Speaking of, her assistant walked through the door, looking between Grace and Simon with a wicked grin on his face. “How are the lovebirds doing?”
Grace looked around for something to throw at him, but there was nothing within reach. She debated crumpling up a piece of paper, but decided against it. “Laugh all you want. You’re the one who got kicked off the beach.”
He smirked at her as he set his work bag across from where she was set up, his back to the windows. “Please. My new place has a pool, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say there was a hockey convention in town. The guys at this place are built.”
She snorted. “It’s not hockey season.”
“It’s somethin’ season,” he said with a wink.
Grace pushed her stuff toward the middle of the table and moved closer to Simon. “You can’t sit there. The light is going to block out everything on your monitor.”
He eyed the small amount of space available. “Are you sure there’s room?”
“If there’s not, I’m sure Simon can find somewhere else to work.” She gave Simon a pointed glance.
He narrowed his eyes. “I thought we were getting along.”
“We are,” she agreed with a smile. “But there’s only room for two of us here, so…”
He snapped his laptop shut. “Fine.”
Grace’s eyes widened at the sudden action. Was he upset?
“But we need to talk tonight.” He stood.
She blinked a few times. She’d already told him what she knew about Mark. What more was there to talk about? “Why?”
“In public. We should be seen together,” he said as he finished collecting his things.
“Oh.” She’d already forgotten that they were supposed to be an item. Probably one of the reasons she was so bad at real relationships. Once work popped up, nothing else seemed to exist. “Yeah. Sure.”
“There’s a cute little bar next to where I’m staying that the concierge recommended. We can all go out together.” Andre gave Grace a worried glance.
Great. If Andre thought they needed a babysitter, what chance did they have of convincing the entire Hamptons that they were a happy couple? They should’ve left it with the video and public announcement that they were together. She hadn’t seen a reporter in over a day. The whole blitz was dying down, and now they were pushing their luck.
But she made a deal. She’d promised she’d help Simon bring down Mark, and if that happened to make this work weekend a bit more complicated, it was worth it.
“That sounds good.” She tried to be a bit nicer to make up for her snippy attitude.
He nodded. “I’m going out for a walk. Want me to take Princess?”
Her jaw dropped. Was he serious? No, it was all for the act. Of course it would look good to have him walking her dog. It was a normal couple thing and they were a normal couple.
“She’d, um, she’d love it,” he stuttered as she pushed away from the table. “I’ll grab her leash for you.”
Simon reached for the leash lying on the coffee table at the same time Grace did; their fingers just brushed. She jerked away as though she’d been shocked.
“You didn’t have to get up,” he said with a grin. “I was right here.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she breathed. Princess must’ve heard the leash, because she barreled out of Grace’s bedroom and skidded into Simon’s legs. “Um, her pulling days are behind her, but if she sees a squirrel, she still might tug.”
“Don’t worry about anything.” Simon hooked the dog up and headed toward the door. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
He was gone before she could even squeak out a goodbye.
“What the hell was that?”
Grace ran to the window to watch Simon walk with Princess keeping perfect pace with him. “What was what?”
“I thought the thing between you two was fake?” He came up behind her to spy on Simon as well.
As far as she knew, Andre was the one person who knew she and Simon weren’t actually together, and he was in love with the intrigue of it all. The last thing she needed was Andre working his hardest to get her and Simon together.
Somehow he couldn’t get it through his head that Grace didn’t want a boyfriend. What did she need one for anyway? She had a good job that took up almost all her free time and a dog to cuddle with and who didn’t talk back. Sure a little sex here and there would be nice, but they made battery-operated boyfriends for that. No man necessary.
She made a mental note to go out and buy that particular type of boyfriend. It had been much too long for her, and if she was going to be spending so much time with Simon, she’d need relief.
She was a rational, logical woman. She was attracted to his body, not his mind, and it only made sense that she’d want to take the edge off. “It is fake,” she said with determination as she turned away from the window. “Simon’s just…annoying.” She went back to her work space, moving everything over once again to make room for Andre.
Andre sat down and pulled his stuff closer. “Annoying and hot are different than plain annoying. A guy like that can be as annoying as he wants.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You’d better not poop,” Simon said to Princess.
She looked over her shoulder at him; the tongue hanging out of her mouth added a note of absurdity to her appearance. He got the distinct impression she was laughing at him.
“You heard me. I’m not picking up your shit.”
Apparently unfazed, she turned back to sniff after all the beachy smells. He narrowed his eyes, but decided to leave the dog alone. He’d wanted to get a good look at the neighborhood, and a grown man walking alone tended to raise eyebrows. However, a grown man walking a dog fit right in.
The Cliffs’ beach mansion was at the end of an alcove and was completely surrounded by ocean, which put them on a dead end street. As he moved farther and farther from their little paradise, the houses, though still lavish, were closer together. The ocean sent a cool breeze down the street and made the humid, summer air much more bearable.
Grace seemed happy to get him out of the house. That might be an issue. He’d written off her approval on the drive up, but if people were going to believe they were together, he needed her to look at him with something other than annoyance once in a while. Maybe he could sway her opinion a bit when they went out with Andre. He’d never really spent casual time with her. She barely spoke to him on the car ride up, and he hadn’t had a chance to speak to her during the week unless it was strictly work related.
But what the hell did he know about getting someone to like him? The women he spent time with usually asked him to pay more attention to them or spend more time in the relationship and less on work. And that was when he asked them to leave.
He made enough that he could take plenty of time off during the year, but he rarely did. What was the point? Half the reason he was so good at his job was because he loved it. Lived and breathed financials. What most people saw as boring, he saw as a puzzle just waiting to be cracked and solved.
And he’d yet to find a woman who could hold his attention that long.