9. James
JAMES
James turned off his computer with a sigh and a yawn.
The clock on his desk showed that it was already three a.m., long past the time any reasonable thirty-four-year-old would have been in bed and sleeping.
It was particularly past the time when James should have been sleeping, because he had to be up early the next morning for more meetings.
He was awake now because he’d been having calls with clients in Asia. Pembrook PR was multinational, and, as the CEO, James occasionally had to have personal interactions with clients in different time zones. Tonight had been a particularly vivid example of that.
Realistically, he should go to bed now. But James was hungry and keyed up from work, and he didn’t want to sleep.
He headed out of his home office and down the hall.
At least he didn’t have to worry about bothering Lauren.
She spent most of her time either in her home office or her real office, as did James.
When they were at home, they each had their own bedroom and bathroom, rarely cooked, and rarely spent time in common spaces.
In the past week that they’d been married and living together, they’d only run into each other a handful of times.
On each occasion, they’d teased each other and quickly moved on.
In fact, James had heard more about Lauren through the professional grapevine than he had from her. Apparently, she’d landed two new small-scale clients, including one poached from a larger firm.
James padded into the kitchen and went straight for the fridge. His private chef prepared meals for him each week, which James usually ate after coming home from work. He wasn’t sure what Lauren ate. He’d texted to ask if his chef should cook for her, too, and she’d said no.
It wasn’t his problem. She wasn’t really his wife. Still, he hoped she was eating something.
James took a box of rice, broccoli, and salmon with lemon vinaigrette out of the fridge and popped it in the microwave. He watched it spin in the eerie blue light as tiredness began to press on him, heavy as a brick wall. He leaned against the counter, his eyes growing heavy.
“Can’t sleep?”
James whirled, his heart racing. His first thought was that there was an intruder in his house, before he remembered that Lauren lived here, too.
She wore pajamas — a pair of short pink shorts printed with teacups and a white tank top.
Her hair was pulled back in a neat braid, and her face was devoid of makeup.
James looked away, uncomfortable. She wasn’t wearing much, and he didn’t want her to think he was staring. He shouldn’t be staring, anyway.
“No.” He cleared his throat. “I had business meetings.”
“Right.” Lauren looked past him at the microwave. “What’s that?”
“Dinner.” He paused. “There’s probably more somewhere.”
“That’s okay. I ate.”
“I didn’t think I was offering it to you.”
“Right. You were just pointing out that you have plenty of food.”
“Exactly.”
They stood for a few moments in awkward silence. James kept his eyes trained on the countdown on the microwave, not on the long stretch of Lauren’s legs or the curve of her waist or her bare shoulders.
“You can’t sleep?” James asked.
“No.” Lauren sighed. “I had a big pitch today, and I keep replaying it in my head. You know how it is.”
“Yeah.” James nodded. “I do.”
“I thought tea would help.” Lauren stepped past him, her shoulder brushing his as she opened a cupboard and took out a mug. “Do you want some?”
“Tea?” James wrinkled his nose. “I don’t even think I own tea.”
“I live here, too,” Lauren reminded him. “In case you’ve forgotten. And I love tea, so I bought some.”
“Why? It’s just expensive brown water.”
“Now you’re describing coffee.” Lauren took out a box of chamomile and dropped a bag into her cup. “Tea is great. And there’s a tea for everything — if you feel tired or you can’t sleep or you’re stressed.”
“Is there a tea for people who hate tea?”
Lauren paused, one hip cocked to the side as she thought. Then she grinned. “Sure there is. Fruit tea.”
“That’s even worse than regular tea. Then it’s just expensive pink water.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “I have no idea how we can be married when you have such bad taste.”
The microwave dinged. James turned away to take his food out, relieved.
Lauren’s reminder that they were married had hit him right in the chest. He’d almost been able to forget this week, since they’d barely seen each other.
Of course, it was normal for a husband and wife to meet in the kitchen at night — probably. He wasn’t really sure.
“Well, I should go,” he said.
“Don’t be silly. Sit at the table. I’ll leave in a minute.”
James couldn’t leave then, not without looking like a coward, so he sat at the table and poked at the dry salmon.
He was never sure whether his personal chef wasn’t very good or whether a week in the fridge and a few minutes in the microwave leeched the moisture out.
He didn’t care much either way. There were more important things in his life than food.
Lauren put on the electric kettle and leaned against the counter.
“What have you been doing this week?” James asked. “I’ve barely seen you.”
“Working. You should try it sometime.”
“May I remind you again that I’ve been in business meetings until three a.m.? I’m clearly working just as hard as you.”
“That’s just poor planning.”
“Like you’re so perfect.”
“I am, thanks.” She grinned as she poured water into her mug.
“Not to mention full of yourself.”
“That’s the natural side effect of being as great as I am.” She winked, and James laughed.
“I like how confident you are, even at three in the morning.”
Lauren gave a little curtsey. “I have to be my own biggest advocate. I don’t have family who can do that for me.”
James frowned. Lauren had mentioned something about not having a wealthy family before, but this made it sound like she didn’t have any family at all.
After all, any family could be good advocates, whether they were wealthy or not.
James opened his mouth, ready to ask about it, when Lauren straightened up.
“Okay, that’s it for me. My tea’s ready. I’ll just go enjoy my expensive hot brown water. Sleep well.”
“You, too.”
Lauren padded out of the kitchen on bare feet, leaving James alone and reeling. The exchange they’d just had wasn’t all that different from the hundreds of times they’d bantered before. Yet it had felt different, because it had been at night in his kitchen, and because Lauren had been in pajamas.
James picked at his food for a while. He couldn’t get the image of Lauren’s long, tan legs in those short pajama shorts out of his mind, which made him feel terrible. The last thing he wanted was to objectify her.
Even though she was his wife.
Almost worse was the fact that he couldn’t get her family out of his mind.
He’d been so close to asking her about her parents, which would have been a mistake.
The closer they got, the more dangerous this was.
It had been better when they hadn’t seen each other at all.
It had been better when he’d found Lauren attractive but hadn’t been interested in her personal life.
Finally, James packed up the rest of his food and went to bed, where he lay awake for a long time, staring at the dark ceiling.
“We need to talk.”
James looked up from the contract he’d been reviewing to see Lauren framed in his office doorway. She was dressed normally again, in a pair of gray slacks and a white blouse, but James couldn’t forget the image of her in pajamas.
“About?” he asked. It was strange for her to turn up at his home office, even though it was just down the hall from hers. She’d never done this before.
“About our marriage,” Lauren said, making quotation marks with her fingers around the last word. “When you said you’d barely seen me last night, it reminded me that we haven’t made any public appearances yet. If we want people to believe that we’re married, we need to start being seen together.”
James tilted his laptop shut and looked at her. “You want us to go out on, what, a date?”
“Not a real one.” Lauren paused, as if the next sentence was difficult to get out. “But yes.”
“Fine,” James agreed. It would be better to see Lauren in broad daylight in a nice restaurant than in his kitchen at three a.m. “When?”
“Tonight?” Lauren asked. “Unless you’re too tired from all your meetings.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll make a reservation somewhere.”
“I can do it.”
James raised his eyebrows. “No need to make this a power struggle. I’ll pick a place this time, and you can pick next time. Deal?”
“Deal.” Lauren nodded briskly. “Meet me in the entryway at eight.”
“Sounds good.”
With that, Lauren left his office again.
James reopened his laptop, but he couldn’t get back into the contract.
Instead, he started looking up restaurants.
He needed something upscale enough to be a believable destination for a wealthy, newly married couple.
Yet it also shouldn’t be so romantic that it led to awkwardness between him and Lauren.
Eventually, he settled on an Italian place he’d heard good things about and made a reservation for eight thirty that night.
James had barely dated in the last decade. He’d been completely focused on work; he’d had to be. That meant that now, when he was finally going out with someone, it was his fake wife. It all felt very strange and unnatural.
He spent the rest of the day wondering what they would talk about and if they could pull off the ruse of being a married couple in public. And, despite himself, he wondered if they’d have a quiet moment or two to get to know each other better.