“Listen, I’ll call you back,” I tell him.
“And in the meantime?” he asks.
“Just… Don’t worry about it yet. I’ll figure it out.”
I end the call and accept the other.
“Yeah?” I sink back into my chair, because I’m suddenly finding myself exhausted. And it’s only eight in the morning.
“Well, hello to you too,husband,” she mutters into the phone.
“What do you need?”
“That’s it?” she presses. “No, how are you? Are you okay? I miss you too?”
“I am at work,” I tell her, enunciating every word. “And you know I don’t like being interrupted at work.”
“Fine then,” she snips. “I wanted to ask if you have any burgundy shirts you can wear to the party.”
“What party?”
“The Beamont?” she asks, clearly annoyed. That’s makes two of us, because I don’t have a clue what she’s fucking talking about.
“Jesus, Ransome. Do I know your schedule better than you? There’s a party at the Beaumont hotel tonight. With Silverstreak or whatever they’re called.”
“Silverline,” I correct her as I pinch the bridge of my nose. She’s right. There is a party tonight with a manufacturing company that provides materials for the drill bits our sites use.
“Whatever,” she says. “All I know is that I am wearing a silver sequined dress. It’ll look good considering we are having dinner with men who sell diamonds.”
My eyes nearly roll to the back of my head. “They don’t sell diamonds,” I correct her. Meanwhile the headache forming behind my eyes is on the verge of raging.
“But they’re a diamond company,” she says.
“Diamond is used for drill bit cutters,” I start in, and then realize the futility of this conversation. “I’m not wearing burgundy. I’ll have my black suit pressed.”
“It will look dull,” she snaps. “Do you really want to look flat in front of men who sell diamonds?”
I ball my fist and then bite my tongue, hard enough that my mouth tangs with the taste of copper. “They don’t… forget it. Did you really call me to ask about what I’m wearing to a business party?”
“Actually, I called to make sure that this party doesn’t go like the last one,” she says.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“I know this one is just a requirement of your day job and nothing I actually care about. But there will be a lot of important people there. Which means a lot of eyes on us. Which means I’m going to need you to act like we are actually married.”
“What difference does it make?” I ask. “We’re going together. You’ll be within an arm’s length of me at all times. We kiss, I put arm around you. I know the drill, Jenica.”
“The drill,” she clicks her tongue. “So romantic.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” I snap. “You act like you don’t know why we got married.”
“And you act like we aren’t married at all!” she shouts.
I’m about to throw my phone at the wall, but I know that’ll only piss her off more. And right now, I can’t deal with that. “We’ll take a couple photos together,” I say through my teeth. “Would that make you happy? Keep your image intact?”
“What would make me happy,” she starts in, “is if there were no distractions at this dinner.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask. I don’t like where this is going. Hell, I don’t like where it started.
