"Are you ready?" Rhys exits his walk-in closet in the midst of knotting his second tie of the day. After the ribbon-cutting, which I attended, and a press tour, which I did not, we both came back to the apartment to change for the evening activities. We did the shower sex again too. I did it on one foot because Rhys pinned me to the wall with one of my legs raised and propped over his arm. I need to talk to Payton because I feel as though that maneuver might be worthy of its own badge.
"Can you zip me?" I ask, turning my back to him. I only managed to get the zipper halfway up without assistance.
"I'd rather unzip you," he murmurs into my ear, a single finger trailing the path of the zipper against my skin. "But you already look just-fucked enough for my liking," he adds, pulling the zipper smoothly closed.
I look at us in the reflection of the mirror, a bit alarmed. I knew I was right about that. Everyone is going to be thinking about us having sex. It's inevitable. And looking at him, I can't blame them. It was the first thing I imagined upon seeing him for the first time too.
"Do I really look like I just had sex? How can you tell?" I lean closer to the mirror and examine my eyes. "Obviously I get that everyone would assume I'm having sex with you every chance that I get, but how can they tell if it was an hour ago or last night?"
Rhys pauses in the act of slipping a cufflink into his shirtsleeve and stares at me. He narrows his eyes slightly, in that way he does when he's unsure if I'm serious or not.
"Let's table that thought for now," he says, but I continue to stare at myself in the mirror, wrinkling my nose and turning my head from side to side, trying to figure out what my tell is so I can stop emitting the just-had-sex beacon.
"Don't worry about it," Rhys says after fastening the second cufflink. "I was joking. I'll tell everyone you're still a virgin."
"As if I went through this much trouble not to have sex with you," I scoff.
"What does that mean?" Rhys is doing the narrowed eyes thing again.
"Um…" Shoot. "Let's table that thought too." I slip my feet into my heels and grab my clutch. "We're going to be late."
"It's an all-night event. We can't technically be late."
Uh-huh.
"Do you like my clutch?" I hold up the bag for viewing. "I found it at Goodwill. It's cute, right? Do you want me to carry your gum or anything?" It's a black clutch with a sequined pair of swans on the front.
"I don't chew gum. Listen, I know I've been busy, but we can't continue on like this. We need to talk."
Wait, what?
"Yes, yes, we can continue on like this. For two more weeks we can continue on like this. Exactly like this."
"Exactly like this?" His jaw ticks when he says it.
"Yes!" Why in the heck is he trying to rob me of my last two weeks with him? That's half my allotted time! And I know he likes me, I know he does. And he likes me more than a like amount. He just needs to come to terms with it or something.
Rhys' phone rings and when he glances at the screen to silence it I slide past him out of the bathroom and nearly sprint for the front door.
"Lydia." He's right behind me but I keep moving. "Hold on."
I ignore him and swing the door open, nearly bumping right into Canon.
"Hey!" I plaster a huge smile on my face, which isn't hard because I am so glad for the interruption.
"I was about to knock," Canon says with a hint of sarcasm, but it appears to be directed at Rhys not me so I keep on smiling and step into the hallway.
The executive elevator doesn't connect directly to the casino floor, so we have to take it to the parking garage level and then switch to a different elevator bank to reach the guest areas. Rhys is silent. I'm silent. Canon is oblivious, checking his cell phone, until he notices the silence. He looks up, his thumb moving across the screen, and glances between us.
"Everything okay?"
"Of course," I reply.
"Is it?" Rhys says at the same time.
Canon's eyes bounce between us again and he mutters, “Okay then,” as the elevator doors open and we're thrust into a crowd of people. Canon leads the way as Rhys takes my hand and my heart skips a beat at the gesture. He keeps me held close to him but I don't know if it's because of the crowd or because of appearances or because he simply wants me close.
I hope it's because he wants me close.
The next hour is a dizzying hail of introductions and socializing. Of smiling and hand-shaking and pretending. I'm introduced to Rhys' British cousin Jennings. He's also the CEO of the parent company that owns the Windsor, so I suppose that makes him my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss. Luckily he has no memory of me whatsoever, since he was there that night I first met Rhys at the bar. He was drunk and denouncing love at the time, so I don't expect he'd remember. It appears he's sorted out his love issues because I'm introduced to his fiancée Violet. She's American, so I ask how she met Jennings when we're left on our own, Rhys and Jennings having been pulled off to greet some bigwig or another.
"Well, I was impersonating my identical twin sister. Who was employed with the company in the tour division."
"Oh."
"Jennings was on vacation with his nan and ended up on my tour. Well, my sister's tour."
"Uh huh."
"Then it became this Undercover Boss sort of thing," she says, waving her free hand around. The other is holding a wine glass. "Because he never told me he owned the company."
"Right." I wonder if this is a real story or some kind of weird initiation? She doesn't appear to be in the least drunk, so it can't be that.
"But we worked it out," she finishes with a big smile. "So how did you and Rhys meet?"
"Um, in a bar." The normal way, I think to myself. Of course the whole virgin auction thing doesn't give me a whole lot of room to be a Judgey McJudgeypants. Then something else occurs to me. "Has Rhys heard this story?" Maybe he won't think what I did was so weird in comparison. It's not like I've impersonated anyone.
"Oh, I'm sure. They're very close. Hey, are those the LK Bennett Sledge pumps?"
"Um." I look down at my feet and then back to Violet. "I think so? I got them at LK Bennett when I bought the dress. I'm not sure which style they are."
"They're Princess Kate's favorite shoe," she tells me.
"Oh. Okay."
"Sorry, I'm a bit of an Anglophile."
"I guess having a British fiancé really works for you then, huh?"
"It does. It so does. Plus I get to listen to him speak in that sexy British accent whenever I want. Sometimes I ask him questions just to hear him speak. Last week I asked him to explain the history of the European Union to me. He went on for half an hour before he realized I just wanted to listen to him use words like ‘referendum’ and ‘organization.’"
I can't fault her logic.
Jennings comes back to retrieve Violet just as Payton slips up beside me, looking over her shoulder.
"Hey!" I pull her into a quick hug. "It's good to see you. Now tell me who you're avoiding."