by Maya Rodale
“You don’t spend much on your wardrobe do you?” I teased, needing to lighten the moment. It was strange to think that maybe he and I weren’t so different after all. Because if that was true—if we had a real connection—then I could totally fall for him. I could think we had a chance to be real.
“Free T-shirts,” he said with a grin.
“Everyone thought Sam and I would get married. They thought I had it all figured out—the job, the guy, the matching sweater sets. I miss that. In the meantime, I’ll just do what I can to make it look like I’m not a total disaster while I figure stuff out.”
“Do you miss having all that or do you miss everyone thinking that of you?”
Wasn’t he an observant one.
“Yes. Both. I don’t know.” He smiled and laughed softly at my scatter-brained answer. “Do you know why I moved to New York? A moment of peer-pressure induced panic. I just blurted out that I was moving to New York and writing a novel.”
“So you moved to New York and started writing a novel. Obviously.”
“It’s the pity in their eyes that I can’t stand,” I confessed.
“It’s the worst,” the Duke said passionately. We laughed. “I got it all the time after my second startup failed. I wanted to punch the person. It was bad.”
“You know why Sam broke up with me?” While we were having a heart to heart, I figured I might as well go all the way.
“Nope. And I’m not guessing either,” he said. Smart man.
“I was too good,” I said. Then, with a wry smile I added, “Too chaste and proper.”
“If only he could see you now,” Duke murmured.
“Yeah. Exactly.” In a five-star hotel bed with a hot guy whom I barely knew and with whom I’d done all sorts of naughty stuff. The kinds of things that Sam had hinted at doing . . . But Duke just took control and made it happen and made sure I enjoyed it too much to protest.
“Should we take a picture for Instagram?”
Yes. Look at me now!
“No,” I said, listening to my better judgment. “. I can’t have naked pictures of me out there! What will people at work say?”
“You shouldn’t care so much about what other people think,” Duke said.
“Haha, coming from you!” I said. Then, tracing my fingertips along his chest, I asked, “What if you didn’t care so much either?”
“Then we wouldn’t be here,” he said softly. Gaze fixed on mine. His hand caressing my waist.
“Yet here we are,” I whispered.
“Just you and me,” he murmured.
Cubic Zirconia. Cubic Zirconia. Cubic Zirconia.
But it felt so real.
Chapter Nine
* * *
New York Public Library
Word count: 48,006
Calls from Duke: 0
Tweets from Duke: 0
Facebook messages of any kind from Duke: 0
Text messages from Duke: BIG. FAT. ZERO.
A FEW DAYS later I was back at the library, shelving returned books and wondering if I had made the whole thing up. Much of the weekend was spent in a blur of writing (me) and meetings (him). But then there were the stolen interludes in the morning and afternoon when he snuck back to the room. We locked the door and . . . Oh, I got all hot and bothered just thinking about it.
And then the nights . . .
Nights in which very little sleeping was done. Nights in which I didn’t think in sentences, including the phrase “in which” because I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just feeling his mouth, everywhere. His hands, skimming up my legs, playfully slapping my bottom, caressing my breasts, stroking my back and torturing me in just the place where it felt So. Damn. Good. His weight, on top me. Except for when I straddled him or I was bent over the bed or . . .
God, I was making myself blush. At work. Just thinking about him.
In that post-sex haze glow we stayed up late, having those intimate, exhilarating, confessional conversations before making love again. We were high on the thrill of fooling the whole world. Every hour that passed that this crazy deception seemed to work made us bold. We shared a secret. And we were fooling ourselves. Or was that just me?
We flew back to New York and shared a cab into the city. I wanted to ask him what happened next. Where did we go from here? Had it stopped being just a hoax—had a little bit of this been real?
But I, lust addled and on my way to falling in love, just kissed him instead. All the way from JFK to West 15th Street.
“See you later, Sweater Set,” he murmured.
I pulled him close for one last kiss, grabbing a handful of his WebVan T-shirt. I savored the taste of him, breathed him in. Duke ran his fingers through my hair, pulled me close, and didn’t let me go even though the meter was running. This kiss was costing him, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t afford.
But that was four days ago.
I was increasingly vexed. It wasn’t just the crash after the crazy sex high. It was those stupid late night conversations when we talked. About our feelings. I tried to just have fun. I tried not to overthink it. But the craving for him was intense and relentless.
His silence was devastating. It felt like rejection.
Cubic Zirconia, Jane. Don’t forget.
I was at work on Thursday when I had to shelve books in the rare books room where Duke and I had first hooked up. The place was pristine and you’d never know what sort of debauchery had occurred up against those shelves or on the floor . . .
Had I made it all up? No, that had been real.
I texted Roxanna.
Jane Sparks: He STILL hasn’t called.
Roxanna Lane: Tech guys don’t call.
Right. They could build the whole freaking Internet but couldn’t dial a phone number. Which they didn’t even have to do anymore, they just had to touch the screen, once, and let it ring. He could at least say, “Siri, call Jane.” It had never been easier to call a girl and they didn’t. Just didn’t.
Jane Sparks: Well he hasn’t texted or twittered at me or whatever. What do you think that means?
Roxanna Lane: I think it means he’s slammed with work because he’s trying to score that big investment which every company dreams of. Why don’t you call him?
Because I wanted him to call me. Because I read and wrote novels where it was forbidden for unmarried ladies to call upon a man, especially a bachelor. Because I’m still old fashioned. Because I might have bought a copy of The Rules when it came out. Because all that aside, I wasn’t sure what was happening and I wanted reassurance from him. I couldn’t be bothered to explain all that in a text message, so I just texted “Ugh.”
Roxanna Lane: Drinks later?
Jane Sparks: Totes!
Roxanna Lane: What did I tell you about using words like totes, obvs or adorbs?
Jane Sparks: LOLZ ;)
Roxanna Lane: Argh!!!!
But I wasn’t LOL-ing or anything because I was in the library where it was deadly quiet. I had to keep my phone on silent. I also kept it in the pocket of my cardigan so I could feel it vibrate if Duke decided to remember that we were pretend engaged and wanted to get together for more of the crazy hot sex we had. For real. My phone didn’t ring. Or vibrate. There was no word from Duke.
When I was in high school, crushing on Sam, I had figured out his class schedule and would take bathroom breaks only as an excuse to pass by his classroom and catch a glimpse of him. It had taken me weeks to figure out that he was in chemistry during third period, had algebra just before lunch or AP United States History when I had study hall.
Thanks to FourSquare, I knew that Duke had checked into Central Park with 29 others for a few laps around the park on his bike before my first cup of coffee in the morning.
When I checked into work at the New York Public Library he checked into Soho House for breakfast meetings.
I saw him check in at the Project-TK’s offices.
While I grabbed a quick lunch at the bodega around the
corner, he checked into late lunches the Breslin with Augustus Grey, his lawyer and other startup executives. He checked into bars after work—around eight or nine at night, when I was already home on the couch watching terrible reality shows with Roxanna.
I knew where he was at almost any given moment. I knew who he was with. I knew what articles he was reading, what songs he was listening to on Spotify. I saw pictures of his meals he didn’t share with me, or sunsets he witnessed without me. I knew who he was friends with.
But I didn’t know why he didn’t call (or text, or whatever). I didn’t know what he was thinking about me or feeling about me.
It was so strange to know everything and nothing about him all at once.
If he were really a tech genius he’d solve that problem. An app for boys to communicate their feelings to the girls they were sleeping with. Make it multiple choice, whatever. Something, I just wanted something.
I finally got something later that afternoon. A text. My relief was palpable.
Duke Austen: Put on your sweater set. Funding announcement in the morning, party tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up @ 8.
Bar Veloce—later
“This. What does this mean?” I asked Roxanna, holding out my phone for her to see the text from Duke.
“Here let me see,” she said, reaching for my phone.
“Paws off! Read it with your eyes not your hands,” I admonished. I also took care not to spill our drinks. I desperately needed mine tonight and my usual chardonnay might not cut it.
“I can’t believe you’re still mad about that,” Roxanna scoffed.
“Oh, I’m not mad, just wiser.”
“But still totally flummoxed by your bad boy billionaire boyfriend.”
“Is this a date? Or just part of our fauxmance? The man is a mystery.”
“No he’s not. You just can’t read the code.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
I knew I was making this into A Thing. I should have known that I couldn’t have sex without feelings getting involved. Untangling what was real and what was fake was an impossible knot. And all I had wanted was a date to a party three months from now. I just happen to have gotten the best sex of my life and I wanted more of it. My life, too, had finally taken a turn to something adventurous, and exhilarating. I couldn’t go back now.
“Are you having kitten feelings, Jane? Are you falling for him?”
“I write romance novels, Roxanna. Of course I’m falling for him.” Of course, because I had trained myself to look for happily-ever-after and I had developed oceans of patience and hope that the hero would eventually realize that he was being an obtuse ass, to use the Regency term. But my patience was starting to fray and I was aching for his touch. “I just don’t want to fall anymore if he doesn’t return my feelings. So what do I do about this?”
“Put on a sweater set and your big girl panties and go to the party. But wear that sweater set with an insanely short skirt and ridiculously high heels and make him want you.”
Chapter Ten
* * *
Park Bar
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token {
I BOUGHT A new dress. It was navy blue, a perfectly respectable color. The neckline was so high it brushed against my collarbone, where Duke had kissed me and shown me just how delicate and sensitive a spot it was. The sleeves covered my wrists, where a Regency rogue might have dared a kiss upon a respectable lady. The skirt was wickedly short. I paired it with towering high heels, which nearly led to my premature death as I tried to walk down the stairs.
Duke picked me up at eight, just like he said. He was leaning against his car—a black Tesla Model S, along with a driver—waiting for me and watching as I walked toward him. For his big night of triumph he wore his usual outfit, this time with a Project-TK T-shirt. He grinned and whistled when he saw me, which was totally juvenile but totally effective in making me blush and making me feel hot.
Trying to get in the back seat, in the miniskirt, while retaining my modesty was just not happening.
“Stop laughing,” I protested. “And don’t look!”
“I’ve already seen you, Jane,” he murmured once I’d gotten in and shut the door.
“Congratulations, by the way.”
“On seeing you naked?”
“No, on getting your funding.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
In the dark we smiled at each other. He took my hand in his, when I wanted his hands all over me. I needed to taste him, to feel him, to be utterly possessed by him. As if he could read my mind, he pulled me close and kissed me hard until the car rolled to a stop in front of Park Bar on Tenth Avenue.
Cubic Zirconia, Jane.
But after tonight . . . maybe, just maybe it could become something real. With the funding secured, he surely wasn’t beholden to anyone any more. We didn’t have to “break up.” We could just see where things went . . .
Or so I hoped. Desperately.
We skipped the line and went straight into the party, hand in hand. It was a mob scene. Everyone was keen to talk to him and desperate to get near him. I was jostled by the crowd and pushed farther and farther away from him until our hands were forced apart. He was the man of the hour. He was crazy rich. More importantly, he’d broken the spell. After two epic disasters, success was his.
Taking a deep breath, I went over to the bar and got myself a glass of champagne. Every so often he caught my eye from across the crowded room. I saw an apologetic smile. I saw the way he tried to move closer to me. It was his night. I didn’t want to be the demanding bitch fiancé. So I hovered and let him have his moment in the spotlight and imagined what it must be like to be him right now.
Hours later I was back by his side, on my third glass of champagne as he talked about how thrilled he was with his success, how hard it’d been, how far he’d come, his vision and plans for the future. I eyed their ties . . . I eyed Duke . . . I’d never before felt desire that burned so hot and burned so bright. For safety’s sake I should back off, but I was drawn to the warmth, drawn to the light, drawn to danger.
My heart kept forgetting we’d made a bunch of this up and certain other parts of me didn’t care so long as it kept happening.
But how did you fake those late night, confessional conversations? It couldn’t be possible. I thought it meant we had a chance because we had really connected.
How could he look at me like that—like he was imagining me naked—and not mean it? And could he tell how badly I wanted to rip off his T-shirt and everything else?
How could I crave his scent, his touch, the taste of him so intensely and so constantly? I had been drugged, surely. How could I live with an addiction like that?
Somewhere along the line this stopped being just about a hot date for my reunion, and I didn’t even really care about his billions. I cared only about the true connection of a real embrace, skin against skin, mouth to mouth, heartbeat to heartbeat.
Finally, we found ourselves alone, relatively speaking. We were in a dark corner, his back to the room, as if protecting me from the crowd and creating a cocoon for just the two of us. We kissed the kind of kiss that if anyone saw it, they would have no doubts about us. My heart beat hard. A girl could dare to dream.
It was then, of course, that my phone vibrated with a text message. I had no intention of looking at it now, not when I was finally alone with Duke and maybe, just maybe, I might just might figure out if someone along the lines this story had gone from make-believe to my actual love life.
“Did you get a text? You have to look.”
“Some of us can ignore our phones,” I said haughtily.
“Some of us can’t. C’mon check.”
“Fine,” I said, laughing. That is, until I read it.
I glanced up at Duke, curiously looking down at me, and held out the phone so he could read it.
Sam Chase: Hey Jane. I’m in the city for a teacher’s conference. Ended up with some fre
e time, want to meet for a drink tonight?
I couldn’t take my eyes off Duke as he read the message. My heart was pounding, as if his expression would reveal a clue about his feelings for me. It struck me that the text I’d been waiting months for was now completely overshadowed by what my pretend fiancé may or may not have to say about it.
Duke knew what this meant for me. In our late night talks, I’d told him a little more about Sam—how we’d been together since high school and how I didn’t quite know myself without him. What I hadn’t gotten to tell Duke yet was that I wanted to know myself with him.
This stupid text and how I only cared about what Duke would say just proved that I’d moved on from Sam. For the first time in my life, I imagined a different happily ever after for myself. The question was, how would my bad boy billionaire respond to it?
More than anything I wanted him to say Forget that guy, Janet. Stay with me.
“You should go,” Duke said.
“What?”
And by what I didn’t mean: “Hey this music is loud I didn’t hear you.” By what I meant “I’m sorry, you just said the totally wrong thing and I’d like to give you a second chance out of the goodness of my heart because I’m the kind of girl who does stuff out of the goodness of her heart.”
“You should go, Jane. I’m gonna be here for a while. Lots of people I have to talk to. It’ll be boring for you.”
“You mean, since you’ve convinced everyone that you’re all respectable now you want to have fun,” I said, trying to laugh it off. But I’m afraid the bitterness came through. I didn’t want to wreck his big night, but I needed some kind of confirmation or assurance from him and I was getting exactly the opposite. “Now you want your good little fiancé to go home, get out of the way.”
“What is this about?” He looked wounded. I felt awful. I felt, all at once, every minute of every hour of every day that he didn’t text or call or anything after I had bared myself, body and soul, to him. “I thought you still wanted to get your ex back.”
