Chapter 9
At five forty-eight Wednesday morning, I discover that waking up naked in a billionaire’s rental farmhouse does not make me glamorous.
It makes me need to pee.
Also, my bra is somewhere on the bedroom floor.
I lie still for several seconds and stare at the unfamiliar ceiling while Grant sleeps beside me with one arm bent above his head.
Morning light has barely started leaking around the curtains.
The room smells faintly like rain, laundry detergent, and sex.
There are worse places to regain consciousness.
There are also less complicated ones.
Grant’s breathing is slow and even. A reddish mark is developing near his shoulder where I bit him last night.
I inspect it with the grave concern of a woman reviewing evidence from a crime scene she personally created.
I do not regret it.
This feels important.
Not the biting specifically.
The rest.
My body is pleasantly sore. My brain is awake enough to begin assembling questions I did not have the energy to ask at midnight.
Was this too fast?
Are we going to be weird?
Does sleeping with the man I am fake dating constitute a clerical problem?
And, perhaps most urgently, how do I get downstairs without locating my underwear by daylight?
Grant opens his eyes.
Of course he does.
The man apparently senses unauthorized thinking.
“Good morning.”
His voice is rough with sleep.
This is deeply unfair.
“Debatable.”
His eyes move over my face.
“Regret?”
Straight to it.
No warm-up.
No pretending the question does not exist because the answer might be inconvenient.
I consider it honestly.
“No.”
Something in his shoulders releases.
I notice.
That is also important.
“You?” I ask.
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“I’ve been awake for twelve minutes.”
I narrow my eyes.
“You were pretending to sleep?”
“I was trying not to wake you.”
“By lying there conscious?”
“It seemed efficient.”
“Disturbing.”
He smiles.
I turn onto my side, pulling the sheet with me.
Grant glances down at the disappearing sheet.
“Hostile acquisition.”
“You remain partially covered.”
“Generous.”
I look at him.
Really look.
Hair messy.
Face unshaven.
One shoulder bearing documentary evidence of my enthusiasm.
He looks less controlled like this.
Not less powerful.
Just more human.
I touch the mark near his shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“For that?”
“I may have mistaken you for a chew toy.”
“I survived.”
“Your shareholders will be relieved.”
He catches my hand and kisses my palm.
The gesture is so casually intimate that my chest tightens harder than it did when he took off his shirt.
Sex, apparently, is not the dangerous part.
Tenderness is running an aggressive campaign.
Grant watches me.
“We can talk about it.”
“About sex?”
“About whatever your face is doing.”
“My face is private.”
“I’ve been informed that position is legally weak.”
I laugh.
Then I let the joke go.
“Last night doesn’t change the rules by itself.”
“No.”
“It doesn’t mean you get more access to my life because we slept together.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t mean I get more access to yours either.”
“I know.”
I study him.
“This is going suspiciously well.”
“I can argue if that would help.”
“Maybe later.”
His thumb moves once across my knuckles.
“I do want something to change.”
There it is.
My stomach drops half an inch.
“What?”
“I’d like you to stop calling the private part fake.”
I blink.
He continues before I can build a defensive joke.
“The public origin is fake. The arrangement until Harvest Lights is still what we agreed. But I’m dating you because I want to date you. Last night happened because we wanted it. I don’t want to keep using the same word for both things.”
I stare at him.
The irritating part is that I understand immediately.
The more irritating part is that I agree.
“Fine.”
His mouth moves.
“That sounded enthusiastic.”
“It was an emotionally expensive fine.”
“Thank you.”
“We are still not making long-range promises because we had good sex.”
“Agreed.”
“Very good sex.”
His eyebrows rise.
“I appreciate the correction.”
“Do not become unbearable before sunrise.”
“I’ll wait until breakfast.”
I laugh, lean forward, and kiss him.
The kiss is sleepy and warm and nothing like last night until Grant’s hand slides gently along my waist and my body remembers several useful facts.
I pull back.
“Work.”
He looks at the clock.
“You have forty-two minutes before you need to leave.”
“You know my commute?”
“I identify hazards.”
“Sex has made you repetitive.”
“You liked that line yesterday.”
“I was impaired.”
He kisses my shoulder.
My higher reasoning considers resigning again.
I sit up instead.
“Bathroom.”
“Left door.”
“Toothbrush?”
“Guest drawer.”
I stop.
“You have guest toothbrushes?”
“The house came with them.”
“Thank God. For one second I thought you had prepared.”
Grant looks offended.
“I bought condoms months ago, not toiletries for hypothetical women.”
“Romance lives.”
I find my underwear beside the stairs.
My bra is still on the bedroom floor.
I refuse to investigate the sequence of events that produced this geography.
By six fifteen, I am wearing yesterday’s clothes, my hair is in something approaching a functional knot, and Grant is making eggs.
Of course he is.
He hands me coffee first.
“May I make you breakfast?”
I look at the skillet.
“You have already begun making breakfast.”
“For myself.”
“There are six eggs.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Grant.”
He smiles.
“May I make you breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
It is ridiculous how much the question matters.
Not because I needed veto power over eggs.
Because he remembers.
I sit at the island, safely away from the corner that nearly became a workplace incident last night.
Grant sets a plate in front of me.
Eggs, toast, and fruit.
I take one bite.
“These are annoyingly good.”
“They’re eggs.”
“Do not diminish your life’s greatest passion.”
He sits across from me.
For ten minutes, we eat breakfast like two people who have done this before.
We have not.
That may be the strangest part.
It does not feel like a grand romantic morning.
It feels ordinary.
I like it enough to become nervous.
So naturally I ask about work.
“What happened with the wet ground?”
“Priya shifted tomorrow’s apparel shoot to the north lawn. The west meadow is out.”
“Good.”
“She also moved two equipment deliveries to the service lot.”
“Also good.”
“I have a communications call at eight.”
“Less good.”
“Financial Ledger wants to know whether dating you influenced Northspan choosing Bellweather.”
I put down my fork.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing personally. Cameron gave them the project timeline showing the location decision predates us meeting.”
I wait.
Grant looks at me.
“I told Cameron not to involve you.”
My spine stiffens before I can stop it.
He sees it.
“That came out wrong.”
“Yes.”
“I meant she didn’t need to drag you into a factual question Northspan could answer from its own records.”
“Better.”
“If they want comment from you personally, that is your decision.”
I breathe out.
“Much better.”
He nods.
No defensiveness.
No attempt to explain why my first reaction was unreasonable.
Another dangerous habit.
At six twenty-nine, I grab my bag.
Grant follows me onto the porch.
The air is cool and damp. Rainwater still hangs from the trees around the field. Somewhere down the road, a truck shifts gears.
He looks at my truck.
Then at me.
“Can I kiss you goodbye?”
“Yes.”
He does.
Soft.
Brief.
Extremely capable of becoming neither.
I step back first.
“I have to go.”
“I know.”
“You are coming to the orchard later?”
“Before the communications call.”
“Park correctly.”
His face becomes solemn.
“I’ve grown.”
“Prove it.”
I drive away smiling like an idiot.
This is humiliating.
Tessa looks at me once and says, “Oh, you had sex.”
I nearly drop my radio.
We are standing behind the market at six fifty-nine in the morning.
Two employees are carrying apple crates twenty feet away.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“Volume.”
She lowers her voice by approximately three percent.
“You had sex.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
She looks at my sweater.
I look down.
Yesterday’s rust-colored sweater.
Still respectable.
Still clothed.
“People re-wear sweaters.”
“Not you after cooking.”
“We had roast chicken.”
Her eyes widen.
“You had domestic sex.”
“I am leaving.”
She catches my sleeve.
“No. Absolutely not. You cannot give me roast chicken and then walk away.”
“I’m giving you nothing.”
“Was it good?”
I stare at her.
She presses both hands together.
“I am your oldest friend.”
“You once told my mother I had diarrhea so we could sneak out to a concert.”
“And I would do it again.”
I lower my voice.
“Yes.”
Her grin becomes blinding.
“Very?”
“Tessa.”
“That’s a yes.”
I point toward the kitchen.
“Go manage a doughnut.”
She hugs me before I can escape.
Not teasing now.
Just quick and tight.
When she lets go, she searches my face.
“You okay?”
There is the real question.
“Yes.”
“Actually?”
“Actually.”
“Then I will return to being disgusting later.”
“Thank you.”
“Also, Lydia call tomorrow.”
My stomach immediately remembers professional terror.
“Why would you do that to me?”
“Balance.”
My radio crackles.
“Nora, can you come to the main lot?”
Ben sounds confused.
That is never good.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
A pause.
“There’s just a traffic company here.”
I close my eyes.
“What traffic company?”
“I was hoping you knew.”
I do not.
I am already walking.
The main lot is still mostly empty when I round the market.
Three men in reflective vests stand beside a white utility truck near the entrance. One is holding a measuring wheel. Another has two portable road signs stacked on a small trailer.
Priya is talking to them.
Grant is standing beside her.
He arrived correctly parked.
Unfortunately, he has apparently brought infrastructure.
I walk straight toward him.
“What is this?”
Grant turns.
The expression on his face tells me immediately that he knows this conversation is not going to be fun.
“Contingency traffic support.”
“Whose contingency?”
“Northspan’s.”
I stop in front of him.
“Explain.”
Priya takes one step backward.
Smart woman.
Grant keeps his voice level.