THE FIRST NIGHT
662 Words
I didn’t sleep.
The bed was too big, the sheets too smooth, the room too quiet. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the grandfather’s face. Heard _the girl_. Felt Damien’s hand on my back, warm and possessive and completely fake.
At 2:17 AM, I gave up and went to the kitchen for water.
The penthouse was dark except for the city lights coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I padded barefoot across the marble, my feet cold, and froze when I saw him.
Damien was at the counter, shirt off, drinking whiskey from the bottle.
He didn’t turn around. "Can’t sleep?"
I should have gone back to my room. Rule 1: No touching without permission. Rule 2: No questions about my past. There was no rule about seeing him half-naked at 2 AM, but it felt like there should be.
"Your kitchen is big," I said, stupidly.
He huffed a laugh, short. "It’s the house’s kitchen. Not mine."
I walked in anyway, filled a glass from the tap. My hands were shaking a little, so water sloshed over the side.
"You're nervous," he said. Still not looking at me.
"I'm in a stranger’s house, wearing his wife’s clothes, pretending to be his wife. Yeah, I’m nervous."
He finally turned. The light from the window cut across his chest, his stomach. He had more scars than I expected. One on his ribs, long and jagged. One on his shoulder, round, like a burn.
I looked away fast.
"You can look," he said. "It’s not forbidden."
"I don’t want to."
"Liar."
I gripped the glass. "Why did you really pick me, Damien? Don’t say the PR thing. You could have hired an actress. Someone who knows how to do this."
He set the bottle down. "Actresses want something. Fame. Money. More money. You only want your mother to live. That makes you predictable."
The word stung. Predictable. Like I was a math problem.
"And you like predictable," I said.
"I need it."
He moved then, just two steps, and suddenly he was close enough that I could smell the whiskey and something else, cedar maybe, his cologne. He didn’t touch me. He just stood there, looking down at me.
"Rule 1," I said, voice thin. "No touching without permission."
"I'm not touching you."
"You’re too close."
"Am I?" He tilted his head. "Tell me to move."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Because part of me — the stupid, tired, lonely part — didn’t want him to move.
"That’s what I thought," he said, soft.
He reached past me for a glass. His arm brushed mine. Bare skin on bare skin. It was only a second, but I felt it everywhere.
I stepped back, hard, and hit the counter. "Don’t."
He stopped. His face went blank, the way it did at the gala when his grandfather spoke.
"Don’t what, Maya?"
"Don’t play with me."
"I'm not playing." He poured himself water now, not whiskey. "You think this is easy for me? Having a stranger in my house? Having to touch you in public and pretend it means something?"
"Then don’t touch me."
"I have to." He drank, set the glass down hard. "Tomorrow there’s a breakfast. My board members. Their wives. You’ll sit next to me. You’ll laugh at my jokes. You’ll put your hand on my arm when I talk. And you won’t flinch."
My stomach dropped. "I don’t know how to do that."
"You’ll learn."
He walked past me, close enough that his shoulder almost touched mine. At the doorway, he stopped.
"Lock your door tonight," he said, not turning around. "Not because of me. The staff comes in early."
Then he was gone.
I stood in the dark kitchen, my glass of water untouched, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I locked my door.
Not because of the staff.
Because when he’d stood close to me, I hadn’t told him to move.
And I was scared of what that meant.
- Writer
