Chapter Three Jasmine #2
“I’m the woman who’s gonna be the reason he loses his job, because I’m better at my job than he is at his job.
” Wow. That was a lot of jobs. I stared at her for a moment, taking in her beauty, while experiencing a new emotion that couldn’t have been jealousy, but I didn’t have a better word for it.
Before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth again.
“Did you know that he shit his pants on a roller coaster when he was fifteen?” Her gasp punctuated the silence that had fallen in the dining room.
“Okay.” Cassie, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “We should go now.”
“And he probably still sleeps with a night-light,” I shouted.
“That’s enough, Jas.” Cassie was now tugging me away from Derek’s table.
“Wait.” I tugged my arm out of her grasp and snatched a shrimp off Derek’s plate before popping it whole into my mouth, including the tail, which I immediately regretted. “Okay, now we can go.”
A little over a week had passed since the incident at The Capital Grille. I didn’t remember everything that happened that night, but Cassie, despite having ingested twice as many drinks as I had, remembered everything and insisted on giving me the blow-by-blow account until I begged her to stop.
I’d spent the ensuing nine days prepping for the research trip to Miller’s Cove and honoring the promise I’d made to God while lying face down on the cold tile of my bathroom floor: to never touch another drop of alcohol for the rest of my life.
Apparently, Derek Carter was such a big shot at MasonCorp that he warranted a private chartered flight to Miller’s Cove. However, since we now worked for the same company and were going to the same place, I would be forced to share the flight with Derek.
I entered the plane and jumped when I was greeted by a large, furry brown dog with what looked like tiger stripes—and no sign of Derek.
I put out my hand for the dog to sniff, a trick I’d learned when volunteering at an animal shelter in high school.
He evidently decided I was safe because he licked my palm.
I bent down to scratch behind his ears while wondering, or maybe hoping, I’d somehow gotten on the wrong plane.
Those hopes were dashed when the bathroom door on the plane opened.
“I’d be careful, if I were you,” Derek quipped. “Tora can sense evil.”
“Well, Tora clearly knows I can be trusted.” I tipped my chin to the dog’s tail, which was wagging excitedly as I continued to scratch.
“Strange,” Derek mused. “He’s usually a good judge of character.” He lowered himself into a seat and buckled himself in before pulling out his phone.
“He must not be, if he hasn’t bitten your face off yet.
” I smiled and rose to my feet before choosing a window seat a few rows away from him.
Tora followed me, jumped into the chair next to mine, and lay across my lap, nudging my hand with the top of his head, urging me to continue his deep tissue massage.
I looked up to see Derek staring at his dog in seeming disbelief. I shot him a smug smirk and shrugged. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head in response.
Tora didn’t leave my side for the entire flight, which I was grateful for during the takeoff, the landing, and the surprising number of pockets of turbulence we hit during our three-hour flight.
If Derek minded me monopolizing the company of his furry companion, he didn’t mention it—which was nice, but it still didn’t change our predicament.
Upon landing, we were greeted by a man holding a sign with both of our names on it. He led us to a van Derek and I would have to share to Miller’s Cove.
“So what brings you to Miller’s Cove?” the driver asked about fifteen minutes into the ride.
“A friend of mine gets these cookies that are only made here, and they were so delicious that I had to know more,” I answered.
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. Miller’s Cove was founded in the twenties by John William Pike.
He was a famous inventor—well, famous around these parts.
That man could do things with machines nobody else could.
It made him rich, too. But the things he did with wheat and flour…
well, you can’t get the kind of baked goods you get in Miller’s Cove anywhere else in the world, and I’ve been around. ”
“Hmm,” I mused and shot Derek a smug look and raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat.
“I was interested in the landscape. The weather is perfect. There’s a beautiful beach and it just seems like such a peaceful place. I thought it would be a great place for a vacation.”
“You’d be right about that. I don’t think there’s a better place on this whole earth than Miller’s Cove. Everything you need is there. It’s even pretty when it rains, and the people will treat you like family.”
Derek turned to me and mimicked my smug expression. I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
“But we’ve had our share of troubles,” he continued.
Derek and I both shifted our focus to him.
“Every once in a while, we get outsiders thinking they can come in and change things. We can spot them a mile away”—he laughed, and we joined in with uneasy chuckles—“but we welcome visitors like a nice married couple like you two.”
Our laughter stopped, and we were silent for the rest of the ride.
We finally reached The Derry House, the bed-and-breakfast where we’d be staying for the duration of our research trip from hell. I was looking forward to putting as many walls as I could between Derek and me, but fate had other plans.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” a short, copper-brown-skinned woman with long, straight gray hair who seemed to be in her sixties, greeted us, looking stressed out. “I’m Cynthia Foreman, and I’m the owner.”
“That’s no problem, Cynthia,” I responded. “Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”
“Oh, I’m okay,” she sighed, “and you’re so sweet for asking.
We’re dealing with a beast of a plumbing issue.
” Upon seeing the expression on our faces, she added, “I know you originally reserved our two bedroom suite, but our one-bedroom deluxe suite wasn’t affected, so you two will be just fine.
It’s plenty spacious.” She smiled at us, and I felt my face freeze in a frozen smile mimicking her expression.
One bedroom? How was that going to work?
The phone on the wall behind her let out a shrill ring. “Please give me a moment; that’s gotta be Henry. He’s the plumber.” I nodded, and she turned to answer the phone.
My brain whirred as I turned to face Derek with wide eyes.
His tense look made it apparent that he was having the same horrible thought that I was, but I didn’t want to be the one to say it.
We needed two bedrooms, but how would we explain such an odd request to Cynthia in the middle of a plumbing crisis?
We were out of options. Thankfully, Derek said the quiet part out loud because I was still in denial.
“Okay, if we want to stay here long enough to get the information we need for our proposals, we’re gonna have to go along with this marriage thing.”
I nodded. “Our last name can’t be Carter.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’t gonna be Morgan,” he snapped.
“What I’m saying is,” I said in an exasperated sigh, “if we check in under either of our real names, they could Google us.”
He nodded in agreement, and I couldn’t believe that thought hadn’t occurred to him. This was the person I was competing with for my job? I wouldn’t be dusting off my CV any time soon.
“Fine, our last name will be Boyce,” he whispered after checking that our proprietor was still distracted by her phone call.
“Your mom’s maiden name?”
“Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I always liked your mother.”
“Good.” His sour expression momentarily dropped. “She always liked you, too.”
“Great.” I nodded.
“Great,” he agreed.
When Cynthia finally finished her call, we checked into The Derry House as Jasmine and Derek Boyce and paid cash for our reservation.
Derek offered to carry my suitcase up the stairs. It was no doubt a ploy to keep up this ridiculous marriage ruse in front of Mrs. Foreman. I pointed this out when we were out of her earshot, and he responded by demanding to know how I knew she was married.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this”—I stopped and turned to him.
He was trailing behind me on the staircase and looked like a bellhop from a screwball comedy—“but married people tend to wear wedding rings.” I held up my bare left hand.
“If you were paying attention, you would have noticed that Mrs. Foreman is wearing one.”
“Well,” he groaned, “since I’m so bad at being observant, why don’t you carry this heavy-ass suitcase the rest of the way up? I could miss an important detail like a step and fall down and break my neck.”
“We’re almost there,” I quipped with a smile. “I think you’ll be fine.”
The one-bedroom suite was more like a one-bedroom apartment.
The front door opened into a large kitchen that was fully stocked with appliances and a large, round wooden table with four chairs in the center.
Beyond the kitchen was a living room with large windows covered with thick, dark curtains.
There was one large bedroom with a king-size bed and a full bathroom with a shower stall and a claw-foot tub.
The apartment was beautiful and modern. There was a vase full of fresh flowers that filled the entire space with an intoxicating smell.
I couldn’t even allow myself to get more comfortable in my temporary new home before I realized that we had one last hurdle to jump. Derek had tossed his large leather duffle bag on the bed and was about to place his laptop bag on the dresser.
“Why would you assume that you get the bedroom?” I dug my fist into my hips and glared at him.
“Look at this couch.” He pointed to the small, foldout sofa. “I doubt I’d even fit on this thing, and Tora and I need more space.”
“The couch folds out, and Tora looks like he’s doing fine.” Derek’s dog was curled up on a small area rug under one of the large windows.
“Well, we can’t share the bedroom.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Let’s flip a coin.”
“Fine.” I reached for my purse.
“Uh-uh, I’ll get the coin. You probably have a double-sided joint.”
“One: screw you,” I muttered. “And two: flipping the coin was your idea.”
“Call it.” He ignored me and tossed the quarter he had retrieved from his pocket into the air above us.
“Heads.” I shrugged.
Derek caught the coin and slapped it on the back of his hand before looking at it.
“Well?” I asked in an impatient voice.
“This couch better be comfortable,” he grumbled and grabbed his duffle bag.
“Tough luck, Derek.” I couldn’t stop smiling before grabbing my suitcase and rolling it toward the bedroom. “You better get used to losing to me. It won’t be the last time.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“By the way, thanks for carrying my suitcase up the stairs.”
“Well, don’t read too much into that.” He pulled the cushions off the couch in order to open the bed inside. “I was just trying to keep up appearances. I would hate for you to think I was a considerate person.”