“This.” He gestures to himself. “I sleep like this.”
“Oh.” I swallow, grasping for something to ease the dryness of my throat. “Sure. I mean. You do you.”
He hesitates, his gaze sweeping over me in a wave of heat. “Good. Which side of the bed do you like?”
“Um, I don’t mind.” Primarily because my mind has gone blank.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ll take the right.”
My heart has settled at the base of my throat, thudding rampantly as I walk toward the bed. We both climb under the covers like two strangers boarding a red-eye flight, careful not to touch the pillows between us.
It takes me a minute to get comfortable, then I go rigid, my ears trained on every single sound. I’ve never felt so self-conscious in all my life.
I remain still, like rigor mortis, staring at the ceiling and counting cracks that move in and out of view. Tiredness is dragging me under but I’m too wired and alert to sleep.
I wait for him to snore, but there’s nothing.
His chest rises and falls, slowly and steadily. His eyes are closed but I canfeelhim awake, like an electric hum in the dark.
I roll onto my side, then my back, but my body refuses to settle.
This is the first time I’ve shared a bed with a man other than Gerard in twenty-two years. Of course I’m going to be tense and nervous. And before Gerard, I’d only ever had a handful of boyfriends.
I’ve spent most of my sexually active life suffering through the missionary position with men who couldn’t identify a clitoris if it wore a sandwich board, and most of the lights shut off. A man as attractive as August must be experienced and that’s a little intimidating. It’s obvious why I can’t relax.
Allowing that thought to calm my feminine organs, I think briefly back to why I’m here. I need this money. It could change our lives. But no one can know.
If Mom knew the real job I’m doing, she’d disown me. If Paige found out, she’d spend the next few decades in therapy.
Guilt blooms in my stomach, followed immediately by something fluttery and ridiculous.
Butterflies.
I close my eyes and force my breathing to slow. Gradually, my thoughts drift, my eyelids fall, and I sink into dreams of Russian businessmen and tall, dark, mysterious bankers.
I wake to the unfamiliar weight of another presence in the bed. For a split second, panic flares through my bones, then a memory seeps back in, slow and thick, like honey.
I’m staying in a luxury lodge on a remote retreat. I’m a fake wife, in a fake marriage.
To investment banker August King.
I lie very still with my eyes closed, taking inventory. A flickering ache in my head reminds me of the white wine I drank at dinner and the nervous adrenaline that kept my senses pulsing high.
My body is warm beneath the covers and my right arm is flung over something soft. The pillows separating me from the man I’ve shared a bed with.
We’re not touching, but the hairs running from wrist to elbow are alert to his proximity. I can almost taste his musky scent and feel the subtle flex of muscle when he shifts.
My heart thumps.
I slowly open my eyes and risk a sideways glance to my right.
He’s lying on his back with one darkly inked arm flung above his head, the other thrown lightly to the side where it almost grazes mine. His lashes are black, casting long, fine shadows against his cheek. And his mouth, so firm and commanding when awake, is soft and relaxed in sleep.
He looks younger like this, but still devastatingly handsome.
I tilt my eyes to the ceiling, urging my heartbeat to slow. This is ridiculous. It’s just proximity. Nothing to get all hot and bothered by.
Beside me, he stirs, and my entire body goes rigid. I turn to see his eyes open, alert immediately, as if he never really sleeps.
