“That’s all right. I don’t—” Will began, then shut his mouth. What was he saying? He wanted her over here. True, it might kill him, but what a way to go.
Faith looked at him, took a deep breath that did interesting things to the black bikini, and slid around the square spa pool until she came to rest ten cautious centimeters away. She bounced in the rush of the jetting water, her knee bumped his, her elbow brushed his side, and she jumped and blushed, which all made him harden that much more. He was downright aching by now, and every encounter only made it worse.
“Don’t mind me,” his grandmother said cheerily.
“Did you—” Now he was the one swallowing. “Have a good time?”
She laughed, seeming to lose a little of the tension. “Not exactly. I’d tell you the truth, but I’d have to kill myself out of sheer humiliation. How was the gym?”
“Oh, you know,” he said. “It was the gym.” And then he sat there like a fool and perved at her, trying not to look down her top and failing utterly, and she stared across the water as if something extremely fascinating were going on in the garden.
Kuia rose from the water. “That’s enough for me. Enjoy yourselves.”
“I’ll get out, too,” Faith said, and all but levitated across the pool to scramble out.
“You were in there two minutes,” Kuia said in surprise.
“That was enough. I’m still really tired. I think I’d better go upstairs and lie down. I mean, take a nap,” Faith hurried on, wrapping herself in her dressing gown again. “I mean, I need a rest.”
She fled into the house, and his grandmother watched her go, then turned back to Will.
“I’d say,” she told him, “that you’ve got a bit of work to do there, in the girlfriend department.” And then she went inside, too, and Will was left alone again.
***
He sat down there for ten more long minutes, staying in the water until he could trust himself to get out again, then sitting on the side of the pool, keeping his feet in for warmth, giving Faith time to shower off and get dressed.
His mum came out to collect the washing. “You’ve been in there for ages,” she had to comment. “You and Faith having trouble already? She went up the stairs fast.”
“It’s a bit of an adjustment, that’s all,” he said.
“What adjustment?” She turned to face him, the washing basket still on her hip and the clothes on the line forgotten. “Having a holiday with you? If it isn’t working now, it isn’t going to work any better later, when the bloom is off the rose and you’re just another man. Drama isn’t excitement, it isn’t romance, and it isn’t true love. It’s just drama. I should know. Got five kids out of drama, out of breaking up and making up.”
Will winced inside. He hated to hear this. He’d been trying to make it better for ten years, and he never could, because it wasn’t something he could fix.
It had been a mistake not to tell the truth to his family, but he hadn’t trusted Mals and Talia not to spread the word, and to be honest, he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his mum again, either, have her look at him in that way that meant only one thing. That he was exactly like his dad.
It would have been all right if he and Faith could have kept their distance, the way he’d planned. The trouble was, Faith wasn’t a good enough actress to be able to spend a week with his family and pretend to love him.
He should have done what his agent had suggested and hired somebody to play the part of his girlfriend. When Ian had suggested Gretchen, though, it hadn’t just been her pregnancy that had had Will saying no. He’d seized on Faith from the beginning. If he were going to do it, he’d thought, he’d do it with somebody he liked. It looked like that had been a mistake, but then, this whole thing had been one giant mistake, and he just kept digging himself in deeper.
“Yeh, well,” he said, and then didn’t know how to go on. “Guess we’ll see how we go.” He stood up, collected his towel and wrapped it around his waist, then began to unclip clothes from the line. “I’ll do this.” He took the basket from her, set it on the wooden deck, and bent to kiss her cheek. “Go on in, Mum,” he said gently.
She put her arm around him, held him close for a moment, then stood straight, blinking a bit. “I’ll go finish dinner, then. Hope Faith will make it this time.”
“I hope so, too. But jet lag’s a bugger. And Mum,” he added impulsively, “no worries. She’ll be right. It’s a week’s suspension, that’s all, and then it’s all over.” She was worried, he could tell, and he understood the worry, a bit. But he hadn’t failed her yet, had he? At least not in that way. Not financially.
She opened her mouth to say something, probably that that was what his dad had always said too, and then closed it again. “Thanks,” she said instead, and walked into the house.
He folded the clothes, took them in to her, and then went upstairs. He didn’t need to worry about forgetting himself with Faith again, at least. He wasn’t feeling too cheerful just now.
He knocked softly at the bedroom door, glad nobody was around to see him do it. He hadn’t thought out the details of this thing nearly well enough.
“Come in,” he heard, and went inside. She was dressed, of course. Wearing the purple tunic and leggings, sitting on the bed, propped against the pillows with her laptop, although the lid was shut again, her hands held protectively over the cover.
“You can use the desk over there, if you like.” He indicated the built-in area under the windows. “I’m quite happy to shift myself downstairs.”
“Thanks. I will, but this is more comfortable right now.” She hid a yawn behind her hand. “Your grandmother really did kick my butt,” she confessed, and he smiled and felt better. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, and she shifted over, but not in an avoiding way, even though he was wearing nothing but a towel. In a companionable way.
“A bit harder than we thought, all this,” he said.
“Yes. It is. I’m sorry that I’m not holding up my end of things better. I’m just not…used to, I mean, I haven’t…” She stopped. “I’m not good at pretending.”
“You didn’t even have to tell me that.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “I’m good at pretending,” he confessed. “Always have been.”
“And it doesn’t feel a little…” She hesitated. “A little empty?”
“Yeh,” he said, sobered again. “It does, at times.” He shoved himself off the bed. “I’ll go take a shower, eh, get dressed.”
“Good idea. It’s easier for me to pretend when you’re dressed.”
He wasn’t sure what that meant. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. So he went in and took his shower instead.
***
He was knocking on the door again an hour later, but didn’t get an answer this time, so he opened the door a crack and peered cautiously inside.
Her hands weren’t busy over her laptop this time. They were still on the keys, but she was asleep.
“Faith,” he said softly. “Dinner.”
She didn’t respond. He went to stand beside her, reached out to touch on the shoulder, then changed his mind and lifted his hand again. Instead, he slid the computer out from under her hands, and, when she still didn’t stir, closed the lid and set it on the bedside table.
He considered her clothes, and decided to leave them. If she woke up to find him undressing her…that wasn’t going to go over well. Instead, he went to the closet, found an extra duvet, and covered her with it. She sighed, murmured, rolled over, and snuggled in, and he smiled, gave in to temptation, and bent to kiss her cheek.
“Night, baby,” he said softly, then was startled to hear himself say it. But he needed to practice, didn’t he? He needed to pretend.
Flying High
Faith woke to another much-too-early morning after another much-too-early night, and how Will managed to fly from one continent, even one hemisphere to the next and play rugby, she couldn’t imagine. She couldn’t even stay awake past six o�
�clock.
At least this time she’d slept until five-thirty, so who knew? Maybe tonight she’d manage to have dinner with Will’s family before she collapsed. As long as she didn’t go to yoga.
She’d had her phone by the bed this morning, anyway, and had been able to use the flashlight to get out of the bedroom without waking Will up. Of course, that was because she hadn’t had to get dressed. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, and he’d covered her up, obviously, which was so…so sweet. But then, he was sweet. She’d always known that.
Another nagging splinter of guilt stabbed her as she propped herself at the end of yet another leather couch—brown this time, for a little variety—in the expanse of space that was the great room of this comfortable family home. He wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing, she thought even as she was opening her laptop. He wouldn’t like it at all.
But it wasn’t up to him, and they weren’t even involved, so what did she have to feel guilty about? Besides, he wouldn’t find out, would he? Her relationship with him wasn’t real, and anyway, she had to do this.
The decision to take her story beyond Calvin’s site, to publish the episodes in serial form on all the online bookstores, had been the scariest one she’d ever made—and the best. For the first time in her life, she was loving her work, and to her astonishment, she was making more money doing it than at all her jobs combined. Her bank account was growing every month. She had to keep going, because this was her future. And anyway, she didn’t have a choice. People wanted to hear the rest of her story. They were writing to her and telling her so. And she wanted to tell it. So she opened her document and started to type.
From the moment Hope walked into the office on Thursday morning after her return from New Zealand, she sensed that something was wrong.
She was more than half an hour late, but then, Hemi’s jet had touched down in New York only two hours earlier, and traffic had been heavy. Even with Hemi’s driver dropping her a block from the office, she hadn’t been able to make it in on time.
Hemi had told her not to worry, but it was impossible not to. The tension in the Publicity department hung in the air like an invisible gray cloud. Hope had only been gone for three workdays. What could have happened? Her relationship with Hemi was still a secret, so it couldn’t be that. It couldn’t.
“Panic stations,” Nathan, the other Publicity Assistant, muttered as he passed, ostentatiously studying a pile of papers. “It’s you.”
Hope made it to her cubicle, but she had barely rid herself of her coat before Martine was gliding towards her on her stratospheric heels, the soles flashing Manolo Blahnik red, her entire sleek form radiating feminine power.
“I’d like to see you in the conference room, please,” she told Hope.
Hope grabbed her laptop case again in the hope that this might be work-related, but then, what else could it be? It couldn’t be anything else. Nobody knew. Did they?
Her heart beat out an apprehensive tattoo as she followed the elegant back of the Publicity Manager to the glass-walled room at one end of the cubicle warren. Could she have done something wrong?
“Please. Sit,” Martine said as soon as the door of the conference room closed behind them. Hope did her best to breathe, and sat.
“I’ll be frank.” Martine took a graceful seat at the head of the table. “I’m concerned about you. I hope that you aren’t letting your personal life get…away from you.”
“I know I was late today,” Hope hurried to say. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Martine waved a slim red-nailed hand. “It’s not so much the tardiness,” she said, and Hope flushed a little. That made it sound like she’d been late constantly, instead of once. “It’s more the…the special arrangements. The special requests.”
Her glance was knowing, as if she were aware of exactly what Hope had been doing in the wee hours of the night, and exactly whom she’d been doing it with. Hope had taken a shower on board the jet, had changed her clothes, and yet she could swear that Martine knew.
“I’ve had some special assignments, it’s true,” she told Martine. “Is there a problem with that?”
She trembled a little as she said it. This was exactly as awkward as she’d feared it would be, because the whole situation was irregular to say the least, and she knew it. Hemi had made sure that she’d have a full day’s work to point to for every day she’d been gone. Hope had insisted on that. She’d made sure she’d done it well, too. Her efforts might not be anything special, but they were her best.
She wished for the hundredth time that she could get another job, could come to Hemi—not as an equal, maybe, because how could she be that, in the work world?—but at least not as a subordinate. This was too hard, and it felt too wrong.
It wasn’t an option, though. Not when she so desperately needed the salary, and, even more than that, the health insurance. She had tried so hard to keep the boundaries clear, not to accept more than any girlfriend would have from Hemi. Not to let him support her in any way, because she couldn’t bear to think that she had been bought and paid for, and she couldn’t afford to get used to his lifestyle. She had to be able to stand on her own feet. There was no other choice, and she knew it. And to do that, she needed to make this job work out.
Now, Martine frowned, and Hope fought to keep her breathing under control. She could tell something bad was coming. Please, don’t let me lose my job, she prayed. Please, no.
“I’m going to give you a piece of advice,” Martine said, and Hope’s panic receded, at least for the moment. “Just because you remind me of myself, not so long ago. Be careful. I know you feel…special, right now. But you’re not.”
Hope tried to keep her face neutral, but knew she was failing utterly as Martine went on. “You think that if you follow all his…all the rules, it will last. But it won’t. None of that will matter, in the end, because you’re just one in a line that stretches a long, long way back. And one that will stretch a long way into the future, too. So…” She smiled. “Don’t quit your day job.”
She stood up, opened the door, and Hope scrambled to her feet. “But for now,” Martine said, “I suppose you’ll do what you have to do, because you don’t really have a choice, do you? You’ll go where you’re taken, and you’ll do what you’re told. You’ll take…advantage of the situation. Who could blame you?”
Her gaze swept Hope, and Hope could see her calculating the expense of the new outfit Hemi had bought her, the one that had made her feel so pretty, nearly as sleek and polished as Martine, when she’d put it on under Hemi’s approving eye this morning.
When he’d pulled her into the shop in the luxurious Sydney arcade two days earlier, it had felt like he wanted to pamper her, to spoil her. And maybe, just maybe, just for a minute, it had even felt a little bit like…love. Now, she felt as if she were wearing some kind of scarlet letter, as if one look at her shoes would tell everyone in the office what was really going on. Why she had a job at all, and why she was keeping it.
She did her best not to stumble over her heels on the way back to her cubicle, fought back the stupid tears that insisted on rising all the same, and began to go through her assignments all the same, to plan her day.
Everyone might think she was a fraud, but she didn’t have to be one. She would know the truth, even if she were the only one who did. She would keep her self-respect, even if she couldn’t keep anything else. Or anyone else.
***
This time it wasn’t Will who caught her at it. It was Talia.
“Oh. Hi,” the girl said, hovering on the stairs as if she were about to run back up them.
“Hi.” Faith closed her laptop with what she hoped wasn’t undue haste and set it on the chunky square coffee table that provided a massive centerpiece to the leather couches and chairs around it. “I sure hope you’re about to go into the kitchen for breakfast. And that you can point me to the coffee, because I’m starved and desperate, and I’m not sure what the ru
les are about what I can eat, or whether I’m supposed to wait.”
Talia smiled, and Faith realized that it was almost the first time she’d seen that expression on her face. The girl came the rest of the way down the stairs in her checked skirt, blue blouse, navy cardigan, and matching knee socks, and Faith stood up and followed her into the modern kitchen. It was stone-floored like the rest of the common spaces, and her stocking-clad feet curled a little against the cold. Maybe she needed to get into the hot tub again. Or maybe not.
“Don’t think we have coffee, actually,” Talia said. “Sorry. We have tea, of course.”
“Of course,” Faith said glumly.
“You can go out for a coffee, though.” Talia filled an electric kettle, set it on its base, and flipped the switch. “Easy as. That’s what people usually do.”
“Oh?” Faith filed that one away for book-reference. “Because back home, we make our own coffee. I mean, regular coffee. Drip coffee.”
“Drip coffee? What’s that?”
“It’s…never mind.” It was much too early in the morning to explain regular coffee, in a regular coffee machine. “Tea’s good.”
“Want eggs, too?” Talia bent to take them out of the fridge, the heavy braid that hung halfway to her hips barely moving. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Sure. What can I do to help?”
“Toast, if you like.” Talia pulled out the loaf and handed it to Faith.
“You’re up early,” Faith commented. Talia was already pouring boiling water into mugs, she saw with gratitude, because if she didn’t get some caffeine in her fast, she was going to kill somebody, and tea was better than nothing. “I don’t remember being an early riser when I was a teenager. Do you have an early class? And is that a school uniform?”
Talia laughed, which was another first, and shoved the mug across the counter at Faith. “I wouldn’t be wearing it otherwise. Not exactly a fashion statement, is it.”
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