13. Sierra
SIERRA
R o came to stand next to me, barking out a laugh. “Looks like a gremlin!” She eyed Finn. “Did you feed it after midnight?”
Finn walked around the kitchen island, the wrinkled blob of skin sitting down at his feet. He scooped it into his arms, stroking its fleshy hide. “It’s a Sphynx cat,” he said, narrowing his eyes in a perfect imitation of the cat.
“It looks like it has a medical condition,” Ro said.
“It’s a hairless cat,” he grumbled. “It’s supposed to look this way.”
“You have a cat.” It wasn’t a question because I could see it right there, but at the same time. It was a cat. “How did I not know you have a cat? What if I had allergies? This would be a deal breaker.”
“Do you have allergies?” His eyes were still doing that cat imitation.
“Well, no. But you have a cat.”
“Yes, I’ve already established that.” His frown was making his forehead wrinkle and I didn’t want to point out how much they sort of looked alike .
“Why didn’t I know? Does anyone know?” I really needed to shut up about the cat, but I was in shock.
He rolled his eyes and he was back to looking more human. “Well, it’s not mentioned on my IMDB page, but I don’t keep it a secret.”
“Maybe you should,” Ro said.
I tilted my head, examining the cat. It really did look like a gremlin.
But judging by the immaculate state of Finn’s place, it wasn’t a total surprise that he wasn’t the type to want to deal with cat hair.
Maybe it made sense that this was the kind of pet he’d choose although I couldn’t imagine him having any kind of pet.
Next thing he’s going to tell us, he has hobbies.
“I don’t know,” Ro continued, “it looks sort of…saggy. Maybe it needs to be on medication? I think you should at least take it to see a vet.”
“Lord Meowington III is in peak condition,” Finn said, clearly taking offense. “Thanks to his diet of organ meat and whole fish.”
“Meowington?” I said. Oh Lord.
“Better watch yourself,” Ro muttered, nudging me hard. “Or you might get added to his raw diet.”
“No chance of that,” Finn said. “All the RevX in your body would kill him.” He whirled around, taking a yowling Lord Meowington III with him.
“Finn did not strike me as a cat guy. Interesting development,” Ro said. “You think there’s a Lord Meowington I and II around here somewhere?”
God, I hoped not. I really should have asked for more than Ro’s directorial debut if Finn and his entitled, pampered cat were going to be this insufferable .
For the next hour, Ro and I directed the movers to my new digs.
Finn had finally shown me to the guest room once he was done being offended by my dairy products and whispering sweet nothings to Lord Meowington.
The space was furnished like a swanky hotel suite, not that I’d ever stayed somewhere that expensive in my life.
No wonder Finn had instructed me to leave my furniture at the Beverlywood apartment. My Ikea dresser never would have looked right in here, much less the bookcase I got when someone left it on the street.
When the movers finished, I said goodbye to Ro, she wished me good luck, and I sat myself down at the fancy island counter in the kitchen, watching Finn putter around the stove.
I suppose I could have just hung out in my room while I waited for dinner to be ready, but it felt lonely in there.
Company seemed like the better option, even if it was his company.
“What?” he asked when he turned around.
“Nothing,” I said, my eyes darting to where he’d rolled the sleeves of his shirt up, showing off two very muscular forearms. “I’m just surprised you don’t have a guy to make you dinner.”
“I do,” he said. “But I didn’t know how long the movers would be underfoot, so I gave the man the night off.”
At the other end of the counter, Lord Meowington was wearing an actual sweater.
I stared at the strange creature that looked as if it’d just strolled down the gangway from a yacht.
Finn placed a dish—nicer than anything I owned—in front of it, and it chowed down on whatever raw organ thing he’d prepared.
This was a side to Finn Lockhart that I had no idea what to do with.
My asshole boss, it seemed, had a fondness for pudgy, hairless creatures.
“Do you even know how to cook?” I blurted out, needing a distraction from this surreal moment. “Should I be concerned? ”
“Did you just ask me that? You who shows up with expired dairy products?”
“It expires today !”
He set a simple pasta dish down in front of me, and I was a little impressed that it actually smelled delicious—buttery garlic noodles with a fresh tomato and basil sauce. “Don’t complain,” he growled as I opened my mouth.
“I wasn’t going to,” I muttered, picking up the fork he set down in front of me and trying a bite.
It was tasty, and I was starving, so you wouldn’t catch me complaining.
He watched me for a beat, then turned and dished up his own plate.
“So,” he said, sitting down across from me and completely ignoring the grumbling growly noises coming from the cat as it ate.
“Jillian suggested we should probably figure out the terms of this engagement.”
“What kind of terms?” I asked. I’d agreed to play along, and I’d moved in. What more was needed?
“Boundaries,” he said. “So we’re not stumbling through things in public. If we’re engaged, we shouldn’t be photographed looking awkward.”
“Fine with me,” I said, studying his face as he looked down at his plate. There was a bit of scruff on his jaw, like he’d been too busy to shave this morning. I liked it. A little scruff, a little mess, looked good on him.
“PDA has to be a yes,” Finn said, glancing up at me. I looked away, nodding. “Especially during the three interviews Jillian already has set up for us.”
“I’m going to need you to be a little more specific,” I said. PDA could entail a lot of things, and as I thought of those things, with him , heat gathered in my chest and I placed my hands flat down on the cool marble to keep from fanning myself.
“Hugging?” he said.
“Yes,” I said, studying his expression. “That’s fine.”
“Holding hands?”
I nodded.
“Kissing?”
I coughed, choking on my pasta and grabbed my linen napkin because, of course it was linen.
“You have to be able to pull off a little peck in public,” he said.
“You remember me saying I’m not a good liar, right?” Hugging and holding hands were one thing, but a kiss? “My body language always gives me away. I don’t think I could make a fake kiss look anything other than stiff and awkward. It’s probably better if we don’t.”
“How else do you expect us to sell this story?” he asked. “If you’re a little stiff, we’ll just sell it as you not being used to being in front of so many cameras.”
“How romantic,” I muttered, poking at my food again. “And what about the ring?” I asked, feeling the weight of the small box in my pocket. I still hadn’t opened it.
Finn shrugged. “Something I had lying around. I figured it would help sell the ruse. You have to wear something in public, or people are going to start asking questions.”
“Was it originally intended to be an engagement ring?” I wondered.
Finn tugged at the collar of his shirt, adjusting it. “No idea. It was just an heirloom sitting around collecting dust. ”
I felt a little better knowing he hadn’t specifically bought it for this purpose.
“So, darling…”
“Darling!” I grimaced. “No way.”
“What?” Finn shot me a smug grin. “We need a pet name or two. And darling is classy, very old Hollywood.”
“Old Hollywood? Is that the vibe we’re going for?” I snorted. “In that case, I’m calling you baby doll.”
He rolled his eyes and grumbled, “Be serious.”
“I am, sugar puss.”
“Fine, if you don’t like darling, what do you want to be called?” he asked. “Babe? Baby?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Definitely not baby.”
He hummed, caught up in thought as he rubbed at the scruff along his jaw. “Maybe we should go for something more personalized—maybe costume related.”
That sounded horrible. Was he going to call me thimble? Shears? “Like what?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
He shrugged. “Stitchy? Threadmaster? Fabric queen?”
Geez, if those were my options, I might actually prefer thimble. I massaged my forehead. “You’re terrible at this.”
“Cinderella?” he suggested.
“Why Cinderella?”
“You know…” He waved his hand. “’Cause she made that dress or whatever from scraps. With all her birds and mice. She was basically th e OG costume designer. Then the fairy godmother came along pushing her fast-fashion agenda.”
I burst out laughing. “Why have I never thought about it like that before?”
“See, Cinderella is perfect,” he said, firing off a text. “Jillian can spin it to the tabloids. Say that I’ve found my princess, my perfect fit. Dream come true, all that nonsense.”
I tried not to smile at the thought of him calling me Cinderella. “Yes, nonsense is the key word there.”
By the time evening rolled around and we’d ironed out the boundaries of this fake relationship, I was exhausted. Finn walked me down the hall to my new bedroom.
“Thanks for dinner,” I said, pausing outside my door.
“Carlos will be back tomorrow,” he assured me, “so you won’t have to be subjected to any more of my cooking.”
“Carlos doesn’t have to cook for me.”
“The man likes to cook,” he said. “You’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t let him. Compromise .”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Fine.” I leaned up against the door frame.
For a brief second, it felt like being dropped off after a date.
My heart fluttered at how close Finn was standing, his hands stuffed in his pockets, the ghost of a smile on his face.
Was he leaning toward me? Oh, God, he wasn’t actually going to kiss me, was he?
We weren’t testing out that PDA stuff yet, were we?
“Make sure you try the ring on at some point to make sure it fits,” he said, shattering the illusion. “Wouldn’t want it falling off during the interviews.” He turned on his heel, tossing a “Goodnight, Cinderella” over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hall .
“Goodnight,” I muttered, watching Lord Meowington slink down the hall after him. The cat paused, turning back to level me with a beady stare. Yep, message well received. I’d be giving that thing a wide berth.
I slipped into my room to hide my strange disappointment. I hadn’t wanted Finn to kiss me, had I? No…no, definitely not.
I sat on the edge of the massive four-poster bed and finally opened the jewelry box.
The ring was stunning, of course, but also modern in a way that seemed odd, given that he’d said it was an heirloom.
“Veritique, huh.” I’d never heard of the brand but the way Ro gushed, it was a big deal and definitely not something found on one of her thrifting trips.
I slipped it on my finger just to get used to the feel and fell back against the bed, my thoughts drifting to Finn as I stared at the cut of the diamond.
Finn making me dinner. Finn down on one knee.
Finn shrugging out of his shirt in the warehouse.
Then the Finn in my mind was shrugging out of a lot more than just his shirt, and those thoughts dragged me into a very dirty dream.