Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Thank goodness Mimi hasn’t noticed that yet.
I’ve done my best to keep her away from video games until she’s older. I’ve read too many articles about how bad screen time is for a kid’s brain development. But even if she spies the console, the pool is going to keep her entertained without screens for a long time to come.
The pool and the view…
Mimi loves a view as much as I do. Most kids don’t notice things like that, but my girl is an artist.
I glance toward the city skyline, glittering beneath a nearly full moon, to see Grammercy still out on the terrace. He’s closing the pool cover with the remote control he showed Mimi, the one that’s connected to an app on his phone, so he can close the cover from thousands of miles away or drop a pellet into the water while he’s at work if the chlorine levels drop too low.
He has a private pool that he maintains with cutting-edge technology.
I have a phone so old the company keeps sending warnings that it will soon be “incompatible with future updates,” and tonight is the first time I’ll be sleeping in a private room in three years.
I’m not just a fish out of water; I’m a fish riding a bicycle.
Backwards.
While learning to speak a foreign language.
The thought makes me pause a few feet from the sliding door, suddenly very aware that I’m wearing paint-splattered jeans and a faded Turkey Trot Fun Run T-shirt.
Not exactly penthouse chic.
I already know Grammercy well enough to know that he won’t care, but I care. This may be my fake wedding night, but I still married this man today.
Kissed this man today…
And tonight, I would like for him to think I’m beautiful, even if we are just new friends hanging out before heading to our separate beds.
But before I can make a detour to my overnight bag to hunt down a brush and some lip gloss, Grammercy glances up, his expression brightening as he spots me on the other side of the glass doors. The genuine pleasure in his gaze instantly makes me feel like something special, even in grungy moving clothes.
This man…
What am I going to do about him?
And those eyes? And that smile?
And the way just being in the same room with him makes me ache for things I haven’t ached for in way too long?
“Hey,” he says, as I step through the doors into the warmer air outside. As they glide automatically closed behind me, sealing in the air conditioning, he asks, “Is Mimi already asleep? She swam hard.”
“Yeah, she went down fast.” I laugh. “After telling me a bedtime story about Princess Nutria and her alligator buddy defeating a terrible rat king with beady red eyes. I have a feeling rats are going to be the bad guys in her stories for a while.”
“Same.” He shakes his head. “I knew I shouldn’t look at the wall while I was grabbing her stuffed animals. But I did, El. I looked. And man…”
He shudders, an over-the-top, full-body twitch that makes me laugh as I say, “No! Why did you do that? Now you’re never going to get it out of your head. You’ll be seeing squirming bodies and slithery pink tails in your nightmares for the rest of your life.”
He arches a challenging brow. “Says the woman who looked.”
I shrug, still grinning as I say, “Well, yeah. I couldn’t help it. I had to see if it was as bad as the woman who ran screaming out of the room said it was. And…it was. It really was.”
“It so was,” he says in a haunted voice that for some reason has us both laughing again.
“Well, at least we’re at the laughing about it stage,” I say, once we’ve both caught our breath. “And on the upside, you’ll never forget your fake wedding night.”
“I was never going to forget it anyway,” he says, the sudden seriousness in his voice making my lips tingle.
Must stop thinking about that kiss.
For real.
Now.
“But you’re right. It’s been a memorable day all around.” He sets the remote down on the bar to the right of the small pool and circles behind it. “Want another beer? I think a courthouse wedding, packing with a side of rats, and sweet-talking a little girl out of the pool an hour before she wanted to get out of the water is grounds for two Monday night beers, yeah?”
“Yes, please, you’re an angel,” I say, sagging onto one of the wide lounge chairs with a view of the city.
“Just returning the favor, chère.” He appears beside me with two bottles of Abita, the same kind I offered him earlier, condensation already beading on the glass. “Thankfully, we both have great taste in beer.”
I smile as I accept the bottle. “We do. I like a solid, ordinary beer. The expensive stuff tastes like grass to me.”