by Alam, Donna
‘I want to talk about this, about what you did and about what I said.’
I pause and lift my head, but I don’t look at her. This whole exercise; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. ‘Let’s not rehash things.’
‘We need to clear the air. If we’re going to spend six months together, we can’t go on like this. You need to accept you were wrong, just as I need to apologise for saying those things.’
‘I was wrong?’
‘Is that such a novel concept?’
I shrug, opening my mouth to speak when she cuts me off.
‘Don’t say it.’ She holds up a forestalling hand, her tone resolute. ‘Whatever you were about to say, just don’t. And I am sorry because neither of us buy into the things I said. This is a business arrangement, first and foremost. I need to keep sight of that. Be less emotional.’
But it’s the emotion I crave, I think but don’t say. The push and the pull, the sniping arguments. The picture I posted yesterday with my face in her hand, our kiss and our smile. Have I ever kissed a woman while feeling such overwhelming happiness, no matter how temporary?
‘Look. You shouldn’t have gone into my phone.’ She pauses, her gaze sliding to the sofa before she commits to moving to it. ‘My phone is my business. You wouldn’t like me using yours.’
I lean forward and grab it from the coffee table, pitching it to land on the sofa next to her curled, bare feet.
‘Knock yourself out.’
‘I don’t want it,’ she says, glancing at the thing as though it were contaminated. ‘But the difference here is that you’ve given me permission. I did not.’
I sigh heavily, my fingers poised on the keyboard. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t invade your privacy. Whatever you think of me, that was never my intention.’ It was a mad thought, though, for one moment during the small hours when the sun was barely a smudge on the horizon. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Though I’m sure I’ve never felt as exhausted or as sated. ‘You were lying next to me, my arm curled around your waist.’
‘No wonder you couldn’t sleep.’ Her smile is small, her attempt at humour almost a win. ‘Sounds uncomfortable. I’m told I wriggle in my sleep.’
For a reason I don’t quite understand, I’m unwilling to examine how she knows this or explain how it was, in fact, the opposite of uncomfortable. How my lack of sleep seemed to stem from contentment. I’m not a religious man, but I can see the appeal of giving over your life to a deity. Just as I could see myself spending my days worshipping at the altar of Olivia. Fucking her was a divine experience, but this isn’t necessarily what I can’t bring myself to say. It’s more that I felt content for the first time in a long while, just lying there with my arm around her and our fingers entwined.
‘Go on,’ she prompts softly, bringing me back to the moment.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ My brows lower. ‘So I stretched out and brought my phone from the nightstand. Only it wasn’t mine. I didn’t realise until the screen was already open, and I was already staring at your Instagram account.’
‘And you’d sent me our wedding photograph earlier.’
‘Yes,’ I agree. Between fucking, and touching, and drinking champagne, she’d asked me why I’d taken it.
‘Proof that it had happened.’ Yes, that’s how I’d sold it to her. ‘And if it isn’t on Insta, it didn’t really happen.’ And I needed it to have happened. Needed for this to be as public as possible and for there to have been furore back home. Gossip and speculation. Something to later spin.
‘According to your demographic, yes.’
‘My demographic? You were the one who posted all the hashtags! All that was missing was “hashtag blessed”.’ She pulls a face that I can only describe as belligerent.
‘If it helps, I also posted it to my social media accounts.’
‘You have that sort of stuff? I didn’t know you even knew what a hashtag was.’
‘Doesn’t everyone? I may be older, but I’m not dead.’ Apparently, that thought is appealing to her, so I choose to refrain from explaining how my accounts are business related and run by my assistant. ‘We hadn’t discussed how we were going to broadcast our union, and an announcement in The Times didn’t seem appropriate.’
‘None of this excuses what you did.’
‘Even if I thought I was helping? Even though your website has received thousands of hits already. Hits that will, no doubt, convert into new membership subscriptions. Not to mention the possibility of attracting media attention. E-Volve’s owner finds love with the coldest man in England?’
‘None of that even comes close to being an apology,’ she mutters, examining her fingernails now.
‘I make it a point never to apologise. We’ve talked about this.’
‘How on earth do you keep friends?’
‘I keep associates. That’s all I need.’
‘Not true. Word on the street is that you need a wife. And to use your phrase against you; happy wife, happy life. Now who’s pouting?’
‘This is not a pout,’ I answer. ‘This is a calculation.’
‘Oh, God, no. What else!’ She brings her hands to her face as she mutters something unintelligible—a profanity, no doubt—before opening her hands to ask, ‘Do I really want to know?’
‘I suppose that all depends if you want advance notice of your grandmother’s visit.’
Chapter 25
OLIVIA
‘How are you this morning?’
Yesterday had begun so well, so full of promise, but then had rapidly gone nowhere. Bad enough that Beckett saw fit to post our personal business on my Instagram account and then tell me he thought he was doing me a favour, but he’d also decided to invite my gran to spend the following day with us.
Hmph. My mistake. She’s spending the day with me because he “has business to attend to”.
‘I’ve been better,’ I eventually answer from my position on the sofa, hotel magazine in hand.
It’s not that I don’t love my gran because I absolutely do. She is the most awesome person on the planet. But what I’m not looking forward to is having to lie to her. And her calling me out on it. The woman has an uncanny knack for sniffing out the truth. She says it’s a mother’s instinct, but my own mom never noticed half as much. And getting married for money isn’t quite the same as being caught eating candy before dinnertime.
‘You’re not still pouting, are you?’ My shoulders stiffen at his tone, but I bite back my retort. ‘I already explained I arranged it because I thought you’d like to see her.’
‘How about we make a deal,’ I say, turning to him as I imagine knocking off his head. You know, just because I might decide he’d like it. ‘How about you stop doing things you think I’ll like and ask me what I’d like instead?’
‘There’s no point talking to you when you’re pouting.’
‘I’m not pouting. I’m pissed off!’ My response earns me a glower.
‘You know, Olivia, you really should try to see things on the bright side. We’ll return to London, and everyone will already know. The gossip will be over, and by the time you go into your office following the weekend, there will be barely a ripple of scandal.’
‘Shows what you know.’ Mir and Heather will have conniptions the minute I walk through the door. ‘We need to come up with a story,’ I say, swinging my legs down.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘People will ask how we met, how we fell in love. And what possessed us to get married within a few days of meeting.’
‘I should imagine people will infer because we fell in love. As for the rest, who’s going to ask?’
‘My friends!’ I jump up from the sofa, throwing the magazine down. ‘The people I work with. My gran! Don’t you understand that? She’s going to walk in here and know there’s no way I married you in a whirlwind of love! Her bullshit meter is like nothing else. She’s ninety-two, Beckett. She’s been around a long fucking time. And she’s not even a little bit se
nile.’
‘You’re worried I won’t be able to convince a senior citizen of my devotion to you?’
‘She won’t be watching you. She’ll be watching me.’
‘And you can’t pretend to be enamoured for a few hours?’
‘I don’t even like you at the best of times.’ I throw my hands up in frustration. ‘And it gets worse when you open your mouth.’
‘That’s not what you said on our wedding night,’ he replies archly. ‘And the best of times would be when? When I’m—’
‘Stop. Whatever it is you’re going to say, think very carefully before you do.’
The man should only be permitted to use his mouth to get me off.
‘Oh, I am thinking very carefully. Very, very carefully. Especially after what happened at breakfast yesterday.’
‘Nothing happened at breakfast.’
‘That’s exactly my point. Nothing happened in the afternoon or the evening, either.’
‘I told you I had jet lag,’ I offer half-heartedly, which I’m not exactly sure is true.
After Beckett left yesterday morning for whatever dark overlording he’d had on his planner, I went sightseeing. Foregoing the use of the Bentley and the driver, which apparently is one of the perks of staying in this suite. It might’ve been nice if Beckett had explained this before the butler (the butler; just crazy talk) was forced to explain how it worked. Anyway, I went walking, avoiding the usual tourist spots, and ended up in the West Village. I found a café, Merriweather’s. If you need a recommendation with the best coffee, this place was light and bright and the ambience welcoming, so I’d pulled out my laptop and did a little work. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was beat. And asleep before Beckett resurfaced from whatever he’d been up to.
So no sexy times. No extra consummation. And yes, this was also in part because of the bad mood I was in following his self-appointment to the head of my personal social media.
‘We could do something about it,’ he suggests, stepping closer. Though stepping isn’t the right description for the way he moves across the room. This morning, he’s all about the swagger. ‘Make up for lost opportunities.’
‘Nope.’ I place both hands on his chest as he reaches me. As tempting as he always is—dressed so properly for the office in navy pants today, white shirt open at the collar and rolled at the sleeves—I’m not in the mood. I’m in a mood but not the mood. ‘I’m due at the airport in an hour.’
‘A quickie?’ he suggests, all charm and persuasion and divine smelling cologne.
‘No. That time would be better used to come up with a backstory. A meet-cute scenario.’
‘A meet what?’
‘Like they have in the movies. The scenario that brings two potential lovers to cross paths. They meet, it’s cute, and it develops into a romance.’
‘So that would be what, for us?’ In an alarmingly tender gesture, he lifts my hands from his chest, bringing them to his mouth where he places a kiss against the backs of both of my hands.
‘For us? Well, I fell over your foot. That could be cute, I suppose.’
‘Not with the way you were glaring at me,’ he replies, one brow raised.
‘Shush. But that could totally work. I fell at your feet, and you just fell for me.’ The man looks seriously freaked out that I roll my eyes so hard I get a flash of the wallpaper decorating the inside of my cranium. ‘Pretend, Beckett, just for pretend.’ ‘But what else?’
‘What do you mean? Isn’t that enough?’
‘How did we come to be in New York at the same time?’
‘Does it really matter?’
‘The devil is in the details. Didn’t your uncle Satan teach you anything? We met, and I fell over your foot into abject dislike? That was the story before I got on the flight.’ Minus all the other things we’re not talking about. ‘Because as far as Miranda and Heather are concerned, I think you’re a pr— unpleasant individual. Oh, and I also told my friend Reggie what happened in the car.’
Beckett chuckles. Trust that little nugget of information to have entertained him.
‘Which reminds me,’ I add, ‘I really need to give her a call. Thanks to my social media guru.’ Snarky to the max.
‘That must’ve been an interesting conversation.’
‘Not as interesting as the next one is going to be, so let’s work on this.’ I pull my hands from his.
‘You must admit, it is a little funny.’ He surprises me when he puts his hands on my shoulders. ‘Almost farcical,’ he says with a spin as he turns me to face the other way. As he pushes my ponytail over my shoulder, I try not to shiver as a sensory memory shimmers across my skin. ‘You’re very tense,’ he says, beginning to knead my shoulders.
‘I wonder why that is?’ I’m surprised the words are whole, given they’re delivered though gritted teeth.
‘What did your friend say? Would it help with the explanation?’
‘She said you were probably kinky.’
‘Are she and I acquainted?’ I pull my elbow back and nudge him. ‘Kidding.’
‘She said maybe you like withholding the D.’
‘The—ah. Got it. Under the right circumstances,’ he replies airily, ‘it can be fun. And you were wrong, you know. Some men do enjoy the chase.’
‘What’s that—Ow!’ I turn my head to glare at him. ‘That hurt.’
‘Because you’re all knotted. You should book a massage while we’re here.’
‘Let me get this over with Gran first,’ I grumble, my shoulders relaxing almost involuntarily. ‘Oh, that’s better. Yeah, that’s good.’ Beckett’s hands work their way down my spine, my bones almost liquifying.
‘I’ve got it!’ He turns me quite abruptly again. ‘You fell, you hated me, then I chased you and tried to help you with your company. Then we met at the airport, and I was determined to win you over, so I made sure we sat together on the flight. Eight hours in close confines—you couldn’t fail to be bowled over.’
‘From abject dislike to hey, let’s get hitched?’
‘Unless you’ve got a better idea.’ Clearly, he’s done with the charm.
‘You don’t understand. She could’ve worked for the CIA.’
‘Stop being so negative, Olivia. She’s your grandmother. Just let her be happy for you.’
Even if I can get her to that point, I’ll still feel crappy because her happiness will be built on lies.
‘So your flight was good?’
‘Very nice. Smooth,’ Gran adds, tightening her cardigan. My grandmother isn’t a slave to old lady fashion. She might like her knitwear, but she’s pretty hip. How many ninety-two-year-olds have Instagram accounts? It’s for the local chapter of her horticultural society, but still. Her red hair has long since turned white, and she wears it in a classic short bob. She’s not so steady on the old pins, as she likes to say, so she’s recently given up heels for flats. Today’s pair are cherry red. She wears a pair of silver-grey pants and a scarf to compliment her startling blue eyes because, as she also says, a scarf will hide a multitude of sins.
‘The tea was awful,’ she says, reaching out to pat my hand, ‘but they served a nice butty.’ A sandwich, for those unfamiliar with the Yorkshire dialect, which clings stubbornly, interspersed with a more American flair.
‘Yeah, it’s going great.’ Or at least it will do now.
‘Lots of people lining up to sign up for this app thingy, then?’
‘Our numbers are growing steadily.’
‘Lots of people falling in love?’
‘That’s the plan. Or part of it, at least.’
‘Is that where you found your fella, is it?’
‘No. Not online. We met through work.’ Conversation between us isn’t usually so stilted. So circuitous. Blunt in the extreme is more my gran’s style.
‘It’s a nice car, is this.’ Her gaze roams the buttery leather interior before she adjusts her purse on her lap, leading up to her interrogation, I realise. ‘Have you told
your mother yet?’
‘I called and left a message. It’ll probably take her a week to realise I left one.’
‘Maybe you should just bark at her. Aye, like Lassie. Little Livvie is up the duff.’
My heart sinks. ‘It’s not . . . I’m not—’
‘You’re not in the family way, love?’ Her tone is soft, her eyes almost penetrating. ‘Because that would be okay.’
‘I promise.’ I shake my head, which feels like the opposite thing I should be doing.
‘ ’Cause you don’t have to get married for that these days.’ I look down at her hand over mine, spotted and papery with time. ‘You don’t ever have to be beholden to a man. You’ve got a bit of cash in the bank and more coming to you when I shuffle off this mortal coil—’
‘Gran, please. Don’t say that.’
‘I’m not immortal.’ She says this like she doesn’t mean it. Like “come on, death. I dare you to have a go”. And the sensible money would be on her.
‘Your mum would be okay with that, too. Even if she couldn’t say it.’ My mom is someone very special but not great with people.
‘Okay, so this is a whirlwind romance, is it?’ Sceptical. That tone was sceptical. ‘Are you going to tell me where you met this rich bugger, then?’
‘I thought we’d wait until we get to the hotel. Beckett booked us an early afternoon tea.’
She sniffs, unimpressed. ‘I hope he’s not ugly.’
‘What? Gran, why would you say that?’
‘Well, he seems to have gone to a lot of trouble and expense. I just wonder if he’s overcompensating for summat.’
‘He’s not overcompensating for anything. Promise. I’m sure you’ll love him.’ If only he gets strep throat or some other illness that will prevent him from talking.
We’d agreed that he’d join us for an early dinner. That it might be best if we spent as little time together as possible, at least while she’s here. Bad enough that I have to lie to her at all without the added pressure of needing to curb my reactions to Beckett.
‘What’s his name again?’
‘Beckett,’ I say for the fourth time. She’s not dotty. Just playing the old lady game today. Hell, if I get to ninety-two, I’ll play it, too.
