else to have me. Not when he’s paying me a fortune to be with him.
I focus on trying to catch my breath again as I change quickly, my heart racing.
When I open the bathroom door, August is standing in the middle of the room wearing loose gray pajama pants, his bare chest catching the soft light of the bedroom lamps.
Our eyes meet, and a rush ten times more intense than the one I just felt in the bathroom, passes through my core, whipping my breath.
“This okay?” he asks in a broken timber.
My brain has short-circuited. “Is… is what okay?”
“This.” He gestures to himself. “I sleep like this.”
“Oh.” I swallow, grasping for something to ease the dryness of my throat. “Sure. I mean. You do you.”
He hesitates, his gaze sweeping over me in a wave of heat. “Good. Which side of the bed do you like?”
“Um, I don’t mind.” Primarily because my mind has gone blank.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ll take the right.”
My heart has settled at the base of my throat, thudding rampantly as I walk toward the bed. We both climb under the covers like two strangers boarding a red-eye flight, careful not to touch the pillows between us.
It takes me a minute to get comfortable, then I go rigid, my ears trained on every single sound. I’ve never felt so self-conscious in all my life.
I remain still, like rigor mortis, staring at the ceiling and counting cracks that move in and out of view. Tiredness is dragging me under but I’m too wired and alert to sleep.
I wait for him to snore, but there’s nothing.
His chest rises and falls, slowly and steadily. His eyes are closed but I can feel him awake, like an electric hum in the dark.
I roll onto my side, then my back, but my body refuses to settle.
This is the first time I’ve shared a bed with a man other than Gerard in twenty-two years. Of course I’m going to be tense and nervous. And before Gerard, I’d only ever had a handful of boyfriends.
I’ve spent most of my sexually active life suffering through the missionary position with men who couldn’t identify a clitoris if it wore a sandwich board, and most of the lights shut off.
A man as attractive as August must be experienced and that’s a little intimidating. It’s obvious why I can’t relax.
Allowing that thought to calm my feminine organs, I think briefly back to why I’m here. I need this money. It could change our lives. But no one can know.
If Mom knew the real job I’m doing, she’d disown me. If Paige found out, she’d spend the next few decades in therapy.
Guilt blooms in my stomach, followed immediately by something fluttery and ridiculous.
Butterflies.
I close my eyes and force my breathing to slow. Gradually, my thoughts drift, my eyelids fall, and I sink into dreams of Russian businessmen and tall, dark, mysterious bankers.
I wake to the unfamiliar weight of another presence in the bed. For a split second, panic flares through my bones, then a memory seeps back in, slow and thick, like honey.
I’m staying in a luxury lodge on a remote retreat. I’m a fake wife, in a fake marriage.
To investment banker August King.
I lie very still with my eyes closed, taking inventory. A flickering ache in my head reminds me of the white wine I drank at dinner and the nervous adrenaline that kept my senses pulsing high.
My body is warm beneath the covers and my right arm is flung over something soft. The pillows separating me from the man I’ve shared a bed with.
We’re not touching, but the hairs running from wrist to elbow are alert to his proximity. I can almost taste his musky scent and feel the subtle flex of muscle when he shifts.
My heart thumps.
I slowly open my eyes and risk a sideways glance to my right.
He’s lying on his back with one darkly inked arm flung above his head, the other thrown lightly to the side where it almost grazes mine. His lashes are black, casting long, fine shadows against his cheek. And his mouth, so firm and commanding when awake, is soft and relaxed in sleep.
He looks younger like this, but still devastatingly handsome.
I tilt my eyes to the ceiling, urging my heartbeat to slow. This is ridiculous. It’s just proximity. Nothing to get all hot and bothered by.
Beside me, he stirs, and my entire body goes rigid. I turn to see his eyes open, alert immediately, as if he never really sleeps.
For a heartbeat, we look at each other, caught in that strange no-man’s-land between sleep and waking.
“Morning,” he says in a roughened voice.
“Good morning.”
“I’ll—” we both say at the same time.
He stops. “You go.”
“No, it’s fine, you—”
“Erin. Bathroom. Go.”
I exhale a laugh, grateful for the break in tension, and slide out of bed, acutely aware that I’m barefoot, ungroomed, and not at all composed.
I lock myself in the bathroom and lean back against the door.
Since the second I woke up next to him, I’ve felt untethered, like I’m stepping into an elevator shaft and falling, with nothing to hold onto and no idea how far down this goes. Now, at least, with a wall between us, I can breathe.
The mirror greets me with a woman who looks… flushed.
My hair is wild and my eyes are bright in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. The air up here away from the fume-filled streets of Manhattan is fresh and clean, and the promise of a life away from my own—if only just for one week—has injected new life into my veins.
I pull off the t-shirt and slip under the shower.
When I come out, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, August is already dressed—dark slacks, crisp shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms. I glance over at the bed. It has been made up with military precision, as if the awkwardness never happened.
He moves about the room efficiently.
“You’re not going to shower?” I ask.
“I’m going to hit the gym after breakfast. I’ll shower after that.”
I swallow, an image of August lifting weights making my pulse kick up in completely inappropriate places.
I suck in a breath and practically adhere myself to the wall as he passes to get into the bathroom.
“Erin…” He pauses in the doorway. “You just survived a whole night in the same bed as me. I think we’ve established I don’t bite.”
I cock a brow. “Well, so far, you’ve been well fed. I’m not letting my guard down until I’ve seen you hungry and lived to tell the tale.”
He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again, shakes his head and steps into the bathroom.
I have a feeling I exasperate him.
Well, he offered me this gig. He’s made his bed—he has to lie in it.
I head into the bedroom to get ready.
I pull out a light blue wrap dress that skims my knees.
It’s conservative but somehow manages to look sexy.
The belt cinches in my waist, the v where the fabric crosses, exposing just a little bit of cleavage.
I silently thank Mallorie for encouraging me to buy this bra. It’s like scaffold for wayward breasts.
When I emerge in a fresh pair of heels, August’s gaze falls to my toes then climbs slowly back up my body, pulling a flush of heat with it. Our eyes lock and my breath quickens.
The way he looks at me sometimes makes me weak. I’ve never been looked at that way before, and definitely not in all my years of marriage.
It’s a look that doesn’t have a full point at the end of it, like it’s not finished.
I flick a curl of hair from my brow and walk on past him and out of the suite. The door makes a soft click behind me, then August is at my side and we head back downstairs.
The dining room hums with low conversation. The seating is prearranged again and we sit with two couples this time—an outgoing, pleasant couple from England and a quieter but friendly couple from Florida.
Lying beside the breakfast menu is our itinerary for the day.
A choice of gentle leisure pursuits for the women. A morning of briefings for the men.
I snort quietly before I can stop myself. “Of course.”
August glances at me over the rim of his coffee cup. “Is there a problem?”
“This itinerary,” I wave it in his general direction. “It just feels very… sixties. Do the leisure activities include housekeeping, child-rearing and readying myself for when you come home?”
His mouth twitches. “You can skip it if you want.”
I hesitate before also lowering my voice. “Wouldn’t that look strange?”
“Yes,” he says frankly. “But I’d understand.”
I study him, then drop the itinerary to the table. “No, I’ll go. It’s why you brought me here. And it might be fun.”
Something warm flickers in his gaze. It looks suspiciously like approval. And it makes me want to do more, which is weird, because after Gerard, I swore I wouldn’t do anything to get approval from a man.
“We may have time together in the afternoon,” he says, coasting a smile across the other couples. “Otherwise, we’ll meet for dinner here at seven.”
“Looking forward to it,” I reply, without thinking. Then I’m surprised to realize I mean it.
I decide to opt for the horseback riding, and because I used to ride regularly in California, I’m given a beautiful chestnut mare with a little more spirit than the other horses.
We head off for a canter through the surrounding forest, and I’m relieved that because of the differing abilities, the other women are mostly fretting and not too interested in small talk.
Our return path brings us around the back of the lodge past the conference room where the men are discussing ‘the deal.’
I peer through the window as we pass, genuinely curious to see August at work. When his eyes catch mine from across the large oval table, my heart leaps. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. Just taps a pen thoughtfully against his lip while holding my gaze.
Our eye contact only breaks when my horse takes me out of view.
When we arrive a couple of minutes later at the stables, I dismount, loosen my horse’s girth and run up the stirrups. Once the horse is secured I remove my hat and shake out my hair, then run my fingers up through her forelock and place a soft kiss on her nose.
“That was just what I needed,” I whisper. “Thank you.”
I turn around and almost jump in shock.
August is standing at the edge of the yard, leaning one shoulder against the archway, watching me, his eyes dark with something patient and dangerous.
I feel nervous as I walk toward him. “I thought you were in the meeting.”
“I asked for a short break.”
My lids flutter as I look up. “Why?”
“So I could check on you.”
I arch a brow. “I wasn’t trying to gallop off, just so you know.”
His gaze drifts over my head and he nods toward the horse. “You have fun?”
When he lowers back to me, I smile. “I loved it.”
“You looked quite at home in the saddle.”
“I horseback ride… Actually, I used to horseback ride… back home.”
His eyes narrow. “In California?”
I nod.
“They have horseback riding in Central Park. New York is your home now.”
Something shivers in my chest. The way he said that… it felt non-negotiable.
“Yes, I suppose it is,” I mutter. “So, what are you going to do with your break?”
“I’m going to buy you coffee.”
“What, now? I’m wearing loaned breeches and boots that smell of yard.”
“We’re in the country, Erin. And you look…” he swallows, “the part.”
“Oh well, in that case,” I gesture to the offending footwear, “let’s take these stinky bad boys for a spin!”