“Wow. That’s really sad.” I placed a hand on his chest because what the hell. I was his fake girlfriend. And oh, I liked touching warm steel. I felt the beating of his heart under my fingertips. I could get used to the whole fake relationship racket if it meant getting to touch him like that.
He frowned. “You’re not feeling sorry for him, are you?”
“Right now? No. He still cheated and used me. He didn’t have to lie like that, but I can’t get too angry because I can’t help feeling as if I dodged a bullet with this one.”
And I wouldn’t be here with you, with your arm around me and your face so close to mine and, boy, are you a good actor because I would swear we were really dating if I happened to see us from across the room. Hell, do you know how good you smell, and how much I want to take your shirt off right now?
He smiled softly. “I guess you did. I’m glad I was there when it happened, even if you were a completely sloppy drunk.”
I gasped and was just about to sling a retort when a male voice broke in. “I thought that was you!”
37
Mimi
We both turned to find Alexander Fields, CEO, and owner of my firm, standing in front of us. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t even know the man knew me. I was sure he couldn’t pick me out of a lineup with a gun pointed at his temple.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, when Max said, “Alex. How nice to see you here? I didn’t expect to.”
“I could say the same. This is not exactly your scene.” His voice was warm and friendly. I noticed the enthusiasm with which he shook Max’s hand. I wondered how he knew my boss. The man was a mystery to me. Suddenly, I felt like the outsider. As much as Max pretended that it was us against them. This was his world too. I found myself looking at Max in a different light.
“So what are you doing here?” Alexander Fields asked.
Max's arm snaked around my waist again. “You haven’t met my girlfriend, Mimi, have you? She…er…works with Josh.”
My boss’s eyebrows jumped before his dark eyes fell on me. “Oh, of course. Mimi. It’s so good to see you here tonight. You look lovely.” I could tell the old guy had absolutely no idea who I was. Max could have told him my name was Britney Spears and he probably would have gone along with it.
I smiled politely. “Thank you, Sir.”
Worlds were colliding before my very eyes and I had no idea what to do about it. Nobody in their right mind wanted to make small talk with their boss at a party, especially if their boss had no idea who they were. Not that I held it against him—we were a big firm with plenty of departments, and he was a busy man. However, I couldn’t help feeling a little disheartened by the fact that my boss had now been pulled into this charade.
Mr. Fields slapped Max on his back. “Maximus, my boy, this is a providential meeting,” His eyes had lit up behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “We’re spending this weekend in the Hamptons. Why don’t you join us? It would be wonderful to have you out there.” He looked at me. “Both of you, of course. Millicent and I would be delighted.”
My stomach got that empty feeling it did when I was on a roller coaster. I looked at Max. He looked at me and raised his eyebrow. I blinked to indicate that he should refuse.
At that moment, Josh and Lillian wandered over, hand in hand. Of course—Josh never missed the opportunity to brown nose with his boss.
Alexander motioned for them to come closer. “You, too, Josh. If you’re not doing anything this weekend please, come out to the Hamptons and spend it with us. It’ll be great.”
“We would love to, Alex,” Lillian cooed, managing to give me a dirty look while snuggling up to Josh. Josh, much in his fashion, looked like he’d missed the boat again.
“Well, Maximus? What say you?” my boss asked turning his attention back to Max.
Both Josh and Lillian looked at Max, and Max looked at me with a questioning look in his eyes. He was waiting for me to refuse. Dozens of excuses flew through my head. I was getting a root canal. I was repainting my apartment. I was scheduled to contract a contagious illness before then. Anything to get out of spending an entire weekend with my boss and the couple of the evening. For a fraction of a second, I even considered exposing myself to a contagious disease to get out of it. Was bird flu still a thing?
But the simple fact was, I couldn’t say no to my boss. It would be ungracious not to mention career suicide. Max had to say no for us. He must know we couldn’t go. I raised my eyebrows surreptitiously at him and willed him to find a gentle way of letting my boss down.
“I’m game if you are, sweetie,” he said softly.
I reminded myself to push him in front of a bus, or at least hurt him when we were alone again. Then my lips stretched and the words came through clenched teeth. “Of course, I’d love to.”
38
Mimi
I managed to wait until we were in the limo to lose my cool. “Do you have a paper bag for me to hyperventilate into? Or maybe a loaded gun that I can empty into the side of my head?”
Max stared at me, oblivious. “You’re that upset? Why?”
“Are you crazy? You couldn’t have told him that it was short notice and we have something else to do this weekend?”
Max settled into the seat. “So why didn’t you say it?” he challenged.
“I couldn’t turn him down. How could I? He’s my boss,” I wailed.
“Okay, okay, He put me on the spot! And you staring at me with those big eyes didn’t exactly help either.”
“What? Are you trying to blame me?” I spluttered.
“It’s hard to think when you have a boner,” he said cockily.
“It’s all a joke to you, isn’t it?” I accused furiously. My hand itched to slap that smug expression off his handsome face.
“Oh, come on, Mimi. Lighten up. It won’t be so bad.”
“Won’t be so bad? How do you figure that? A weekend with my boss who doesn’t even know who I am. What could we add to make that more uncomfortable and awkward? Oh, right! My ex and his new fiancée who hates me,” I groaned, eyes closed.
“You should view this as a great opportunity to get to know your boss. Other people would kill for a chance like this.”
I opened my eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” he says seriously.
I shake my head. He didn’t understand. I didn’t want to get to know my boss in this way. And I definitely didn’t want to spend any time at all with Josh or Lillian. I chewed my thumb and tried to think. “Maybe you can go alone. The invitation was obviously for you. Mr. Fields didn’t even know who I was until you introduced me.” I looked over at him from the corner of my eye. “Very masterfully accomplished, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, I can be smooth when I try.”
“You could have tried harder back there, Mr. Smooth.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have said you were tied up,” he argued.
“I didn’t want to be rude!”
“Neither did I! Going on my own is going to be useless since Josh will be there. Unless you want him to think we broke up.”
I exhaled. “I guess there’s no way around this, huh?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t want to spend the weekend with me.”
“Everything isn’t about you, you narcissist.”
“I’d resent that if I didn’t already know I was one.”
“Shut up. You can’t charm your way out of me being annoyed with you.” I folded my arms, swinging one of my legs back and forth.
“Wow. It’s like we’re actually a couple. We leave a party and you’re pissed at me for something I said inside.” He looked at me with one eyebrow cocked. “I mean, if I’m going to go through this kind of grief, I should at least get something out of it.”
“Just adorable.” I groaned.
“Is that a yes?” he asked hopefully.
I glared at him. “Don’t change the subject. This is serious.”
He sighed.
“It’s one thing to pretend to be together for a few of hours at a party, but a whole weekend?” Then another, more startling thought gripped me. My eyes widened. “Oh! My! God! We’ll have to share a room. One bedroom. Just the two of us in one bedroom. With one bed.”
A wicked gleam shone in his eyes. “I don’t think you should panic about that. Most girls enjoy their time in my bed.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed. “Really full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“You should know since by your own admission you’ve been listening from the other side of my bedroom wall.”
“God, you can be such an ass.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I have been called donkey once or twice.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “How can you joke about the size of your penis when we are in this mess? How are we going to pull this off? We’ll have to act like we’re…crazy about each other for a whole weekend.”
He flicked his wrist. “It’s no problem for me.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
“All right. We’ll just have to learn more about each other. Like in that movie Green Card.”
He looked at me without comprehension. “It was a great movie. I cried. This couple had to pretend to be love and married so that the guy could get a green card.” I sighed thinking of the movie. “We have to act like we’re in love too.”
He shrugged. “I think they’ll be satisfied with us being in lust.”
“What if they get us separately and grill us and our answers don’t match?”
“You have a very strange idea of what people do on weekends in the Hamptons.”
“I just want us to be convincing, is all. I would hate for them to find out we’re lying. That would be too humiliating for words.”
He nodded gravely. “Understandable.”
“Right. Let’s get to know each other better.” I turned abruptly to face him. “How do you know Alexander Fields?”
“He’s not really my friend.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, I noticed.
I narrowed my eyes. “It sure seemed like he knew you very well. Unless strangers regularly invite you to their weekend retreats.”
“I have a very trustworthy face. It’s a real problem. I can’t get a weekend to myself.”
I stared at him. “I mean it. Why did he invite you if you don’t know each other?”
He sighed, rubbing his hand over the side of his face. “He’s friends with my parents, okay? He handles my father’s financial planning, that sort of thing. They’ve known each other for years.”
“Oh, I see. I should have known.”
“Known what?”
39
Mimi
“You’re old money, aren’t you?” I said almost accusingly. For Mr. Fields himself to handle his father’s financial affairs means Max’s family must be in the super wealthy category.
He frowned. “So?”
I looked out of the window. “So nothing.”
“So you make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not. I’m just saying, I should have known. The apartment, the limo, all that.”
He shrugged it off. “Anyway, that’s how Alex knows me. I had to call him Uncle Alex when I was a kid.”
I tried to keep my face stoic, but despite my best efforts, it was cracking up. “So he could tell me all sorts of embarrassing stories about you?”
“You already know my most embarrassing story. Or were you too hammered to remember?” he teased.
“Oh, I could never forget something like that even if you pickled my brain in industrial strength alcohol.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
We pulled up in front of our building, and I waited while Max walked around the car to let me out. There we were again, face to face. It was impossible to stay annoyed with him when he smiled the way he did or looked like he did, or oh, jeez, he smelled so damn good. It wasn’t fair.
After a breathless moment, when I didn’t know whether to swoon or kiss him, he murmured, “You know what?”
“No. What?”
“I think we should go out for dinner tomorrow night at seven.” He walked up the steps, leaving me standing alone. I followed him, clomping up behind him like a horse.
“You do? Why?”
He smiled as he held the door for me. “Because we need to get to know one another and I usually get hungry around seven o’clock.”
“But I get hungry at six.”
“See. That’s one more thing we know about each other.”
I grinned. “Maybe I could eat a later lunch than usual.”
“That’s so generous. Maybe I’ll pay for dinner, then.” We waited for the elevator, and I wished it would never come. I could have stood there in that moment forever. My entire body pulsed in time with my heart.
“Oh, you know you’re paying for dinner, buddy. If you can afford a limo, you can afford my dinner.”
He looked at me funny. “I should warn you of one thing.”
“What?” I asked cautiously.
“Guys expect a little something after they pay for dinner. That’s just how the world works.” He winked.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I said friends, not friends with benefits. So you can forget any ideas of finishing the night off with a bang.”
“It was worth a try,” he mumbled glumly.
I ignored the downtrodden face and kept my voice bright. “I know let’s go somewhere I don’t have to dress up.”
“I’ll take you to the worst dive bar for the greasiest food imaginable. How’s that sound?”
“Now you’re talking.”
We laughed as we walked down the hall. I liked how he walked me to my door. I was pretty sure the night couldn’t have gone better. We made the perfect couple, even if we were a complete fake. I would never forget the looks on the faces of the other girls at the party. Envy. Straight-up ‘I want to claw your eyes out’ envy. They all wanted him.
“It’s sort of creepy up here sometimes, isn’t it?” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked as we reached my door.
“Just the two of us, on opposites sides of the floor the way we are. The silence is spooky, almost.”
I fished in my purse for my keys. “Do you wanna come in for a minute? This conversation is fascinating, but there are Megan’s shoes and if I don’t get out of these shoes in ten seconds…”
He nodded and followed me inside. I took off the shoes before I even removed my coat, sighing in satisfaction once my bare soles hit the floor. “I swear to God, how Megan manages those medieval torture devices is beyond me.”
“You were wearing pretty dangerous shoes the night we met,” he reminded me.
“They weren’t as uncomfortable as them.” I glared at the shoes, lying on the floor. I took off my coat and invited him to take his off, too. He sat on the couch and watched as I removed my earrings and bracelet. I liked the rapport between us. It felt natural.
“Like I was saying, it’s sorta spooky sometimes. So quiet.”
He grinned. “Until I bring a girl home, that is.”
That hurt somehow. I pretended to smile carelessly. “I haven’t heard any activity for the past few days. Have you moved your bed?”
“Nope.”
My heart damn near soared out of my chest and burst into a million shining pieces of pure joy. I turned my face away so he won’t see how happy I was.
40
Mimi
“Actually,” he said, “I kind of like the solitude. Maybe I’m too used to it, now. I don’t know that I could go back to living in the middle of a bunch of people ever again.”
“Are you sure you’re not just telling yourself that?”
He shook his head and jerked his chin towards the window. “I get enough noise out there. Besides, there are all those voices in my head, too.”
I laughed and sat on the piano bench, facing him. “T
hat explains so much.”
“Seriously, though. There are more than enough people out there. This is where I get a little peace and quiet. I can hear myself think.”
I chewed on the side of my mouth and mulled over what he said. “I guess you’re right. I never thought about it that way. I’m so used to the relentless noise, the police sirens, the traffic, the sound of people’s voices, that pure silence actually feels odd.”
He stared at me. “I’ll have to take you to my ranch in Iowa, where you hear nothing, not one thing, at night. It’s the most wonderful thing.”
The hairs on my hands stood because I wanted that dream of a silent night on his ranch in Iowa so much. Then my mouth opened and I began to babble out stupid, goofy things I would never say otherwise.
“I guess you’re right. There are benefits to living on an otherwise empty floor. It’s just you, and a bunch of empty apartments so you can play your music as loudly as you want, or have a massive party without the people next door pissing and moaning about it.”
He looked around. “This apartment is too small for a massive party.”
“It’s not that small,” I said, defensive. “We can’t all have big, roomy places like you, Mr. My Parents Need a Financial Advisor.”
“Ooh, touchy.”
“No. I actually don’t mind being poor.”
“You’re not poor. You have this apartment.”
I shrugged. “It’s worth nothing to me while I live in it.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “They must have made you a crazy offer by now. Why didn’t you sell? You could buy a much better apartment somewhere else.”
“I promised my grandmother I wouldn’t sell. She was strangely insistent about it. When she was dying she actually grabbed my wrist and told me that if I sold this apartment I would live to regret it.”
Dear Neighbor Page 12
